’GTA 6’ release date: Players worried about Take-Two CEO Stauss Zelnick’s statement concerning gaming content

News about “GTA 6” is few and far in between as Rockstar and Take-Two maintain their silence about the sixth entry of the franchise. This is despite the fact that there are at least one million players who are ready to purchase the game at a drop of a hat.

Indeed, “GTA 5” has become the highest-grossing media title since it was launched in 2013, garnering over $6 billion in revenue for Rockstar. The gaming studio, of course, is aiming to have that number beaten by “GTA 6.”

However, it’s still unclear how Rockstar is going to one-up itself as news about the next installment is basically non-existent. Even the development of “GTA 6” remains unconfirmed for now. Thus, people eagerly waiting for the game’s arrival has turned to speculations and statements of Rockstar and Take-Two bigwigs to find hints about the developers’ plans.

GTA 6 and Straus Zelnick’s worrying statement

Perhaps one of the most worrying statements out there came from Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick. Speaking to Gameindustry.biz, Zelnick hinted that they might be looking to chop down the single-player content of “GTA 6.”

“It's possible that games may be a bit shorter than they were in certain instances. It's possible that the ability to deliver content on an ongoing basis for a long time after an initial release of a hit would mean that perhaps that initial release wouldn't be as long in terms of number of hours of gameplay as previously had been demanded in a world where that was all you were getting,” Zelnick explained. Suffice to say that some are apprehensive about this line of thinking as it could hurt the overall experience that “GTA 6” may deliver.

Why gamers should be wary about GTA 6

For years, we’ve seen how multiple gaming studios have adopted a business model that focuses on constant content update rather than provide an extensive offline experience from the get-go. This practice is becoming more prevalent where studios opt to release a game with minimum content, update the game a few months later, wait again, then release another update. This ensures that the game is pumping out new content for players and we could be seeing this practice employed on “GTA 6.”

This is bad news since gamers expect to get the full game after purchasing the product given they’ve paid in full to acquire it. It’s just fair, yes? It’s for this reason that players are heavily advised not to pre-order the game. Rather, they should simply wait for reviews to come in, check out streams for the game if the studio has delivered, and make their decision from there. Of course, Zelnick hadn’t mentioned “GTA 6” when he released the statement, but gamers are still worried on account Rockstar is under Take-Two’s umbrella.

GTA 6 isn’t coming out anytime soon

Whatever the case, it’s too early to fear for the title anyway as there’s no concrete proof if this questionable business practice will be employed by Rockstar for “GTA 6.” Which brings us to its release date. In the same interview, Zelnick said that eight years is too long for the release date of a title’s sequel. Since “GTA 5” is nearing six years old, the studio may be looking to release the next entry on 2021 or 2022 just in time for the next-gen console to hit the market.