How different could GTA 6 be? (pic: Rockstar)
The Friday letters page really thinks Alan Wake 2 should change its release date, as one reader names Ghost Recon Wildlands as a top 5 game.
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Nowhere to go
Why is it I feel that GTA 6 is going to be a disappointment after all this wait and uncertainty? Not because Rockstar are likely to do anything wrong but just because the hype is so much, and I don’t feel there’s been a big enough jump in terms of technology to mean it’ll look or play that differently to what we have now.
GTA 5 is basically an Xbox 360 game, but it looks and plays fine on the PlayStation 5 and while Red Dead Redemption 2 looks a lot better, it’s not incomparably better. And I don’t think the leap from that, a PlayStation 4 game, to GTA 6 is going to be very big.
I don’t know that it will try to do much new in terms of gameplay either. Rockstar innovate a lot in terms of open world design, but they’ve never seemed that interested in how it plays. Plus, they can’t even play the online card now, as that’s been done already as well.
To put it another way, I’m not sure what the new game could do in order to impress on the sort of scale people want it to. It’s a tough act to live up to and I fear it’s doomed to disappoint.
Gumphite
Nostalgia Duty
I agree Call Of Duty is not in a good place at the moment but I don’t think it’s a simple as declining interest. The last five or six games have been mostly uninteresting but the massive interest in the recently updated retro games shows that there’s still a huge amount of love for the series.
In particular, there’s a lot of nostalgia for people that grew up with and were playing it rabidly 10 or 15 years ago. That’s why they’re so disenchanted with the current games and why they went crazy for the older ones.
If Activision are sensible, and they usually are when it comes to money, they’ll start pandering to that older crowd now (they’d just be starting to get into their thirties, I guess? Maybe a bit younger). We may even see the equivalent of boomer shooters but for a younger crowd. Campaigns that are more linear and try and stop being everything to everyone, and just go back to more straightforward action and stories.
Benson
Open secret
The Alan Wake 2 director begging Rockstar not to release the Red Dead Redemption remaster in October seems funny at first but it’s also kind of stupid. If everyone knows the release date is a bad idea why are they sticking with it?
We see this happen every Christmas, where one lower profile game will get the idea that it should come out at the same time as all the big-leaguers and suddenly it will do well anyway. It was Midnight Suns last year but it’s the same story every time: the game flops, just like everyone knows it will, and the developer gets into serious trouble.
Firaxis lost lots of top staff after the failure of Midnight Suns, MachineGames hasn’t released anything since Wolfenstein 2, just why do companies keep doing this?
As someone said in the comments, movies change release dates all the time to get out of each other’s way (and when they don’t they suffer, as we’ve seen this summer) so why on earth don’t games?
Grackle
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Expect the unexpected
I too enjoy watching people coming up with fake Switch 2 designs, especially once we get to see the actual design and find out it’s absolutely nothing like it. Someday people will learn that you can’t anticipate Nintendo but watching them try is all part of the fun.
Personally, my bet is that the new console will be something completely different (and they’ll keep supporting the Switch for longer than expected). The obvious option is to just make the same console but more powerful and the one predictable thing about Nintendo is that they’re never predictable.
Siemon
New universe
Since DC films are flopping left, right and centre this year, and there’s a reboot coming up in 2025, do we know if that’s going to affect the games at all? I know James Gunn said that there would be games that were part of the continuity, but I don’t think they’ve announced any of them, have they?
Ed Boon was hinting that Injustice 3 could still happen, but will that suddenly become canon to the new universe? Anything to get rid of the edgelord evil Superman stuff, but then again that’s half the point of Injustice, so I’m not sure if they’d ever go for a more authentic tone.
Filliet
GC: They haven’t announced anything new, but a Wonder Woman game was confirmed a couple of years ago. Whether that’s been quietly cancelled or repurposed for the new continuity is unknown.
