The Grand Theft Auto series is bound to have its best year in its 28 years of existence, and for good reason. Despite leaks, delays, and plenty of criticism, GTA 6 is expected to be the biggest release day in gaming history, a feat only achieved by the ultimate parody of Americana.
Despite a 13-year series drought, the Grand Theft Auto V installment has managed to remain relevant through its many fronts in role-playing, content creation, and modded servers. The one thing they all have in common is the use of GTA Online.
Released two weeks after launch on October 1, 2013, GTA Online provided players with the possibility to experience multiplayer Grand Theft Auto on the same map. The closest thing to this back in the day was backseat gaming, watching a friend play until they died, passing their controller, and ending their turn. Now, over 100,000 gamers are scheming and plotting online daily.
This, ultimately, begs the question: how will GTA Online 2 be rolled out for Grand Theft Auto VI’s big day? After all, its original two-week delay was attributed to server issues, bug fixes, and last-minute patching by Rockstar Games themselves.
Now, GTA Online is strategically placed behind the game’s single-player prologue, forcing users without a save file into an hour-long playthrough before being able to automatically quick-start into your designated servers, and honestly, it should stay that way. In fact, Rockstar should go further with it.
It has also been stated that the release delay was intended this way to avoid taking away the spotlight from the then-fresh state of San Andreas, a returning territory similar to GTA 6’s Leonida, and our homecoming to Vice City. Also, it was a calculated move to avoid overwhelming players, having them jump back and forth between excitement and curiosity, only to burn themselves out early in the game.
Devs more than anyone know this generation’s attention span is cooked, so they’ll do anything and everything to make release day smooth for new and returning gamers without a hint of interruptions by bugs, servers, or even features. Locking GTA Online in a vault until well past release day and keeping it behind a 3-5 hour gameplay experience would be the only way to guarantee new map familiarity and a controlled experience, avoiding shooting yourself in the foot with extreme launch freedom.
GTA Online mains' biggest counterargument is their craft and dedication to keeping the game alive. GTA V's single-player campaign takes around 100 hours to 100% or about three to four months of two-hour sessions. That would mean GTA V’s original lifespan would’ve ended around February 2014 if it weren’t for its creative servers and dedicated playerbase.
This, however, doesn't account for how demanding GTA Online is now, and how much more demanding GTAO2 will be. Eagerness to explore the world, know the characters, the story, and feel the game's new engine is all too high to let users roam freely online without a linear path that protects the game’s performance.
With Rockstar’s latest deadline complications and developer shortage, forget about another delay: imagine a Day One nightmare instead of a celebration. Crashed download buttons, dead servers, Unable to Log-In messages flooding social media and gaming forums. The biggest release into the biggest flop in a couple of hours.
You really think GTA Online servers will be up and running on release day, let alone two weeks from that? Rockstar has stated that GTA Online isn’t an add-on; it’s a standalone experience. But no matter how popular it is, it will never be an experience prioritized over the main game, story mode, or launch success.
Murphy’s Law states that if there is the slightest chance that something will go wrong, it’ll go wrong. I’m certain Rockstar isn’t taking their chances when it comes to fumbling the highest-grossing single day ever in video games to appease less than half a million players over 40 million story mode mains.
While I’m predicting a three-month waiting period at the very least, considering Rockstar’s struggle to not delay GTA VI a third time, I wholeheartedly believe delaying GTA Online’s launch will be fundamental to having a seamless transition from single-player to multiplayer as much as possible. Well, as seamless as the two remaining devs can make it, of course.
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