We Finally Know Why GTA 6 Is Taking So Long

Fans of the Grand Theft Auto franchise have spent the last several months reaching for any signs of Grand Theft Auto 6's development. While it has been confirmed that the game is being made, it will probably be a while before fans get a chance to play it. This has led to some disgruntled gamers taking their frustrations out on Rockstar Games. However, Grand Theft Auto 5 actor Shawn Fonteno has some words of advice for those angry fans, as well as a possible explanation for the amount of time it's taking for Rockstar to complete the next GTA game.

While livestreaming on Instagram, Fonteno revealed his feelings regarding people being angry with Rockstar. In a clip of the livestream shared by fan account GTAVInewz on Twitter, Fonteno did not mince words when talking about how difficult it is to make and release a AAA game, even from an actor's perspective.

"Don't knock Rockstar down, man," Fonteno began. He explained that he continues to see negative or impatient comments from fans on all of Rockstar's social media posts. Among these are posts from people accusing Rockstar of always "milking" Grand Theft Auto 5.

Fonteno is likely referring to people who are frustrated by the fact that Rockstar is releasing yet another version of Grand Theft Auto 5 for next-gen consoles. However, those same fans may be happy to know that this release isn't just the same old game with a graphical facelift. There will be exclusive content released for the next-gen editions of GTA 5. For example, it has been teased that Fonteno and some of the other GTA 5 actors will be reprising their roles for new missions within GTA Online. 

Fonteno also mentioned that there are people who are always asking when Rockstar plans to release Grand Theft Auto 6. Fonteno urged those fans to give Rockstar a break and a bit of room to work. He explained that making each of the games in the series is a "process." He also pointed out that the outbreak of COVID-19 was very likely a big factor in slowing down GTA 6's development.

Fonteno pointed out that it was much better to wait for Rockstar to make the best product it could. He also reasoned that fans "wouldn't accept it" if Rockstar rushed a new GTA game to market when it was unfinished.

He concluded, "Rockstar is a quality, high-end, top shelf type of business, man ... It's time, man ... If y'all look at the interviews of us, man, it took us ... four years, four-and-a-half years to film and complete GTA 5."

This is a very fair point, particularly since Fonteno is presumably talking about the actors on the project and how long their roles took. It sounds like they were brought back several times during the production of Grand Theft Auto 5, adding new voiceover work and the like. Then there's the fact that the game was always evolving during production, which led to whole missions either being revamped or dropped. There's a ton of GTA content fans never got to see, but that's all part of the process of developing a big-budget video game.

Of course, this explanation wasn't entirely accepted by all fans. As at least one person pointed out on Twitter, previous games in the series had story expansions. However, those were sadly dropped from GTA 5 in favor of more GTA Online content.

It has been suggested that motion capture and voice recordings for Grand Theft Auto 6 are well underway. Earlier this year, actor Jorge Consejo added GTA 6 to his resume, identifying his character's name as "The Mexican." At the time, he told fans that he could not share any details of his work on the game, indicating that listing the role on his CV was a slip-up. It's unclear how far along Rockstar is in the process of recording the acting performances, but as Fonteno has mentioned, it could take a few years to get everything needed for the final product. 

As pointed out by GTAVInewz, "From Jorge Consejo's CV, it appears to be that Rockstar luckily finished the motion capture and possibly the story line in 2018." However, that is just a guess at this point.

It's also worth remembering that there was an eight-year gap between the releases of Red Dead Redemption and Red Read Redemption 2. That second game was also released nearly a full console generation later, but critics and fans generally feel like it was worth the wait. In other words, hopefully the fans' patience will be rewarded when Grand Theft Auto 6 finally makes its debut, hopefully on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.