I also don't really get it, I've played every GTA game and already felt like I'd outgrown the series when V came out (13 years ago ). The humor is just so bad in Rockstar games and they do the current day satire so badly that the 80s and early 90s pastiches of Vice City and San Andreas are much more compelling. SA was peak GTA with all the silliness.

The actual gameplay also feels like it's far behind its rivals, I had more fun with Saints Row The Third than GTA V, even though it's much jankier and less technologically advanced. I guess there really aren't any rivals anymore, all the GTA-likes have been quietly smothered with a pillow. The one thing I always enjoyed in GTA was driving around the map, but these days I'd rather fire up one of the truck sims or an Assetto Corsa freeroam map.

Regretfully, Rockstar Games employ some of the most talented living artists.

They used to employ funny people too but they stopped doing that

It's a video game that lets you drive cars fast and be violent in the streets without serious consequences. For the perpetual "everyone is 12" demographic, this is the ideal video game.

I think at this point it is more just hype than anything else, the GTA games are fun, but they've taken on an almost mythical status amongst "Gamers" now, that they are one of the pillars of video game achievement, so you have to play them or you're not a real Gamer. It's one of those FOMO things I think.

Yeah I don't really get the extreme hype either. No interest in playing it even if it was £30 like a normal game

There are not many games that tackle a modern current date setting that doesn't feel like it's too far into fantasy. GTA and Call of Duty stay the closest to this, Battlefield too but it has veered into cartoony action fantasy for a lot of people that stops it being culturally relevant.

Landing in the zeitgeist the way these games do comes a lot from intentionally placing themselves as close to modern cultural experience and relevance as they can, setting and date being important to this.

I've bounced off every GTA that has came out

SA was the furthest I got in any of them just cause it had some addictive qualities(the turf management stuff, some novel missions) and it was basically my first GTA so the novelty was there.

To me, GTA is a frustrating contradiction. It is always amongst the most graphically polished and meticulously crafted game worlds ever yet everything beyond it's production value feels underwhelming. Heavily style over substance.

The controls/animations are clunky, the missions have barely evolved from the PS2 days, the gunplay even after patches was still mid, the sort of PS era chaos sandbox keeps getting paired back to accommodate more "realistic storytelling and immersion," and the game systems and side activities all feel a mile wide and a centimeter deep. With little more than novelty to make you want to do them more than once.

Which in the last two games has made the whole world mostly feel like visiting an impressive tech demo more than something I actually get immersed into the way I can in almost any other open world style game.

And probably my highlights in both GTAIV and V is exploring the map for a few hours and listening to the radio. Which probably shouldn't be the thing I find most memorable in a game with a trillion dollar budget or whatever.

And unlike RDR, the stories themselves aren't enough to compel me to push forward.

I'll probably pick it up eventually, especially if any of my issues get resolved or truly improved upon, but I already don't game as much anymore so I'll probably wait til it comes to PC and get it on a Steam sale or something.

I think people enjoy the cultural moment of big releases where "everyone" they know is playing. GTAV certainly had that moment and they've become rarer and rarer. The generation that is most hyped grew up in an age where big game releases meant of "community" of gamers all playing one game and I'm sure there's some nostalgia for being a teenager in the mix.

I can tell you for these games, there's also the FOMO if you're the one friend in the group that isn't playing.

Besides that, rockstar makes quality games. I don't love that game loop, but I do get why people enjoy exploring a world with their friends.

I am enjoying the discourse from a month ago where this is going to be the first mass market dating sim and women are going to get upset seeing their boyfriends work harder to treat their virtual girlfriend better than in real life. Virtual microcheating for boys

It is for Ball and Gun Gamers, the type of guy who only plays Call of Duty and Madden every year. GTA from 4-onwards has always been pretty mid, and the "random chaos in an open world" genre has been done better, peaking with Just Cause 2 imo.

I wish it weren't special for a game to be set in (a ridiculous version of) present day Earth, but somehow it is. If movies were like AAA video games and there were still rental places, you'd have the big capeshit section, the big blowing-up-aliens section, the big US military propaganda section, the big fantasy section and then one dusty "other" shelf that's getting its first film in years. It's the sixth in a franchise that never really showed much depth or variety but we are fucking starved, so we are camped out and calling in sick to catch it on day 1.

It's literally the same game every time

i'm gonna two cents as an indie dev in the scene and with a special interest in games and game development lmao

folks are right in that GTA is big, it's got a titanic budget and is trying to make these big swings graphics and world-design wise, which are two things that draw any mainstream person in typically, gamer or otherwise. GTA has been for a while now a tentpole game - the entire culture shifts around a release like this, in the ways that CoD would but no longer can. Regardless of if it's REALLY good or REALLY bad or just absolutely mediocre, every corner of pop culture will have some sort of response to it coming out. As a result, it will be the ONLY game a lot of people pay attention to - not because they're super fans, but almost the opposite since it's so large in the public consciousness. This is a game series still coasting off the unearned edginess of 'GTA will train your kids to be violent crims!!!', a thing which is guaranteed to make it into the news cycle again especially considering all the work that's being put into making this thing look super-ultra-mega realistic - but it's not going to be because it's finally genuinely super real this time but because it's one of the only games you're almost guaranteed to know across the demographic spectrum.

