13 years since GTA 5, the gaming world is a completely different place

The Biggest Gaming Stories That Happened Since GTA 5 Came Out 13 Years Ago

I was thinking about how long we've been waiting for GTA 6 and it hit me that GTA 5 came out in 2013. That's 13 years. A lot of us were in high school or college back then. The gaming industry has gone through so many phases since then, it's kind of nuts when you list it all out.

Like, Fortnite didn't exist when GTA 5 launched. The whole live-service boom and then the crash, that all happened after. E3 was still this massive annual event everyone looked forward to, not the sad shell it became. Nintendo had just put out the Wii U, which was a disaster. It's easy to forget how different things were.

But the specific stuff that stands out to me:

Skyrim got ported to everything. Skyrim came out in 2011, before GTA 5, and we still haven't gotten a new mainline Elder Scrolls. Instead, Bethesda just kept re-releasing Skyrim. Switch, Switch 2, Xbox One, Series X|S, PS5, VR, even a text adventure version for Alexa. It's a running joke at this point.
Watch Dogs came and went. Ubisoft tried to fill the GTA void with Watch Dogs right after GTA 5. The first one was okay, Watch Dogs 2 was actually great, and Legion in London was a cool idea but didn't land. Now the series has been silent for years. I'd love a proper sequel to Watch Dogs 2.
Halo is on PlayStation now. This one still feels weird. Back in 2013, Halo was the Xbox killer app. Microsoft was all about exclusives. Now Halo: Campaign Evolved launched on Xbox and PlayStation at the same time. If you told me that in 2013, I'd have laughed.

There's obviously a ton more, but those three really show how much the industry shifted while we've been waiting for Rockstar to finally give us Vice City again. The wait is almost over though, November 19 can't come soon enough.

Source: GameSpot · Curated content.