The highly anticipated trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 finally arrived last week, giving fans a first look at the next installment in Rockstar’s blockbuster open-world crime series. However, shortly after the GTA 6 trailer debuted, an unlikely sequel began trending – Grand Theft Auto 7.
Despite GTA 6 still being years away from its targeted 2025 release, speculation about a future GTA 7 has quickly spread across social media platforms and fan communities. A subreddit dedicated to GTA 7 has already garnered over 3,600 members, with most predictions estimating the seventh GTA game could arrive sometime in the mid-2030s.
The Continued Reign of GTA Online
While such early conjecture about GTA 7 may seem premature, it highlights the incredible longevity and popularity of Rockstar’s flagship franchise. 2013’s GTA 5 has continued to sell extremely well nearly a decade after launch, largely fueled by its universally popular online multiplayer component, GTA Online.
GTA Online has afforded developer Rockstar and publisher Take-Two continuous revenue streams from virtual currency microtransactions and frequent content updates. Rockstar will surely aim to replicate this successful model with GTA 6’s online platform, leading analysts to speculate it may have an equally long lifespan as its predecessor.
“Rockstar has every incentive to ensure GTA 6’s online element is just as big a hit as GTA Online,” said senior games industry analyst Louise Ward. “Another 10 years of lucrative post-launch content could push a potential GTA 7 release out to the late 2030s.”
See Also: GTA 6 Trailer Smashes Records with Over 100 Million Views
What Could GTA 7 Have in Store?
While concrete details about GTA 7 are non-existent, fans on platforms like Reddit are already imagining potential settings, protagonists, gameplay features and technological capabilities for such a distant sequel.
The rapid pace of advancement in gaming hardware has also prompted speculation about what future platforms GTA 7 could launch on. “It’s exciting to think where things like PlayStation, Xbox and PC gaming may be 15 years from now,” said Reddit user gtafan2037. “Will we all be playing GTA 7 in fully immersive virtual reality by then?”
Other commenters pondered if ever-evolving companies like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will even still be making consoles two console generations from now. But with Grand Theft Auto’s sales dominance over the last two decades, most agree Rockstar’s sequels will likely always have a home on whatever gaming devices are available.
GTA 6 Still the Current Focus
Despite all the chatter surrounding a hypothetical GTA 7, fans have plenty to look forward to in the more immediate future with GTA 6. Rockstar’s trailer teased what looks to be the series’ biggest and most ambitious entry yet, with an sprawling, evolving open world set across fictitious versions of Miami and Latin America.
For now, speculative excitement for GTA 7 will have to wait. But knowing the immense passion behind the Grand Theft Auto community, more theories and discussions around what could lie in store for a seventh installment will undoubtedly continue percolating for years to come.
