Rockstar Games might be happy to put their efforts towards GTA 6 at the expense of other potential projects if recent discourse is to be believed on social media. Rockstar has every intention of continuing the strides that they’ve made with Grand Theft Auto, particularly GTA 5 which has made a billion in sales revenue. The question is how to continue such success and to keep the single-player portion of their player base entertained. The online components of GTA 5 are still being kept up to date with content expansions and are not of concern due to its still active communities.
The Remastered GTA Trilogy was one step that Rockstar took at broadening the influence of its GTA IP, which despite still receiving patches in recent months, was critically and publically panned by reviewers and players alike. The list of critiques included its multitude of bugs, misguided character designs, and leading to the original titles being taken off digital storefronts temporarily. It was considered a misstep on Rockstar’s part, who apologized for their blunder.
As per a reliable source with clear accuracy on Rockstar plans, remasters of GTA IV & RDR1 were on the table a few years ago, but Rockstar chose not to proceed with the projects in mind.
The poor reception of the Trilogy DE might be a reason behind that decision.#GTAIV #RDR1
— Tez2 (@TezFunz2) July 4, 2022
It soon led to reconsideration regarding the remaster of other titles under the Rockstar name, such as GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption. This ramification then carried over to contemporary titles, the game being Red Dead Redemption 2. In a recent article published by VGC, the tenured insider Tez2 has affirmed that RDR2 update ports for the Playstation 5 and Xbox X|S were shelved in favor of conglomerating efforts towards GTA 6 instead.
The insider Tez2 alleged that the resources and personnel put towards ports and remasters are no longer considered to be worth the effort due to the “poor reception” that the Remastered GTA Trilogy received. This is understandable from a business standpoint as the company most likely did not recuperate their investment on the project, and is thus hesitant towards doing something of a similar nature with their older titles just to run the risk of wasting money.
And so Rockstar is left trying to recreate the success it found whenever it launched a new mainline game for its famous IPs, like in the case of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2, by moving the bulk of its personnel and finance towards creating GTA 6.
It’s hard to say that this is what the players wanted from Rockstar when they criticized GTA Trilogy DE, as players very much have an interest in older titles being remade from the grounds up and ported to modern consoles. It is the troublesome quality of the GTA trilogy remakes that led to the ire of the GTA community, not the act of remaking those games itself.
Rockstar may be able to avoid having to deal with the cynics that have panned their efforts on social media platforms by taking this current course of action, but they are also putting away the business opportunities behind porting or remaking old games. At the expense of players that took no part in critiquing them and neglecting communities belonging to their other IPs that aren’t Grand Theft Auto.
Grand Theft Auto VIÂ is currently in development.
