Grand Theft Auto 6 Isn't The Video Game Boogeyman You Think It Is

Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to be the biggest game of the decade. I struggle to think of what Rockstar could do that would limit its potential to outpace Grand Theft Auto 5 as the kingpin of the games industry. So, when a game like this has a release window, other developers and major publishers will want to steer clear to try and avoid being cannibalized by a guaranteed behemoth like GTA.

We’ve heard plenty of stories about major publishers saying that they’re waiting for Rockstar to announce GTA 6’s release date before committing to dates for their own 2025 lineup and, when taking a look at what games have confirmed dates for the rest of the year, it’s clear many are running scared.

While I understand the trepidation behind committing to a date for fear of being overshadowed by Grand Theft Auto 6, I’m not entirely convinced that it spells certain death for any game that even dares to get near Rockstar’s unrivaled blockbuster.

There’s A Wide Variety Of Gamers Out There

There’s no doubt in my mind that GTA 6 is going to sell well, but the series appeals to a specific audience that isn’t exclusively part of the hardcore gaming space. Many people who play GTA 5 religiously are also the type of gamers who buy every year’s Madden, EA Sports FC, and Call of Duty before calling it a day. Maybe they also pick up Assassin’s Creed. That audience is not the same one that will be playing Ghost of Yotei at launch.

That said, a major portion of more hardcore gamers will be buying GTA 6 at launch. However, if Ghost of Yotei’s October 2 release is within a few weeks of GTA’s launch, I expect a good portion of them will be playing both. A highly anticipated game is going to find its audience regardless of what else is on the market at the same time, which is why I believe Sony finally caved and announced a release date for Ghost of Yotei. Something had to give.

This is the same reason why a game like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wasn’t automatically going to fail just because Oblivion Remastered launched in the same week. Both are RPGs, but there's an audience for both games that isn’t mutually exclusive.

Some will play both, but those jumping into Oblivion Remastered (a classic Western action RPG) are a different demographic than the people that will turn out for Clair Obscur (a turn-based, Japanese-inspired RPG).

The Price May Push People Away

As successful as GTA 6 is going to be, the rumor that it’ll cost $100 already has people debating if they want to pick it up at launch. While there’s no hard proof that the game is going to be priced higher than the $70 we’ve come to expect from triple-A games, several industry analysts seem to think it might, and now that Nintendo has seemingly given the ‘all clear’ for publishers to raise the price of their games after announcing that Mario Kart World and other Switch 2 titles will cost $80, it’s certainly not out of the question that GTA 6 will have a higher price.

If that’s the case, then it feels likely that many people might wait to pick GTA 6 up until it goes on sale. In the meantime, those same people will probably buy a different game while they wait. With how tight money is for many people right now, a portion of gamers will likely have to pick one game over another, and if GTA 6 is out of their price range, then it makes the choice easy for them.

Competition Is High

When it comes to choosing a game to buy, gaming audiences have a lot of choices in 2025. Assuming that Grand Theft Auto 6 releases in the fall, gamers will have the choice between titles like Ghost of Yotei, Metal Gear Solid Delta, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Borderlands 4, The Outer Worlds 2, Hades 2, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and many more. Yes, GTA 6 is going to be a huge deal, but it feels unlikely that everyone who is looking forward to other games will completely ignore them if Grand Theft Auto 6 comes out.

2025 has already been an excellent year for gaming and we’ve seen plenty of success stories, even with a packed calendar. A lot of money is going to be spent on GTA 6, but it’s impossible for the game to take all the money away from every other title released for the rest of the year.

Additionally, GTA Online is a massive staple of the industry that many players likely won’t be abandoning the second that GTA 6 comes out, so Rockstar is already going to be competing with itself for the year.

The Games GTA Is Most Likely To Hurt

There is one big caveat to this conversation., While major publishers will likely be relatively fine launching in the same window as GTA 6, indie games might have a tougher time. Because the audience for indie games is by definition smaller than the audience for triple-A titles, GTA will likely be taking a proportionally bigger chunk of the audience away from the likes of Demonschool, Skate Story, The Alters, and Holstin.

That said, despite the audience indies might lose to GTA, there’s still a major part of the gaming landscape that turns to indies for more modestly priced experiences. In a year when the cost of living is rising drastically, indie games provide a solid alternative to full-price triple-A blockbusters like GTA 6, especially if it launches at $100.

To be clear, Grand Theft Auto is going to be a big deal that should change how publishers strategize for their release year. But I don’t think the game is going to leave the rest of the titles launching in 2025 in complete disarray. There are plenty of gamers to go around and, hey, who knows, maybe if Silksong releases on the same day as GTA 6 we’ll see the kind of world peace we haven’t experienced since the summer of Pokemon Go.

Grand Theft Auto 6