GTA 6 Is Even Bigger Than We Thought, Brace Yourselves

GTA VI’s release is set to be monumental; easily one of the biggest the industry has ever seen.

There are multiple ways you can interpret that.

Certainly, we’ve never seen hype quite like what we’ve had with GTA VI. It feels pretty likely that the game will set both pre-order records and sales records.

We can’t exactly rule out GTA VI’s literal size as being an industry podium contender either.

Rockstar Games hasn’t confirmed how long GTA VI is nor its file size, but leaks suggest we’re looking at a whopper.

In fact, GTA VI is set to be so enormous that it might’ve outgrown the AAA category it should belong to.

One industry veteran has just called the upcoming title the first “AAAAA game” to grace the industry.

To bring you up to speed, AAA refers to a game that is made by a mid-sized or major publisher, while AA games come from smaller studios with tighter budgets.

We then have indie games which I suppose would be ‘A’ games but absolutely nobody uses that phrasing.

Officially, nothing really exists beyond AAA but Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones did stake its claim as the first AAAA game ever, not that the classification label has caught on.

It’s a move that was heavily memed as Skull and Bones was dead on arrival, but the idea behind the marketing move was that a AAAA title may boast an enormous budget, a several years-long development cycle, and world leading technology.

It’s essentially a AAA game that’s perhaps invested more time to reach an unprecedented level of ambition or quality.

Like I said, it’s not a category that’s caught on, and while I could see a few pre-existing games ticking the AAAA category boxes, Skull and Bones certainly isn’t one of them.

So what does this mean for GTA VI potentially being AAAAA?

Well, first things first, the comment was made by Devolver Digital co-founder Nigel Lowrie who, as reported by GameSpot, explained that GTA VI is “just bigger than anything else both in the scope and scale of the game and the kind of cultural impact that it has”.

I understand his reasoning but then when the AAAA categorisation hasn’t caught on, it seems odd to think that GTA VI might’ve jumped ahead to AAAAA.

Of course, Lowrie isn’t connected to GTA VI so this isn’t indicative of Rockstar’s ambitions, although I’m sure they are hoping for this release to make history.

What we should really take away from this is that if fellow developers see GTA VI as this much of a threat, it should give us some indication as to just how much this title is going to dominate next year, whether that be through sales, awards, or simple conversation.