By Opening Thoughts
Rockstar casually dropped the biggest gaming announcement on Twitter in early November. Now that the entire world has their YouTube notifications switched on for the pending trailer announcement, the anticipation and rumor mill have gone into overdrive. You only need to briefly glimpse social media to see how much Grand Theft Auto 6 has people talking. With this new chapter, Rockstar is bringing a triumphant end to their phenomenal accomplishment of GTA 5 and aiming for another groundbreaking segment to their massive franchise.
Casino Poker Gaming In GTA
Rockstar has pioneered casino mini-games for nearly 20 years. Back in the classic days of San Andreas and the PlayStation 2, they had fully functioning casino games where you could play slots, roulette, and video poker. As the games advanced, so did the worlds within which they were built, and the mini-games took on new levels of impressiveness.
The Diamond Casino & Resort in GTA V is a fully functioning mini-casino online and features in several of the missions, too. Three-card poker is a hit for online GTA players, and while you can’t use real money, it allows people to educate themselves about the game and learn how the betting system works.
Each chapter of Grand Theft Auto continues to set new boundaries, and given that we have had to wait over a decade for the latest game to come to fruition, there’ll no doubt be dozens of incredible new features that people can explore. Perhaps in casino gaming terms, the next logical step will be a sprawling casino with multiple poker games and different types of bets you can place.
Texas Holdem is the most popular version of the game, so you’d imagine Rockstar will be keen to implement this in some way and perhaps generate publicity through offering tournaments where you can play on GTA against other people online without stake limits, as players do when they play uncapped betting Texas Holdem games.
With Rockstar keeping everything extremely secretive, nobody knows what they will have in store for their GTA 6 casino or if there’s even one in the game. It would be a surprise not to see them add popular versions like Texas Holdem to their casino to bolster the number of games available. Still, there’ll likely be many mesmerizing changes that people don’t see coming, and the casino offerings will make up a small selection of the overall package.
What To Anticipate From GTA 6
As with each Rockstar game, there’ll be a wide range of changes that aim to drill into the latest gaming tech and some of the latest pop culture. Some of the parody, humor, and music that has defined the older games will no doubt play a significant role in bolstering the success of this game, which is set for release either toward the end of 2024 or early 2025, according to reports.
Rockstar has the luxury of time, and it allows natural hysteria to build about the next release. Few designers and publishers would get away with leaving a new installment of any franchise for so long. Sports games like FIFA, which has recently been rebranded to FC 24 and overhauled many features, come around once every year, so the changes aren’t as noticeable or seismic as they are with Rockstar. The New York-based design companies usually have a few years of work going into each project, which is always evident in the quality of the finished product.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was the last game Rockstar truly blew us away with. Many of the advances in graphic design and an enormous free-roam map were two of the best takeaways from that – many game critics and fans agree that they’re not sure where GTA 6 goes from here, considering how groundbreaking and critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption 2 was.
Other than a return to Vice City and the potential female lead character, there is nothing else that Rockstar or Take Two have released about the new game. Vice City, released over 20 years ago, was a landmark moment in video gaming and has cemented its legacy forever. If Rockstar brings back even some of the older radio stations or songs, this will open the door to a flood of nostalgia for those who remember the iconic Vice City.
Conclusion
For some of the innovations Rockstar has introduced with each game, given the quality of GTA 5 and casino gaming, it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to expect poker tournaments to occur in the game and online. Despite no confirmation of this, Rockstar will have been working on GTA 6 for over half a decade by the time it comes out, so there will be so many incredible changes and pieces of creativity. The casino improvements might be a mere footnote if they do materialize. Still, one thing is sure: few games, if any, have generated such mega hysteria, and the trailer could rack up tens of millions of views within the first day or two of its release.
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