Ila Goodrich

Contributing Writer

Nov. 19 will be one of the biggest moments for gaming in a significant period of time. On that date, the highly anticipated release of GTA VI by Rockstar Games will be released, 13 years after the release of GTA V.

This, however, has brought questions to the overall gaming community: do people really want to wait a decade or more for the next establishment of a game as big as the GTA series?

“I think the biggest issues with a large time gap between releasing games in a series is it sort of builds a certain level of expectation that might not always be met,” Roman Maiorano, a senior who majors in digital media technologies, said as a massive fan of the GTA franchise.

There are other game series as well that have not released their next game despite being some of the biggest in the world. The Elder Scrolls series, with Skyrim being one of the best selling games in history, is one. It has nearly been 15 years since the release of Skyrim, and the release of the next game in the series has only the most basic information released regarding the state of the game’s development.

The Mass Effect series is another example of a massive series that has not released a game since the flop of Mass Effect: Andromeda in 2017. Since then, very little has been shown for a fifth game in the franchise other than confirmation that they would create one back at The Game Awards in 2020.

Some other games which have come out relatively recently also have taken years to release. For example, Baldur’s Gate III hasn’t had a new installment in 23 years. Silksong had an eight-year difference between its release and Hollow Knight. The release of Pikmin 4 in 2023 was 10 years after the third in the franchise. Subnautica 2 was released five years after the last game in the franchise. Dragon Age: The Veilguard released in 2024, 10 years after the GOTY winning Dragon Age Inquisition.

This time spent waiting for the next game brought anticipation to fans of the series. However, if the game underperforms, we can see that a series could die because of it.

“I really think it depends on how the company handles the game. Because, if it’s something like Rockstar where they are pushing it back and pushing it back, I do not think that it is healthy for the gaming industry. However, in contrast with Silksong where they did not release much about it, they did not put too much about it so they wouldn’t overpromise,” said Matthew Palmeter, an undecided freshmen.

Mass Effect: Andromeda, was a great example of this. When the game released it had many bugs, not a terribly impressive story, and various aspects of the game that lost its massive fanbase quickly after launch. Same with Dragon Age: Veilguard, which had a user score on Metacritic at 4.0 out of 10.

However, games like Baldur’s Gate III and Silksong were the complete opposite. Baldur’s Gate 3 won Game of the Year, and Silksong crashed the Steam and Nintendo eShops at the time of release with thousands of purchases.

“I think any amount of time spent on making Baldur’s Gate 3 was worth it,” said Nolan Lauer, a freshman nursing student here at ESU, raving about his enjoyment of the game.

There have been two results of game companies taking time before releasing the next installment: absolute failure or tremendous success. GTA VI will fall into one of these categories so shall other big games mentioned like Elder Scrolls 6 and Mass Effect 5. Hopefully, they are magnificent for the fan base, but we shall see the results shortly.