There’s less than ten days to wait before GTA 6, the first ‘proper’ new Grand Theft Auto game in over thirteen years, hits the shelves and already the gaming community has turned its attention to what could be next for the hugely successful franchise, GTA 7.
Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has already provided some insight into the future of the company’s biggest franchises.
Based on the CEO’s comments, it won’t take another 15 years for GTA 7 to arrive.
What Take-Two’s leadership has to say
During an interview with IGN, Zelnick was asked about a recent Bloomberg report. In it, some longtime Rockstar developers suggested that making future games might not take nearly as long as GTA 6 has.
Strauss Zelnick answered the question:
“We do think that the nature and velocity of the content we’ll see from our iconic franchises, including GTA, will look dramatically different over the next decade. And that’s really being driven by our industry leading commitment to releasing the highest quality entertainment, to reaching our players in new ways and in new places and trying to maintain engagement with our consumers post-launch.”
Take-Two has many other major franchises under its umbrella, but the fact that Zelnick singled out GTA for comment in this case makes his words especially noteworthy.
Why GTA 7 could take less time to develop
- Waiting more than 13 years between games is unusual, even by today’s AAA standards. So what makes us think GTA 7 could arrive sooner?
- The groundwork laid by GTA 6: Rockstar has spent years building and refining its technology, development tools, and production teams for GTA 6. Much of that work could carry over to future projects, saving the studio from having to start everything from scratch.
Developers and executives seem to agree. Both experienced Rockstar developers and Take-Two’s leadership appear to share the same goal: finding ways to make future development cycles more efficient.
GTA 6 will have 55 trophies at launch, according to a new leak.
Expectations vs. reality
Of course talking about a different pace of content doesn’t automatically mean GTA 7 will arrive just a few years after GTA 6. There are still a few things worth considering.
- Post-launch support: When Zelnick talks about releasing content faster, he might also be referring to GTA Online expansions or more frequent updates. That doesn’t necessarily mean Rockstar plans to rush another mainline game out the door.
- Rockstar’s quality standards: Rockstar has built its reputation on highly detailed games that take years to develop. Even if the studio finds ways to speed things up, it’s unlikely to abandon the level of polish players have come to expect.
For now there’s no way to know how much of this faster development approach will actually apply to GTA 7. We might get the next game sooner than expected, or Rockstar could have completely different plans.
Either way there’s an entire new world waiting for us in GTA 6 before we need to start worrying about the next one.
I write for Need4Games, mostly keeping track of what’s coming next. I cover showcases and release updates, put together quick lists when you just want the highlights, and I’ll post Steam deal roundups when the sales get wild. I play a lot of games, so I tend to look at games through that lens. No overthinking, just: what it is, why it’s interesting, and if it’s actually worth your time. I also stream now and then on Twitch.
