While Grand Theft Auto Online is over a decade old at this point, and many players are likely ready to move on to this year’s Grand Theft Auto 6, Take-Two’s CEO suggests the aging online game might continue to get updates so long as enough people are still playing.
In a new interview with IGN, the head of Rockstar Games’ parent company Take-Two, Strauss Zelnick, was asked why players should continue to invest time and money into GTA Online when the next big game in the series is possibly just eight months away from launching. Of course Zelnick couldn’t talk specifically about GTA 6's online multiplayer—which has yet to be revealed by Rockstar—but he did cite an old NBA game as example of how Take-Two has a track record of supporting games that people are still playing.
“I’m going to speak theoretically only because I’m not going to talk about a particular project when an announcement hasn’t been made. But generally speaking, we support our properties when the consumers are involved with those titles,” said Zelnick.
As an example, we launched NBA 2K Online in China, I think originally in 2012 if I’m not mistaken. And then we launched NBA 2K Online 2 in China in 2017. If I’m not mistaken. We did not sunset Online. They both are still in the market and they serve consumers and they’re alive and we have this massive audience.
Zelnick continued, “So we’ve shown a willingness to support legacy titles when a community wants to be engaged with them.”
While the Take-Two boss didn’t outright say “GTA Online will keep getting updates after GTA 6 launches,” it’s pretty clear what he’s suggesting here. If GTA Online has a large enough audience still playing, the game will likely get more updates. I do wonder how Rockstar North—the main studio behind GTA—would balance that with supporting GTA 6 and any online modes it might include. Would Rockstar tap other parts of the company to support GTA Online, or maybe even an outside studio to take over maintaining and updating the aging crime MMO? GTA Online still makes a lot of money, and Take-Two ain’t going to walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars.
As for GTA 6, earlier this month Zelnick seemed very confident that the next title in the series will launch in fall 2025, telling IGN: “Look, there’s always a risk of slippage and I think as soon as you say words like ‘absolutely,’ you jinx things. So we feel really good about it.”
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