Thirteen Years Between Sequels: How Much Gaming Changed While Waiting for GTA 6
Written by the GTA6 Resources team
GTA 6 finally arrives on November 19, but the gap since GTA 5's 2013 launch was long enough for entire consoles, companies, and industry eras to rise and fall around it.
As GTA 6's November 19 release date draws near, GameSpot published a retrospective looking back at just how much the gaming industry has shifted since GTA 5 launched in September 2013 -- a 13-year gap that outlasted entire console generations and business strategies.
The list highlights some wild contrasts. Skyrim, which came out even before GTA 5, has now been ported to nearly every platform imaginable, including an Amazon Alexa text-adventure version. Halo, once a flagship Xbox exclusive, is now playable on PlayStation 5 following the launch of Halo: Campaign Evolved. Meanwhile GTA 5 itself quietly kept pace with the times, eventually landing on PC, Xbox One, PS4, and current-gen consoles well after its original Xbox 360 and PS3 debut.
Corporate and industry milestones piled up too, according to GameSpot. EA's Andrew Wilson became CEO within days of GTA 5's original launch and just presided over the company's $55 billion sale to a Saudi-backed investment group. E3, once the site of massive GTA 5 billboard promotions near the LA Convention Center, was permanently canceled after a rocky post-COVID stretch. The pandemic itself reshaped the industry's finances, fueling a hiring and investment boom that later collapsed into waves of layoffs and studio closures.
The piece also charts the rise and fall of would-be GTA rivals and Rockstar-adjacent franchises. Watch Dogs delivered three entries before going quiet, Saints Row's reboot flopped and led to Volition's shutdown, and Destiny enjoyed a multi-year live-service run before Bungie pivoted to other projects. On the hardware side, Xbox's Phil Spencer era came and went, the Nintendo Switch overcame the Wii U's failure to become gaming's second best-selling console ever, and console prices climbed sharply -- with the Xbox Series X now $300 more expensive than its 2020 launch price.
Taken together, GameSpot's rundown frames GTA 6's looming arrival less as a simple sequel and more as the closing bookend to an unusually eventful stretch of gaming history.
