For Rockstar Games,Grand Theft Auto 5andRed Dead Redemption 2were a huge success. Both games very quickly became some of the best-selling video games of all time. The high fromGrand Theft Auto 5alone helped bolster the expensive and highly detailedRed Dead Redemption 2, which eventually paid for itself anyway in sales. However, neither game bothered to expand the singleplayer experience with any additional content, somethingGrand Theft Auto 6could be well-positioned to do instead.
Singleplayer DLC was often requested by hardcore fans onGrand Theft Auto 5, and was also highly rumored thanks to data miners finding evidence of a supposedly canceled expansion. The explosion in popularity betweenGrand Theft Auto Online, and to some extentRed Dead Online, likely ended any plans for singleplayer content in favor of expanding the multiplayer experience. While that’s certainly not a bad thing considering how massively popularOnlinewas,Grand Theft Auto 6doesn’t need to forgo singleplayer content this time around.
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It’s understandable thatGrand Theft Auto OnlineandRed Dead Onlinehave become the main focuses for expansions.Grand Theft Auto 5may have been one of the best-selling games of all time, but the microtransactions fromGrand Theft Auto Onlinecertainly raked in an even more enormous profit for Rockstar Games. Luckily,fans ofGTA Onlinewere living like literal kings in five-star penthouses thanks to extended development support post-launch, which essentially morphedGrand Theft Auto Onlineinto a strangely addicting MMO-like experience. The same deal goes for the slightly less popularRed Dead Online.
However, even after all of the free expansions to both experiences and the huge amount of fan and developer support, there was still a yearning from fans for singleplayer DLC. Rockstar Games has commented a few times in an official capacity about the lack of singleplayer content, mostlypointing to both the development ofRed Dead Redemption 2and more soGrand Theft Auto Online. Rockstar Games' director of design Imran Sarwar had mentioned in an interview that they loved singleplayer content “more than anything,” but scrapped the idea becauseOnline’s development “sucked up a lot of resources,” it never came to be.
Rockstar’s New Development Approach Has Potential
However,Grand Theft Auto 6could be in a much better position to implement post-launch singleplayer content this time around. For one thing, unfortunate circumstances due to developer crunch did force Rockstar Games to make some organizational changes, but they may have been for the best in the end. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier (reporting at the time for Kotaku),Grand Theft Auto 6is planned to release “moderately sized"to help mitigate Rockstar Games problem with developer crunch. However, it is possible that the game’s map, multiplayer, and most importantly singleplayer content could be expanded progressively over time.
It’d be a unique approach to a game likeGrand Theft Auto, which traditionally has a relatively moderate-length story mode and gigantic map shipping with the game at launch. However, this new approach could actually be beneficial on both the singleplayer and multiplayer front. Theoretically, players would stick with the game longer if there’s a promise for further updates on both the singleplayer and multiplayer modes. Taking almostlike an episodicLife is Strangeapproachto updates could be an interesting and enticing way for singleplayer fans to keep playingGrand Theft Auto 6long after the game’s shipped.
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Progressive Story Content Isn’t Likely, But It’s Possible
It is worth noting that this new development approach by Rockstar Gamesmay not necessarily equate to progressive story content inGrand Theft Auto 6. As mentioned previously,Grand Theft Auto(and Rockstar Games in general) have never really had any experience or desire to tell episodic stories like this before, at least not on this scale. Previous singleplayer expansions forGrand Theft Auto 4orRed Dead Redemptionwere all self-contained stories with very few connections to previous plot points. It’d be an interesting take, but considering the way Rockstar Games designs and writes its games, episodic story content doesn’t seem likely.
If anything,Red Dead Redemption 2is a pure example of their aversion to episodic content. Arthur’s journey throughoutRed Dead Redemption 2, and even John’s epilogue, were all isolated stories with a cohesive progression. There wasn’t much left up to interpretation or very many cliffhangers, even though there aresome characters that could have their own spin-off games. Overall, Rockstar Games could potentially dip into progressive story content that evolves and changes over time. The company has never showed a desire to do so previously, but it would be a unique take that’s never been seen in a Rockstar game before.
Grand Theft Auto 6is reportedly in development.
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