GTA 6 coming to PS4 and Xbox One would be a stupid idea
The next big title from Rockstar Games shouldn’t be hampered by ongoing technical restraints, or the need to reach players who haven’t yet got their hands on upgraded consoles.
Well, it’s official. No longer the subject of rampant rumours, leaks and speculation, Rockstar Games has finally announced GTA 6, with the developer posting a bombshell tweet yesterday which set the internet ablaze. News of December’s reveal trailer was swiftly followed by people wondering on which platforms GTA 6 might be available at launch. After all, GTA 5 started life on PS3 and Xbox 360 but was quickly ported to two further generations. I hope that Rockstar has reserved GTA 6 for current-gen consoles and PC only, because launching on ten-year-old hardware would be a massive mistake.
The PS5 and Xbox Series X launched at the tail-end of 2020, but Sony, Microsoft, and developers and publishers alike are still supporting the PS4 and Xbox One in terms of firmware updates, and game releases. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is one of the earliest examples of a title hyped for the newer consoles that got a last-gen launch alongside it; fast forward almost three years later, and the next game in that series – Assassin’s Creed Mirage – also dropped on both generations. Obviously, this is great news for players who've yet to make the jump to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, but there comes a point at which the older generations need to be cut loose so owners of the latest consoles can see what their pricey hardware can really do.
Circling back to the GTA series, GTA 5 made its debut on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, ignoring the newly launched PS4 and Xbox One. I can see why Rockstar wouldn't want to cut out a huge portion of console by making it exclusive to the platforms, but at the same time, the studio is known for its willingness to push boundaries on both a graphical and technical level. That commitment meant that when GTA 5 launched, it was sizeable enough to warrant shipping with two discs on the Xbox 360 in order to run; PS3 players got just the one, thanks to its Blu-Ray drive. It certainly wasn’t the first game to do this, but it was a sign that the title was on the cusp of being too hot to handle for the PS3 and the Xbox 360.
GTA 5 took players back to Los Santos – which we last saw in 2001's GTA: San Andreas – and seeing this more rich and detailed version if the city was a true marvel. The map was much bigger, the environments less obscured by that video game haze, and being able to switch between three characters on the fly during the campaign never failed to astound. Of course, the price we paid for all of that as the game's code struggled against the hardware was frustratingly long load times – even for what was the norm at the time.
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Rockstar eventually ironed this issue out with the PS4 and Xbox One versions one year later (and then ultimately the PS5 and Xbox Series X ports). If the company makes the decision to once again ignore the newest console generation when it comes to the GTA 6 release, I'm worried that we're going to see the game hampered in much the same way because of the older hardware dragging it down.
Grand upgrade
The good news is that, if we assume that the GTA 6 release is set for 2025, it'll fall far enough into the current-gen console's lifecycle that Rockstar will have to launch on the platforms, taking full advantage of the latest tech, ensuring that the open world is ready to astound. Of course, this won’t be the case if Rockstar is developing GTA 6 with the intention to also launch on PS4 and Xbox One, however unlikely this might seem.
Already this year we’ve seen what current-gen PlayStation and Xbox consoles are capable of when developer's aren't having to take the old hardware into account. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – as the PS5’s flashy exclusive this holiday period – absolutely delivered with its seamless fast travel, instant character switching, and just a generally flawless open world, all of which I praised in my 5-star review of the game. Over on Microsoft’s platform, you've got Forza Motorsport; not an open-world game but easily one of the most beautiful we’ve seen yet running on Xbox.
There’s an argument to say that Red Dead Redemption 2 – easily one of the best-looking games of the previous generation – didn’t need the oomph of the PS5 and Xbox Series X to impress. However, being set in the Old West means not having to populate the map with ambitious built-up areas, and densely populated points of interest. Developing video games is a lot of smoke and mirrors anyway, and I imagine GTA 6 will need all the processing power available to create a believable location as varied as Vice City on the scale we think is coming.
Overall, would GTA 6 coming to PS4 and Xbox One be the end of the world? Probably not, but it would inevitably beg the question of just how differently the game may have turned out had it not been restricted on this level. Fortunately, I think that the GTA 6 launch will be exclusive to PS5 and Xbox Series X on the console front; the PC version will probably follow later down the line given that Rockstar titles typically launch on the likes of Steam slightly later.
Vice City – which looks to be the setting for game post Rockstar-hack – is sure to have changed a whole lot since the last time we saw it in 2002's GTA: Vice City; especially given the game was set in the '80s and GTA 6 is reportedly being set in a modern-day version of the city. As well as mood and tone, next month's GTA 6 trailer is sure to show us just how gorgeous a world Rockstar has crafted this time around.
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