While GTA 5’s single-player experience would’ve been enough to make it an enormous success, its GTA Online component and the role-playing servers that spawned from it have cemented it as one of the biggest games of all time. GTA 6 is undoubtedly going to try and replicate this with its own iteration of GTA Online, but when it comes to what innovations and changes it’ll make to its highly successful formula, that’s a mystery. Well, a new report may have given us a window into what to expect. Rockstar has reportedly been meeting with not only prominent GTA creators but those from the realms of Fortnite and Roblox too to discuss supporting more user-generated content to become a wider, metaverse-style platform.
It’s been well over a year since we last got any official GTA 6 information, and despite the community pushing a wide range of theories (many including the moon, remarkably) about when we’ll hear more or get a new trailer, the well is still dry at the moment. Even though the GTA 6 release date is meant to arrive later this year, there is still so much we’re yet to learn about what is arguably the biggest release of the decade.
However, a new report from Digiday, which cites three industry insiders as sources, has given us a sliver of potential new information. At the forefront of the metaverse push right now are games like Roblox and Fortnite – they’ve become renowned for how they act as a platform for community members to make (and monetize) their own experiences and game modes. It seems that Rockstar is trying to carve out a similar future for GTA 6.
“Rockstar Games has been in discussions with top Roblox and Fortnite creators, as well as dedicated GTA content creators, about the potential to create custom experiences inside the upcoming game, according to three industry insiders with knowledge of these meetings, who requested anonymity in order to protect business relationships,” Digiday says in its report, which was spotted by VGC. “These experiences would allow creators to modify the game’s environment and assets to bring their own intellectual property – and potentially their brand sponsors – into GTA’s virtual sandbox.”
Digiday says that things are still “open-ended” and Rockstar hasn’t got any concrete plan as to how this is going to play out. However, RP servers (and similar custom game modes) are likely going to be at the heart of this. Despite being such a huge reason behind GTA 5’s sustained interest and viewership on platforms like Twitch and YouTube, Rockstar largely kept a distance from the role-playing community for many years. However, in 2023, Rockstar acquired the creators of the most popular RP mods, Cfx.re – a clear indication that it wants to start bringing this side of the GTA community in-house.
If it can provide official support for modders, people that want to run RP servers, or those that just want to create custom game modes outside of role-playing, then it can also monetize it – as with Roblox and Fortnite, the creators themselves will also get a cut of course, but now so does Rockstar. It also paves the way for other companies to bring their brands into this metaverse style space.
Of course, none of this has been officially confirmed by Rockstar yet, but it is also a logical path for it to take when you look at the size of GTA’s influence and how well some of its big competitors are faring when it comes to this UGC approach.
Until we hear more, head on over to our friends at GTA Db, where you’ll find absolutely everything that’s been revealed about GTA 6 so far in one handy place. Alternatively, here are some other must-play open-world games.
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