Anyone else feel like GTA 6 is the closest we'll ever get to a blank check game?

Saw a post on the sub that got me thinking about the budget talk again. Analysts were throwing around 1-2 billion pre-marketing, and Rockstar's been at this for years. The word 'uncompromised' keeps coming up. It's easy to roll your eyes at that kind of PR speak, but when you look at the scale of what they're building, it starts to feel different.

The raunchy stuff and power fantasy don't do it for me anymore. I've got a wife, kids, a career. I've played enough GTA to know what the loop is. What gets me is the idea of a studio being told, essentially, cost doesn't matter, time doesn't matter, just make something cool. That's not how this industry works anymore. Not really.

Back in the mid-90s, Mario 64 and Quake hit and it was like the future showed up early. N64, Dreamcast, PS1. You had to be there. This feels like the first time since then that a mainstream game might give me that same jolt. Not because of one feature, but because the whole thing was built without the usual compromises.

The source post said GTA 6 is the closest we'll get to answering 'what would you build with unlimited time and budget?' I think that's fair. Maybe not literally unlimited, but closer than anything else we've seen. And it probably won't happen again for 15+ years. IP holders have burned trust, attention is fragmented, and AI is making investors scared to fund big human teams. The perfect storm might be a one-time thing.

Marketing's been meh, sure. But I don't think the game will be. See you all in Leonida.

Do you think another studio ever gets this kind of runway again, or is this the last blank check we'll see?

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Source: r/GTA6 · Curated content.