It's impossible to overstate how popular Grand Theft Auto has become. We are at the point where GTA 6 it almost feels like a castle the most important video game ever releasedand woe to any open world developer who hopes to dethrone it. Chris Stockman, design director of the original Saints Row, knows a thing or two about trying to compete with GTA. His advice? Don't do this.
As Stockman says FRVRAny open-world game trying to step into the same space as GTA “has to get its identity back, it has to have its own twist, but you can't say, 'I'm going for GTA.' You can't. Not anymore. This is impossible”. GTA Online has turned the series into more of a “lifestyle” than a video game, and according to Stockman, the only hope for GTA 6 to succeed is a disaster of unprecedented proportions.
“This will be the biggest game of probably all time, and I'll just say it,” Stockman continues. “The only way for someone to really give them an opportunity to make money is to make a huge mistake. If this comes out and it's terrible, God forbid the industry, oh God, right? It's Alien again, but worse because of the budgets. It will be a complete disaster. I don’t expect it to happen, but if it does, oh my Lord.”
GTA 6 is launching under vastly different circumstances, but its fate remains tied to that of the industry as a whole, with analysts calling it delayed, meaning delayed until May 2026 rather than May 2026. new delay until November 2026 – step in “Nightmare Scenario Territory” in Video Game Industry Forecast for This Year.
Stockman continues: “You don't go crazy, you have to be very focused, you don't look at GTA as the North Star and say, 'I want to be that.' You have a clear identity and that's what you're trying to do. And you don’t have to be a 100-hour masterpiece, you just have to be smart about it.”
