GTA 6 will sell "for 10+ years," and because "there is no competition" Rockstar is "not going to release the game until they're 100% happy with it," reckons former GTA dev

Rockstar veteran Obbe Vermeij reckons the studio can take its sweet time with GTA 6 because "there is no competition to worry about" and the game "will sell for 10+ years" anyway. 

Vermeij, who also argued that the game's 2025 release date won't be truly locked in until early 2025 at the earliest, speculated on the game's prospects in a recent Twitter post. Quick to stress that he has "no inside info" and "didn't talk to anyone" on account of the fact that he left Rockstar North, where he worked as technical lead, 15 years ago, he said: "[GTA 6] will sell for 10+ years and there is no competition to worry about. They are not going to release the game until they're 100% happy with it. No matter what it said in the trailer." 

In a follow-up reply, Vermeij reckoned the PC version of the game – which hasn't been announced but seems inevitable given the success of Rockstar games on PC – may not arrive until 2027. He also weighed in on the possibility of Rockstar owner Take-Two Interactive pressuring Rockstar to release it earlier, adding that "[Take-Two] let [Rockstar] make their own decisions and I don't think there is any reason to change that now." 

The core claim that GTA 6 can do what it wants, when it wants due to its sheer pedigree and audience isn't unreasonable. There are plenty of open-world games on the horizon, but none really swim in the same waters as GTA. 

GTA 5 is proof that these games can sell for a decade – in this case, partly buoyed by Skyrim-rivaling re-releases as well as the established money printer GTA Online – and GTA 6 has, credibly and without undue hyperbole, been called the most important thing "to ever release in the industry, so no pressure." It's not just the biggest game of (hopefully) 2025; it's the kind of defining release that could drive interest in games as a whole and uplift sales across the industry. 

As it happens, Vermeij has another game of his own coming out, and it's basically the exact opposite of GTA's violent open-world.