Add to that, people who are more 'casual' gamers are always going to love anything that reminds them of cultural iconography they recognise, and for a lot of people the 'true' end game of game development is and has always been to eventually recreate real-life inside a video game and GTA is the leader in that specific marketable fantasy (at least in the west). Saying you're sick of 'that kind of game' inherently tells me that like you almost know too much lmao

the bulk of the hype for this game is coming from people who want the EXACT same game, but it's more this time, and that's it - no other game concepts, no other ideas thank you very much i just wanna grill in video game land

I like cowboy GTA

I think part of it is just that it’s a GTA game. I rember being extremely excited for SA, reading and re-reading magazines until it came out.
And GTA games are uge, packed with details on top of details. There’s still unsolved GTA 5 mysteries all these years later.
Add to that the fact that historically GTA games were never half assed. You got a full game for your money. That’s a much bigger deal now than it has ever been, and I think people expect that.
I’m not excited for it myself since I don’t have a console that it’ll release on, but I can see why people would be excited.
Of course having grown up alongside GTA I think the excitement is tamed by the experience of the games industry as a whole. We’ve seen open world games evolve, and from what was shown publically so far, it doesn’t stand out from the crowd as much.
But if you’re young, haven’t played GTA 1-6, haven’t played all of Assassins Creed, Far Cry et. al. you’re bound to get more out of it.

I love and sometimes replay San Andreas still now, and yet I don't care at all about GTA 5/6. Explaaaaaaaain that.

The obvious answer is the driving motorcycles, evading/fighting cops at zoomy speeds, causing motorway pileups with explosions, and blasting your way through town in a cheated tank are all very fun.

Are those things equally fun in GTA 5/6? I honestly have zero idea. If someone convinces me that they are then I'll go try it.

Justice did the soundtrack for the game, which I find cool.

I don't get it but I have t been excited for a video game since Tears of the Kingdon and WOW that was a disappointment. San Andreas was a good time but I got it for $5 at a pawn shop and maybe played 4 missions. I just put in cheats and saw how long I could evade arrest.

Wait GTA 6 is out now? Man I must live under a gigantic rock, does that mean we can't do the "before GTA 6" joke anymore?

My thing is this one is being hyped up a LOT to the point I feel like its' going to be a Pokemon game where a bunch of issues will be overlooked. We know they used AI, and idk I've kind of lost track of the scandels. So...it's going to be something. Let alone the recurring issues of the handling of gender, race, and sexuality.

I just like an immersive open world game that emphasises story and characters. I also like the mild realism/simulation angle Rockstar takes and would love if they put in even more pointless life sim bullshit. When I played RDR2 I added a survival mod that gave you debuffs if you didn't eat, drink, sleep or piss often enough

I should say though that I'm not playing GTA VI until it hits Steam and costs like 20 bucks (if my PC can even run it)

Gta IV was the last good one

I like guns, cars and dress up

Red Dead 2 had a good story so I hope this new game has a good story

I'm a sucker for dialogue while driving/horse riding

I took a huge break from the series with 4 which felt weird and uninspired. I played a lot of 3, VC, and SA. They are like the perfect sandbox games for me. With that said I don't have any real desire to play V nor seek out VI, not only because I don't have the hardware or money for them, but like, idk I like retro games. This original trilogy of games struck the right balance between sandbox fidelity and cartoon violence. I don't like a 4k murder sim game I guess.

I like mayhem, I like driving, I like the vicarious thrills

I'm a pretty big fan of 5, and, yeah I'm with you. I don't really see what's making this one unique in anyway besides better graphics. 5 I think had the appeal of embracing the vibe of the game, they weren't trying to tell a "super serious story" with some humor on top, they just made all the protagonists psycho criminal scumbags and the plot was a big farce.

Seems like they're kinda trying to go with a Bonnie and Clyde type thing with this one which could work but, gunning down 100s of cops for funzies as anyone but Trevor isn't going to land the same.

I liked the first two GTA. It was just mindless fun. Racing through town under machine gun fire until I found a place I could lead my pursuer through so that he would trigger my landmine and blow up was definitely one of the most fun gaming experiences I've had to this day.

Then GTA went 3D and everyone got super hyped for every game in the series, but it was slower and clunkers and had none of the things I had enjoyed on the first two so I kinda tapped out. Eventually I played GTA 5 and realized it is still all about mindless fun, it just doesn't excite me that much anymore.

I like 3d contemporary worlds with driving; aka I like Microsoft flight simulator but I haven't gotten it yet

So GTA V and possibly GTA VI once we can pirate them will be my remedy

I’ll bite as a normie, non-hardcore gamer these days: I mean I can say the same shit about the fifty billionth iteration of Zelda, that’s it hackneyed an nothing new. I like decently entertaining stories and GTA always has a compelling story. The writing is nearly always among the best in gaming, there’s tons of writing detail that goes into ever aspect of the game. I’m not even that excited about it but I see what gamers here go crazy for and GTA has never been in any way the low effort slop people love to complain about just because it’s normie. And yeah, I’m sure there’ll will be people trashing the stories in GTA and act as if Sekiro is some bastion of story telling. Like now, just because you have to make an effort to read three thousand disjointed bits of lore doesn’t make the story any good.

I just finished 5 but that's like a decade plus since it came out I ain't buying 6 or even planning on pirating it until a decade out at least. The games are fun but there's only so many ways you can do capitalism bad before it wears out it's welcome. These games desperately need more woke not less but big projects like that never get made.