GTA 6 has the Starfield curse and will drown in great expectations

After what feels like a lifetime of waiting, GTA 6 is finally on the horizon, but no matter how good the game is, it won’t meet expectations.

Ahead of its 25th anniversary, Rockstar Games announced GTA 6’s first trailer is dropping in early December—over a decade after GTA 5’s launch.

Excitement levels for the next game in the Grand Theft Auto series have always been astronomical, but with a first real look at GTA 6 coming, those levels will fly off the charts. Unfortunately, that will only result in higher levels of disappointment when the game eventually releases.

That’s something that Starfield knows all too well, as it was also a highly-anticipated release that underwent an extensive development period, and despite all the successes Bethesda has enjoyed, it didn’t quite live up to the hype—nor was it ever going to.

Impossible dreams GTA 5‘s success has raised expectations. Image via Rockstar Games

The hype for GTA 6 is understandable. I was a fresh-faced, first-year university student when GTA 5 was released, and now, over a decade later, I’m a parent, homeowner, and husband rapidly approaching my third decade on this planet.

The fact that GTA 5 has gone through three separate releases on three eras of console is staggering, and many of the players who have enjoyed the title in recent years will have only just come out of diapers when it first released.

Those of us there from the beginning of GTA 5 will remember just how painful the early days of GTA Online were. I must have completed that first introductory race mission with Lamar 10 times, as progress didn’t save properly, and there were constant crashes.

Of course, 10 years ago, things were different. GTA was, first and foremost, a single-player game, with a gripping storyline to enjoy and plenty to explore. While online play had featured previously, it was nowhere near the levels it is at now.

Whether GTA Online continues to exist as its own entity or gets a reset remains to be seen. There are arguments for both ways, though it does feel unlikely that GTA 6 will erase everything players have achieved online in GTA 5.

Perhaps we’ll be able to port our characters over to the new map, starting to build a criminal empire again, but with the option to return to Los Santos and continue where we left off. All this is merely speculation, though, and we have no idea what Rockstar has up its sleeves.

If GTA Online does have a sort of re-release for GTA 6, then we can likely expect a resurgence of the server issues that plagued the online mode in the early days.

Starfield’s lessons Starfield’s expectations were out of this world. Screenshot by Dot Esports

Starfield, of course, steered clear in that regard, as it has no multiplayer offering, yet it still found itself drowning amid the wealth of expectations. The longer you wait for release, the more people want, and Starfield certainly left many wanting.

I thoroughly enjoyed Starfield and was gripped by its storylines, but I, too, got swept up in all the excitement. I wanted a bonafide behemoth, a standout Game of the Year winner that took gaming to new heights.

Was I ever going to get that? Probably not, and the same is the case for GTA 6, which I fully expect to be a great game in its own right, one that sells exceptionally well and swallows up a large chunk of my spare time, but not one that leads to a revolution in the gaming industry.

There is no blame to put on the developer in these situations, as it’s purely a case of fans getting too excited. Often, there is a massive push for a game to be great, and good isn’t enough. Fans expect games to be a 9/10 or a perfect 10 every time.

In reality, a game that scores 7/10 or 8/10 isn’t bad at all. These games can be enjoyable, create great memories, and hit everything they ever aspired to achieve—yet, for many, they’re seen as falling short.

Can GTA 6 break that mold? I highly doubt it. If GTA 6 launches mainly as a single-player title, with GTA Online as a different entity, then comparisons will be made to the online mode. If GTA Online gets a reset, there will likely be significantly less content at launch than GTA 5 currently offers. Either way, fans are likely to be disappointed.

Rockstar will be hoping for the same longevity in GTA 6 that GTA 5 has enjoyed, the same way that Bethesda will hope players have several runs through Starfield as they did with Skyrim.

But both GTA 5 and Skyrim were released at vastly different times to what we are in now. Social media fans the flames of fan desire, leading to impossible expectations that will never be met.

I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade, but perhaps you should temper your expectations with GTA 6 and enjoy it for whatever it is, rather than lamenting what it could have been.