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  • Can Grand Theft Auto 6 Actually Flop?
  • The Fraught Tale Of Cyberpunk 2077
  • There Have Been Some Pretty High-Profile Flops Over The Years
  • Is A Bad Grand Theft Auto 6 Release The Kiss Of Death?

Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to be the biggest video game of our lifetimes. That’s a line of thought I’ve heard from so many people since the first trailer dropped in December 2023. And now here we are, nearly two years later and still no game. But it’ll be worth it, right? After all, this is Grand Theft Auto 6, and it’s going to blow all of our minds when we finally see it in action.

What if it doesn’t, though? What if Grand Theft Auto 6 kinda sucks or is at least flawed to the point where it impacts how it’s played and perceived? What will that mean for the video game industry? Truthfully, probably not a lot.

Can Grand Theft Auto 6 Actually Flop?

Regardless of what early reviews and/or playtests might say about the game, we already know it’s going to sell a massive number of copies. It could become the best-selling game of all time eventually. As it stands, Grand Theft Auto 5 ranks as the second-highest-selling game ever, only trailing behind Minecraft. So don’t expect it to fail financially. For players, that’s not what makes or breaks a new game, though.

Instead, regardless of the hype, everyone will be focused on how it works on Day 1, which is a fair thing to critique. Rockstar will have had 13 years to build this game, so hopefully we don’t have to worry about that. However, once upon a time, we didn’t worry too much about Cyberpunk 2077 in the year before its release, and we all know how that turned out.

The Fraught Tale Of Cyberpunk 2077

Upon release from CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 ranged from super glitchy to flat-out unplayable based on where you played it. This was after eight years of development. As exciting as the game was to look at and as thrilling as the idea of a large-scale adventure in a cyberpunk setting was, all that hype just left fans annoyed when the game didn’t work properly.

In the years since, CD Projekt has done a lot of work to make Cyberpunk into the awesome game we all hoped it would be, including with the Phantom Liberty DLC. But the bad taste of the original state of the game is hard to wash away for many.

I bought Cyberpunk 2077 on day one for Xbox One. What a hilarious mistake.

I am not saying there is any indication that GTA 6 is headed down this road. Like all of you, I only know what the trailers have shown me. And I want a new Grand Theft Auto game to be incredible, especially since we’ll all probably be playing it for the next couple of decades while we wait for Grand Theft Auto 7.

These days, though, with games costing more and my having less time to play them, I worry about the major titles that we all assume will be amazing. A lot of the time, we’re right. Look at how rad Hollow Knight: Silksong is, and we waited a long time for that one.

Hype doesn’t automatically make a game good, though, and that’s a lesson the industry has learned many times over the past few decades.

There Have Been Some Pretty High-Profile Flops Over The Years

An image of someone playing Wii Fit U. Nintendo

For every game that’s broken some kind of record for sales, quality, or whatever else we keep records of, there’s at least a few flops. And, believe it or not, some of them are pretty high profile and result in losing more than just a game’s audience.

Sure, I could talk about titles like Anthem and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League – both of which are games I had hoped would be awesome that ended up being, well, not awesome at all. There’s WWE 2K20, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Battlefield 2042, and even Star Wars Battlefront 2, all major franchise games that bombed hard. But none of those are big enough to make the kind of impact GTA 6 would if it were released and sucked. GTA is one of the biggest gaming franchises of all time, so in my mind, the best comparison is when an entire console flops – and it’s happened more than once.

Take the Sega Dreamcast, for instance. The Dreamcast was something of a sequel to Sega’s earlier semi-flop console, the Saturn. Both consoles sold just under 10 million units each, but neither managed to have the staying power of Sony’s entry into the market, the PlayStation. The Dreamcast marked the end of Sega as a console maker.

A more memorable – and recent – console flop was the Wii U. If it sounds unusual that Nintendo put out a bad console, that’s because it is. The Nintendo Wii shipped over 100 million units in its eight-year lifespan, making it a huge success. The follow-up console, Wii U, managed to sell just 13 million before Nintendo pulled the plug. Studios like Ubisoft decided not to develop games for the console unless sales improved, and when they didn’t, well, what more was there to do? Of course, it didn’t take Nintendo too long to get back on the horse with the Switch, which has shipped over 150 million units to date. Now the Switch 2 is out, and it’s already the fastest-selling video game console in US history.

Is A Bad Grand Theft Auto 6 Release The Kiss Of Death?

As good or bad as GTA6 is upon release, it will not be in its final form. Look at the current state of GTA 5 compared to its 2013 launch. Over a decade later and the online portion of the game is thriving, with both Rockstar-released official content and fan-made servers full of people basically roleplaying their lives inside of Grand Theft Auto.

Multiplayer gaming was nowhere near as major of a force in 2013 as it is now. Surely, it was an important component, but in a world of live-service games, online multiplayer is often the most important aspect of a new game.

When GTA 5 hit, you could play online, but it was nowhere near as plentiful as it is now. That’s because the game has evolved with gamers over the years. To this day, Rockstar is still releasing free updates and content for Grand Theft Auto Online players.

So Grand Theft Auto 6 releasing in less than pristine condition might cause some backlash toward Rockstar and even discontent within the community. But it doesn’t mean the game isn’t or won’t be any good. If you like the GTA franchise, chances are this will end up being the best iteration of that franchise. It just might take some time.

And I might be worried that any backlash over a potentially bad GTA 6 release would taint any future hype for whenever GTA 7 comes out, but we’ll probably all be dead before that happens, so Rockstar really has nothing to worry about.

So while you wait and let the hype for GTA 6 continue to build, keep in mind this is a collaborative effort by a ridiculously large group of people who have spent over a decade trying to make this game a reality. Nothing is perfect at first, and that will definitely include Grand Theft Auto 6.

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Grand Theft Auto 6

Action Adventure Systems OpenCritic Reviews Released May 26, 2026 Developer(s) Rockstar Games Publisher(s) Rockstar Games Engine Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) Multiplayer Online Multiplayer Prequel(s) Grand Theft Auto 5 Franchise Grand Theft Auto Powered by Expand Collapse