More information has emerged from last year's Rockstar hack, with the latest leaks showing that Rockstar had several large-scale pieces of single-player DLC planned for GTA 5 (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:including a return to Liberty City), alongside mentions of a sequel to Bul🅠ly, and possible proof o𒅌f its original IP, Agent. If you've been playing triple-A games over the past decade, you likely know that none of those projects made it to fruition. Outside of the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 and the forthcoming GTA 6, the studio devoted most of its resources to its live service GTA Online.
Rockstar's last decade is thrown into sharp contrast when compared to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Insomniac's leaked plans for the next decade. We don't need to get into the specifics of the games the studio has on its schedule, but Insomniac’s leaked slides listed at least six games planned for release between now and 2032.
If another studio announced (or had leaked) a release slate that packed, I might be skeptical, but Insomniac has consistently delivered at that rate. Since the release of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spyro the Dragon in 1998, there have only been four years that Insomniac did not release a new game: 2001, 2010, 2017, and 2022. And, in a few of those cases, it launched multiple games the year after and/or the year before. I've often held Insomniac up as a model for other triple-A developers to follow, and its ability to continue to deliver big, yet simultaneously smartly scoped, triple-A games at the same pace it maintained in the early 2000s is the reason why.
The Insomniac hack points tꩵo a massive $300+ million budget for Spider-Man 2, prompting concerns about ways to cut budgetary corners going forward, so Insomniac is not necessarily the example to follow in every respect.
Rockstar is a different kind of story. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Grand Theft Auto Online wasn't a failure. It's one of the greatest financial successes in the history of entertainment. But, that success meant morphing into an entirely different kind of studio. It isn't the studio that released three GTA games in three years. It isn't even the studio that released one big GTA game followed by multiple pieces of single-player DLC. It's a studio that releases one big game every half-decade and updates a live game for its many dedicated fans the rest of the time. It isn't the worst outcome — Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the best games of the last 10 years — but it makes it clear how much time, money, and attention it takes to keep up in the modern games-as-a-service landscape.
These two possible roads point to two very different visions of game development. You can make great single-player games. You can make a great live-service game. But, it's incredibly difficult for one studio to do both. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Naughty Dog came to this conclusion recently, canceling its planned 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us multiplayer game after the project grew so ambitious that the company knew it would prevent it from making the single-player games it's acclaimed for.
Some studios have managed to walk that tightrope, but that list is short. Respawn is the golden example, managing to release both 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Apex Legends and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order in 2019. And it was still supporting Apex Legends four years later when it launched 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which earned better reviews than the first. It's an enviable set-up, which allows for a consistent source of income while the single-player team works on its next big project.
But the list of single-player studios that have attempted to support a multiplayer game and belly flopped is much longer. Crystal Dynamics with Marvel's Avengers. BioWare with Anthem. Arkane with Redfall. Bethesda with Fallout 76. These teams, known for their beloved single-player games, were all met with critical and commercial indifference or outright disdain when they attempted to compete in a space dominated by teams, like Bungie, Blizzard, and Riot, that have multiplayer gaming in their DNA.
Rockstar managed the transition, but fans of the studio (at least the ones who weren't GTA Online obsessives) lost a lot in the process. But, as the live service trend shows major signs of slowing, it seems possible that GTA 6 could reverse the focus. If not, studios like Insomniac will likely have plenty of new single-player games to fill the gap.
The GTA 6 Teaser Has Wormed ꦫIts Way Into My Brain Liꦉke No Trailer Since The Force Awakens
The GTA 6🧸 trailer demands to be watched again and again.
