Rockstar Games are the masters of the open world, there's no doubt about that. GTA IV, GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 are arguably their top three worlds, with a game-changing level of attention to detail, setting an almost impossible to beat standard for the industry.
But there's one issue with all of this - They're just making sequels. Now, we all want more GTA games and to see what Rockstar do next, but how exciting could it be to join Rockstar on a new journey, filled with new worldbuilding opportunities? This best could be done through a new IP - bringing in a new setting and tools for Rockstar to use, and a lot more things for them to poke fun at.
Here I have three suggestions for different genres of games that Rockstar could explore, with a fitting Online counterpart as it is unlikely that a modern-day Rockstar Games would release a game where their Online formula wouldn't fit into. - This is why I don't believe a Bully sequel would be in the works.
Apocalyptic Genre:
I even made each game concept it's own logo and image. Look at me go. - Nothing more apocalyptic than leather, sawed-off shotguns, hazy mists and a bunch of explosions
GTA Online has a whole slew of junk vehicles and tattered clothing for players, and a lot of people have been requesting Rockstar for a zombie or apocalypse DLC since the game's release in 2013. One step better than a GTA apocalypse DLC, however, is a new IP entirely - With new characters, stories, locations and more. It would work perfectly with RDR2's core and survival elements too.
- Fallout-style. Can be due to any cause but a nuclear war is the best option
- Health/stamina cores from RDR2
- Eating, drinking and managing heat is important to maintaining these, once again
- Horses and wreck vehicles both available for transport
- GTA universe cars could be a nice tie-in, and Arena War Apocalypse variants already exist
- Build up a shelter/camp/settlement from your resources - Choose whether to let new settlers join you or send them away
- Melee combat from RDR2 is back, but more in-depth when dealing with animals
- Bullets are rare-ish
- Weapons are craftable, and can be upgraded to have many new features using junk
- Clothes and armour can be upgraded
- Can increase defence, temperature resistence, or help stamina
- Huge wrecked city and smaller outpost towns,
- Like the typical Rockstar map
- Rockstar could parody politicians, celebrities and other notable figures and the way they’d deal with the apocalypse
- The big question, however. Zombies?
- Online:
- Online businesses could involve creating weapons, clothes and resources from ruined buildings
- Camp system from RDO, but with walls, wells, animal pens and other features for survival
- Up to 4 NPC settlers can join the player camp, and can be assigned roles
- Scavenging, Defence, Farming and Trading are some things they could do
- Heists would be more along the lines of raids, looking for supplies or freeing survivors
Daniel Allen has been on the road with his sister for fifteen years, but after she was hunted for food by a pack of marauders, he's had only one goal. To hunt down and kill every last one of them, before they tear apart any families. He fights his way towards different settlements, choosing to either help them or use them for his own personal gain. He needs to be ready to storm the old military base, filled to the brink with hungry, armed cannibals.
Futuristic / Sci Fi Genre:
Seem familiar? I took inspiration from the fantastic looking Cyberpunk 2077, then gave it the Rockstar flare. This is tied for my favourite with the apocalyptic one
Rockstar have been adding futuristic and military vehicles to GTA Online for a while now. Arena Wars added a new level of futuristic styled vehicles, clothes and items. Creating a new IP like GTA, but set 50 - 100 years in the future is an interesting idea for Rockstar to try, and gives us a sense of their entire vision for the future.
- Lets Rockstar fully explore the stuff they’ve been adding to GTA
- Deluxos and Oppressors are no longer the only hovering vehicles
- Rockstar could do interesting things with technology and the way it develops, and parody our current reality with it in their typical fashion
- New animals?
- Robotic cats, mutated polar bears, that sort of stuff
- Cybernetic body parts
- Perhaps a commitment to cyber limbs, so once you have one, you have to continue having a cybernetic limb there for the rest of the playthrough
- Maybe some aliens living among us
- Rockstar have lots of alien models from the GTA V costumes, so they could make them look a bit better and add more variations with clothes to flesh this out a bit more
- AI and robotic citizens would be good too
- Space travel? Allows for multiple open worlds
- This is less likely, but as technology improves, it could become possible. Two or three maps across different planets would be a fun dynamic to explore.
- Online businesses like GTA, perhaps with new things like VR cafes and android workshops
- Different planets unlocking at different ranks would be a brilliant way to introduce a better progression system
- Imagine smuggling goods from one planet, where they're legal to another, where they aren't. Avoiding the space cops
- Gives them the perfect chance to “Saints Row” it up a bit, and have it make sense
- I know that can be a dirty idea for the GTA comunity, but it's not actually a bad idea
- There could be cool tech, like grappling hooks, anti-gravity grenades and guns that teleport you into the air!
Dallas and Shannon Bell, newlyweds. Met during the 2156 gang war of Chicago, they have been taking scores across the Unified States of the Northern Americas. But there's one issue, the Law And Righteousness Enforcement Intelligence (Or Larei, pronounced "Larry") has been finalised, allowing better crime detection and dispersion. The Bells have got to score themselves enough Titcoin to get them off Earth and to one of the outer colonies, where they can happily retire on a beach of crimson sand.
Medieval Genre:
This picture certainly gives Assassin's Creed Valhalla vibes, but I was trying to capture the feel of Northern Scotland during the Autumn
The least likely thing for them to explore, but fun to speculate about. A few people have wished for Rockstar to introduce a Medieval IP
- Say farewell to your guns, and hello to swords, axes, spears and bows
- Story could maybe follow highlanders? Fleeing the English and trying to survive the Scottish weather and terrain
- They could take a leaf out of Assassin's Creed's book and have players fight mythological creatures like Nessie, the Kelpies or Faes.
- Literally just RDR but with an earlier time period and a different location
- Melee combat expanded from RDR2 to include melee weapons, with blocks and parries
- The bow could also have new melee moves and the likes
- I believe this is the least likely IP for Rockstar to explore due to their favour to set games in America, and the lack of guns is something that makes it a lot harder to imagine.
- Online businesses include blacksmithing, farming, tavern ownership and leatherworking
- Maybe if we could also make the foods, armours and weapons for ourselves to better our characters, that would be a nice way to set it aside from the rest of their games
Monroe Quinn - half Scottish, half Irish, full blown warrior. Leader of a small tribe of Celtic settlers, trying to make their way in life, Monroe was always a diplomatic and empathetic leader. That was until the English came. Watching the English invaders torch their houses and kidnap the women as he was tied to a burning tree broke something in him. As the ropes burned off his wrists, permanently scarring his hands, he set out on a quest to reunite his people as they continue to run from the invading knights.
The Multiverse
For years, people have obsessed with GTA V's 'Epsilon Project' and the strange mysteries surrounding it. Recently, it's resurfaced in RDR2 with the missing princess and Francis Sinclair's peculiar time-travel story.
Connecting the dots of the Epsilon Project and the descendants of Kraff is certainly fun, but I would love to see a game where it all comes together in some epic universal fantasy story, featuring gods and demons.
Each of my listed IPs could continue building the references to Rockstar's Gods, until they're finally ready to show us the full extent of their multiverse. It's highly unlikely (Almost impossible) they'd release a crossover game, but just thinking about it brings me a strange joy. Arthur Morgan, Michael De Santa, Cole Phelps, Max Payne, so many other characters working side by side to take on some epic evil that threatens their existence (I'd say DeadSec but Watch_Dogs hasn't come near to threatening any of Rockstar's titles)
Which of these games would you most like to play? Do you have any other ideas for new potential Rockstar IPs? Let us know!
