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‘GTA Online’ Update: Rockstar Owner Take Two CEO Says Game Mode Wasn’t Intended To Be Permanent

By Patrick Frye
Published on: 02:28 PST, Jun 2, 2016

GTA Online wasn’t meant to be permanent, says Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two. This, of course, means that Rockstar will eventually end support for Grand Theft Auto V, the massively popular satire game based on three men and their ventures into the world of crime and easy wealth.

This news could easily upset millions of gamers worldwide, as they have likely spent double the game’s price through microtransactions to build their own criminal empire in Rockstar’s virtual world. Their support for the online game mode isn’t ending too soon, though, as the latest GTA Online update titled “Further Adventures in Finance and Felony” is set to release on Tuesday.

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What Take-Two actually meant by their statement was rather vague, as the game could be supported online for another two years, possibly coinciding with Microsoft’s support for the Xbox 360. It appears that Zelnick means the Grand Theft Auto franchise won’t be another one subjected to yearly releases, such as Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty.

“We do expect GTA Online’s results to moderate because October will be three years since we released it. Not only was it not our intention that GTA Online was permanent, but it’s important that it not be permanent. We have to rest the franchise at some point.”

It may very well be that the game mode will continue to be supported until Rockstar releases Grand Theft Auto VI, and then phase it out in favor of an upgrade. It would seem a huge waste to simply stop supporting the online aspects of the game since Rockstar spent nearly a year buying new servers and stabilizing them while cutting down on hackers and people exploiting glitches.

A sequel to the online version of Grand Theft Auto might not be so well received as gamers in the millions might lose all of the progress and gains they worked or paid for. Again, this is mostly speculation based on a vague statement.

Rumors surrounding GTA VI have already been circulated, and Rockstar has been especially quiet about them. It is said to be about a couple of criminals, voice acted by Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes, and encompass all of the locations previously used in earlier games in the franchise. Considering how GTA V was originally made on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and physical discs appear to be getting phased out with time, it might make sense that the next game in the franchise will be an epic upgrade.

While GTA Online and its offline counterpart are often copied by other franchises like Assassin’s Creed (carriage stealing and races in Syndicate), Saints Row, and even Watch Dogs, it seems that a future update, possibly the one due on Tuesday, is borrowing from Assassin’s Creed. In Black Flag and Rogue, there are easy opportunities to make money and grab extra resources by raiding warehouses. Soon you can do that in GTA Online as well, after the DLC update allowing players to store their ill-gotten goods and steal them from others.

Just don’t expect Rockstar to follow the trend of yearly releases, though. Ubisoft and Activision are already learning that with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One come heftier expectations, and both took a year off with major releases. Take-Two doesn’t want its flagship franchise getting old and “recycled” with sequels being released too often.

Plans may change, but Take-Two isn’t planning to keep GTA Online updates and support going forever.

[Image via Rockstar Games]

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