GTA 6 hype: can it live up to expectations by November 19?

When it comes to double A and triple A games arriving in the last part of 2026, there's only one place to start, and that's Grand Theft Auto VI. It looks like it will be a spectacle, at least graphically, but I find it hard to see how any game could live up to the level of hype surrounding it.

Grand Theft Auto VI is the open world crime sim that's been in development for between eight and 12 years, depending on who you ask. It's easily the most expensive video game ever made, costing over 1 billion to make and market.

Grand Theft Auto VI hype is reaching an unrealistic level

The hype for this one is unreal, to the degree where new trailers are dropping on Netflix rather than YouTube. It's as if players are expecting their TV to open up and the G-man's face to pop out, offering them eternal life and a quick play of the Half-Life 3 prototype. In reality, you're going to be shooting, driving, managing your inventory and changing costume.

There have also been games in the past that spent this long in development and then suffered for it, because they felt outmoded in some respects by the time they released. Games move on quickly. Something conceived in the early 2010s will never be as on point as something started in 2022, which has the benefit of an extra decade of the medium's evolution.

Why Grand Theft Auto VI should still be a graphical spectacle

I'm not here to be a GTA doomsayer, though. The animation looks special, and the capture looks like something we've never seen before. So at least graphically, it's going to be a spectacle.

With this much on the line, it couldn't possibly be another Cyberpunk 2077, could it? We'll find out on November 19th.

The Kena: Bridge of Spirits follow-up might be keeping out of GTA's way

One game that might be keeping out of GTA's way is the next Kena: Bridge of Spirits game. I'm hoping that we'll see it and that it gets a good grade on Metacritic. With Wolverine scoring in the Metacritic 70s, it looks like Sony's lineup this year could use a shot in the arm.

I think the new Kena looks good, too. We have one shot of Kena bounding over a wide landscape on a giant mount, and that was enough to capture my imagination. Now we'll see whether the second Kena outing turns out to be a surprise release in the back half of the year or not.