I watched this last night, and honestly, aside from the buddy system that nobody asked for and what appears to be some kind of morality/criminal profile system that makes very little sense in a GTA setting, I saw remarkably little that actually interested me.

Yes, it looks absolutely gorgeous. Yes, there are heavy plot elements, impressive character animations, and an enormous amount of polish. But underneath all of that, I’m not seeing much that makes me think, “Holy shit, this is what GTA needed to become.”

And that’s what concerns me.

My fear isn’t that GTA VI is going to be bad. It’s that Rockstar has spent all this time trying to “innovate” when they really didn’t need to. GTA already has an incredibly successful formula. Give us a massive, reactive sandbox, better AI, smarter police, deeper heists, more emergent gameplay, better vehicle physics, and more freedom in how we approach things. That’s innovation enough.

I don’t need GTA to become Red Dead Redemption with cars, a morality system, relationship mechanics, and a heavily scripted narrative.

I’m also increasingly worried about the industry’s tendency to try to appeal to the broadest possible audience while simultaneously designing around increasingly specific demographics. You can end up with a game that technically has something for everyone but somehow loses the thing that made people love the franchise in the first place.

Just look at the new Wolverine game. That’s exactly the sort of direction I’m afraid of seeing more often: taking an established property and deciding that it needs to be something fundamentally different rather than simply making an excellent version of what people already liked.

All Rockstar had to do was make another GTA. They didn’t need to reinvent the wheel.

I really hope I’m wrong about this. Because if GTA VI turns out to be an incredible open-world crime sandbox underneath all the cinematic presentation, I’ll be the first person to shut up and enjoy it.

Please be right, Rockstar.