Opinion: what if GTA 6 is just fine?

Heads up: this is a what-if, and it is mine. Nobody has played GTA 6 and told me anything. The facts below are real. The scenario is a thought experiment, and I am aware that some of you will read the headline and close the tab in protest.

Everyone has a hypothetical about GTA 6. It gets delayed again. It breaks the internet. It wins every award going. Mine is smaller and, I think, scarier. What if GTA 6 comes out on November 19 and it is just fine?

Not bad. Not broken. Fine. An 8 out of 10. A game you enjoy for sixty hours and then go back to your life.

The bar we built

Let us be clear about the height of the bar, because we built it ourselves.

• The track record. GTA IV, GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 all landed at 97 or higher on Metacritic on the consoles they launched on. Rockstar does not do "decent".
• The wait. GTA V came out in September 2013. Anyone who was twelve then is now old enough to have a mortgage, a bad back and an opinion about it.
• The money. Sensor Tower estimates more than 6.45 million pre-orders, at 79.99 dollars and up. I picked that number apart earlier today, but even the small print agrees that millions of people paid in advance for a game nobody has reviewed.
• The showcase. The Extended Look premiered on Netflix on August 27. A video game. On Netflix. With a countdown.

Nothing about that list says "fine". Everything about it says "the greatest thing ever made, or else".

What fine would actually look like

Here is where I have to be careful, because this is the hypothetical part.

Fine would not mean bad writing or ugly cities. Everything Rockstar has shown says the opposite. Fine would look like a game that does everything GTA V did, but bigger, prettier and with better shoes. Leonida would be gorgeous. The wanted system would be cleverer. Rockstar told The New York Times a playthrough of the story and narrative side content took about 80 hours in a February test. That would all be true, and somewhere around hour forty you would think, "Yes. This is GTA."

That is the trap. "This is GTA" is a compliment to any other game. To a game that has had thirteen years and a Netflix premiere, it sounds like a shrug.

Why fine would be fine, actually

Now let me argue with myself, since nobody else in this office will.

A "fine" GTA 6 would still be the most detailed open world anyone has built. It would still sell more in a week than most games do in their life. And it would still be the game everyone is playing at Christmas. The only thing a merely very good GTA 6 would break is the internet's ability to calm down.

The disappointment would not be Rockstar's fault. It would be ours. We spent a decade inventing features from blurry screenshots, and no game can ship the version that lives in millions of heads at once.

What I think will actually happen

Verdict, since I promised one. I do not think GTA 6 will be just fine. Rockstar's record says it will be very good at worst. But I think a lot of people are going to feel like it is just fine for about a week. That is how long it takes to notice the game in front of you is not the one you imagined.

So here is my unsolicited advice for November 19. Lower your expectations by ten percent. You will still get a 97. And if you do not, you will at least get a very nice car.

I will have more to say about the scores themselves the morning the review embargo lifts. Until then, Six has what is known about review dates.