‘Grand Theft Auto 6’ Will Still Focus On Delivering A ‘High-Quality’ Single Player Experience Despite The Ongoing Success of ‘GTA Online’

The release of the next installment from the popular Grand Theft Auto series might be a long way off, but publisher Take-Two Interactive doesn’t think that it’s too early to discuss their strategy for the future of their open-world crime franchise.

Speaking to MCV, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick revealed that they don’t plan make any big changes for Grand Theft Auto 6 and beyond. For the foreseeable future, the publisher likely won’t be taking any drastic deviations from what players have come to expect from the GTA franchise since they have had lots of success in how they’ve been handling the series to date. This means that it will likely be years before the next Grand Theft Auto game comes out.

“Our strategy, ever since we took over the company, has been a limited number of the highest-quality releases. Even if that means we need to postpone putting something out, even though we don’t like to, in order to achieve high quality. Every time we do that, we’re gratified by the results.”

In addition to wanting to ensure that the series continues to be crafted with quality in mind, Zelnick also mentioned that GTA Online won’t fundamentally change how future Grand Theft Auto title’s are developed despite how sucfcessful the mulityplayer mode has proved to be. The Take-Two CEO revealed that Grand Theft Auto Online accounted for 39 percent of the company’s total revenue during the second quarter for 2015, with 8 million players still enjoying the game’s multiplayer mode.

Even in the face of that remarkable success, the publisher is focused not to allow GTA Online to change the overall strategy for how the series is handled. Zelnick stated that they are aware they understand that they aren’t in the business of making a large, online-only title such as World of Warcraft and it would be better for them to stick to what made the franchise famous in the first place. That isn’t to say that the next Grand Theft Auto game won’t feature a multiplayer component, but it certainly won’t be the main draw of the game.

A Gamespot report revealed that Zelnick further discussed the publisher’s plans to take their time and not rush the development of big games like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption during a recent investors meeting. Take-Two currently receives a lot of pressure to begin annualizing their games like other studios, but the publisher wants stay committed to providing fans with the same level of quality gaming that they have come to expect from these big releases and that simply can’t happen on a yearly schedule

“The market asks us, ‘Why don’t you annualize your titles?’ We think with the non-sports titles, we are better served to create anticipation and demand. On the one hand to rest the title and on the other hand to have the highest quality in the market, which takes time. You can’t do that annually.”

Instead, Take-Two Interactive plans to simply rotate what franchise is ready for a new entry. This way they will have new games come out every year, but they won’t always be from the same series. One year might see the launch of a new Grand Theft Auto game while the next brings forth another Borderlands or BioShock title.

“What we would like to do is be able to have enough hit intellectual properties in any given year, whether we have Title A or Title B, is not the issue. We’ll have a handful of really great franchises and new intellectual properties that together really have the economic impact of an annualized business without the detriments of an annualized business.”

Would you prefer that GTA Online became a primary fixture of the Grand Theft Auto franchise?

[Image via Rockstar Games]