Time to move
With developments like most, if not all, PlayStation exclusives likely coming to PC, albeit with a two year wait, and locked 30fps console games like Starfield, I’ve been mulling over if I’ll go PC.
With an Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 I’m console for this gen but when the next gen shows up, I might spec up a PC that’s a good chunk more powerful to have 60fps for the gen. The current combined cost of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, when it goes up in price in a few weeks, is £980. £1,200 will buy you a PC that’s much more capable than the consoles.
The premium for a more powerful PC will be higher at the launch of the next consoles though. When PlayStation 5 launched a bunch of sites put a figure of about £1,000 for a PC with similar performance to the then £450 PlayStation 5. So I’m bracing for £1,500 for a much more powerful PC at the launch of PlayStation 6.
I can see a PC paired with a Switch 2 will be the hardware I get next gen. I’ll wait and see what the PlayStation 6 and next Xbox have to offer. Consoles have always been my natural home for gaming and when you look at PC prices the bang for your buck from consoles is pretty impressive.
But the main appeal of the consoles has always been the exclusives. If I can access those on a device at better framerates, etc… then I’m happy to pay a bit extra and do that.
Simundo
Wild suggestion
My new favourite shooting/combat game and now entrenched as one of my all-time top five games. Ghost Recon Wildlands. Missed this when it came out six years ago. Didn’t realise it had such a substantial solo campaign. I only play single-player.
Anyone looking for a shooter to play solo need look no further. Awesome! The devs really went above and beyond the call of duty with this one. What a game!
Paul C.
GC: Our advice to others, would be to look further.
More: Trending
Infinite growth
Just for a bit of a viewpoint on the takeover stuff.
The point of big business is to become bigger. This is encouraged and is the only way to expand your company.
But then competition rules say you can only be so big. Or it is unfair to the others.
I do remember back in the early days of PS1, Sony snapped up some developers early on (Psygnosis, etc.).
The competition was Saturn and N64, who didn’t have additional developers.
Given the current rules, would they be allowed to do that now?
Also, a quick Google search for ‘Sony owned game studios’ and ‘Microsoft owned game studios’. Microsoft have 23, Sony have 22.
If the issue is just ‘boohoo, we don’t have Call Of Duty’, then they should get one of the 22 studios to make a better product. Make it a PlayStation exclusive, which would be fair enough, as they own it.
Especially with the noted decline in online, maybe the Call Of Duty cash cow is milked anyway.
Si
GC: Psygnosis cost $26 million ($53m adjusted for inflation), not $69 billion. They were a medium-sized British studio who expanded significantly after Sony bought them.
Inbox also-rans
Elden Ring on Game Pass would be a major coup for Xbox, I can’t believe it would actually happen. If it does, it shows they have plenty of money to spend even after Activision Blizzard.
Gordo
I have never met anyone in real life that has ever played either Overwatch game. I’m sure that says more about my friendship circle than anything else, but it still seems surprising.
Lorrent
This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Marbon, who asks what is your favourite type of role-playing game?
With Final Fantasy 16 just out, and Starfield set to be one of the biggest games of the year, the role-playing genre is as popular as ever, but few people enjoy all the many different types. It’s not just a case of Western and Japanese style role-players, with many other sub-genres, including action role-players, tactical role-players, and variants like dungeon crawlers, roguelikes, and massively multiplayer online games.
Which do you enjoy the most and which particular game do you think is the best example of its type? Which sub-genre do you wish was more prevalent and how would you like to see it evolve in the future?
Please note: Due to an error, the above Hot Topic description only ran on a limited number of days last week, so we’re re-running it this week. If you’ve already written in there’s no need to do so again, as we’ll use your letter this weekend.
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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.
You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.
You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.
MORE : Games Inbox: Call Of Duty in permanent decline, A Link To The Past remake, and Exoprimal explanation
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The Friday letters page really thinks Alan Wake 2 should change its release date, as one reader names Ghost Recon Wildlands as a top 5 game.
