Why am I NOT interested in GTA VI?

How did I go from eagerly awaiting a new GTA to viewing its release with much more indifference?

I’m probably about to say something that will make people turn up their noses: I’m not particularly interested in GTA 6.

What so many players consider the greatest gaming event in history—the title destined to rewrite the rules of the industry and set new standards for the entire field… yet, while millions of people eagerly await getting their hands on the new Rockstar Games installment, I find myself viewing all this excitement from a completely different perspective.

And the crazy thing is that I’ve never been a detractor of the series—quite the opposite… one of my first great gaming loves was actually GTA: San Andreas on the PlayStation 2, and I later spent several years playing GTA 5, a game that stayed with me for a long time and which, at the time, offered me an impressive, unprecedented level of freedom and entertainment.

So no, I’m not speaking as someone who has never understood GTA or who has never appreciated what Rockstar has managed to build.

The problem—if we want to call it that—is that in the meantime, I’ve grown up, and above all, I’ve played so many other masterpieces that have led me to reevaluate the game in a negative light.

Is GTA really that special?

Let’s start with a premise: I consider GTA 5 to be an excellent piece of entertainment. I have no intention of denying its merits or downplaying the work of Rockstar Games.

The care with which its worlds are crafted, the sheer number of activities available, and the ability to create experiences accessible to a massive audience—ones that set a new standard for the industry with every generation—are undeniable qualities.

What puzzles me, however, is the way in which a portion of the audience seems to view GTA as the pinnacle of what video games can achieve.

It almost seems as though, for many players, the entire industry boils down to three names: GTA, Call of Duty, and FIFA. These are titles they buy every year, play for hundreds of hours, and which end up representing nearly their entire gaming experience.

And let me be clear: there’s nothing wrong with enjoying these games; everyone is free to play whatever they prefer, and there’s no obligation to play through dozens of masterpieces just to call yourself a fan.

But when I hear people talk about GTA 6 as if it were automatically destined to be the best video game ever made, I can’t help but wonder: how can anyone reach such a conclusion before even playing it?

There are video games that have revolutionized the way stories are told, others that have redefined the concept of exploration, and still others that have built worlds capable of remaining etched in our memories for decades.

I’m thinking of Kingdom Hearts, Skyrim—experiences that, for completely different reasons, have left me with something that goes far beyond the hours spent in front of the screen.

And this is precisely why I find myself at a distance from the collective enthusiasm for GTA 6:

A technical revolution isn’t necessarily a gaming revolution

There is, however, one thing I have no trouble acknowledging: GTA 6 will likely be an impressive technical showcase.

Rockstar has undertaken one of the most ambitious projects in the entire industry, backed by the resources of Take-Two Interactive, which has provided it with a virtually unlimited budget; It’s reasonable to expect an extremely detailed world, sophisticated animations, a strong focus on simulation, and a level of interactivity that could influence future productions.

I’m genuinely curious to see how far they’ll push the technical boundaries—to see the graphics, the characters’ behavior, the density of the world, and just how much freedom the player will actually be granted.

But will all of this be enough to make it a masterpiece?

My fear is that we’ll end up once again confusing technological power with the quality of the experience. A game can be visually stunning and offer a massive world without necessarily telling a memorable story, featuring deep mechanics, or leaving the player with anything meaningful once the credits roll.

I’m not saying that GTA 6 will be like that—I don’t know—and it would be absurd to judge a game before trying it.

What I am saying is that, as far as I’m concerned, graphics alone are no longer enough to make me go crazy over a video game.

And perhaps that is precisely the biggest change in the way I experience this passion.

The Price of Progress

There’s another aspect that concerns me, and it pertains to the industry as a whole.

Increasingly ambitious productions require enormous budgets, thousands of people involved, and years of development.

When a project reaches the scale of GTA 6, it’s inevitable that commercial expectations will become just as massive.

And if a game costs so much to make, how risky does it become for a company to try something different?

It’s a question I find myself asking more and more often, because, as we wait for productions capable of breaking every record, we risk getting used to ever-longer development times and an industry that can afford fewer and fewer experiments.

Just look at some of the major franchises I’m fond of. Kingdom Hearts III came out in 2019, and Kingdom Hearts IV is still on the horizon; The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released in 2011, and to date we only have confirmation that the sixth installment is in development but no other information; even GTA has kept us waiting 13 years since way back in 2013.

Of course, there are many reasons for this, and it wouldn’t be fair to attribute it all solely to budgets, but the overall trend is clear: the biggest video games are becoming increasingly complex, expensive, and difficult to produce.

In an industry that has already seen budgets—and consequently production times—grow exponentially over the past several years, I dare not imagine how much worse things might get once GTA VI arrives.

I’d like to continue seeing ambitious productions, of course, but also new ideas, risky projects, and games that manage to surprise me without requiring colossal budgets.

Because I don’t want the future of video games to become a race where every new installment has to be bigger, more expensive, and technically more impressive than the one before it.

The PC Issue

Finally, there’s a much more personal reason why I don’t plan to rush out and buy GTA 6 at launch.

This year, I built myself a high-end PC with an RTX 5080, precisely because I want to enjoy video games under the best possible conditions without compromising.

It makes little sense to me to buy GTA 6 on PS5 right away, play it at 40 FPS (if I’m lucky), and know that I’ll probably have to buy it again on PC in a year to get the most out of the hardware I have.

So should I buy it at launch on console and then buy it again later on PC?

I already did that with GTA 5, more than ten years ago, and I have no intention of repeating the same experience. I’d rather wait, see how the PC version performs, and (maybe) buy the game just once, when I can enjoy it the way I want to.

I don’t need to be there on day one; I don’t have to join the collective conversation from the very first minute; and I don’t feel the need to prove my enthusiasm by buying the product immediately.

If GTA 6 turns out to be truly extraordinary, it’ll still be there waiting for me.

In conclusion

The truth is, I don’t have any negative feelings toward GTA 6. I’m curious to see what Rockstar will pull off, and I’d be happy to be proven wrong—perhaps by discovering an experience capable of surprising me in a way that few other games have managed to do.

I just don’t feel that urge to play it right away that seems to have swept up most of the public.

Maybe it’s because, as I’ve grown up, I’ve started looking for something different in video games—no longer just massive worlds or never-before-seen technical feats, but experiences that draw me in, characters I can grow attached to, atmospheres I can lose myself in, and stories that stay with me even after I’ve turned off my PC.

And I don’t think that GTA 6—solely based on its name and the resources invested in its development—has already proven it can offer all of this.

This isn’t meant to be a verdict on the game—which I obviously haven’t played yet—but rather a reflection on the anticipation surrounding it and the way we judge what’s yet to come.

Because, in the end, the most anticipated video game in history isn’t necessarily the best video game in history.

And I’d rather wait to find out if GTA 6 will truly surprise me than convince myself in advance that it will be a masterpiece.

If it turns out that way, I’ll be the first to be happy about it, but until then, I don’t feel the need to jump on the bandwagon of mass enthusiasm.