Take-Two CEO Affirms Support for Legacy Titles Amid GTA Online's Future Uncertainty Post-GTA 6

The question on many GTA Online players' minds as the release of Grand Theft Auto 6 approaches in the fall of 2025 is: what will happen to GTA Online? This concern stems from the enduring popularity and profitability of GTA Online, Rockstar's live service game that has kept players engaged for over a decade. The decision to focus on this live service rather than on story DLC for Grand Theft Auto 5 has been a point of contention among some fans. However, the looming release of GTA 6 and its expected new iteration of GTA Online—potentially dubbed GTA Online 2—raises questions about the future of the current game.

Players who have invested significant time, effort, and money into the existing GTA Online are worried about being left behind when the new version launches. This uncertainty prompts a critical question: should players continue to invest in GTA Online in early 2025, knowing that a new GTA Online might be just months away? This was a topic that IGN recently explored with Take-Two's CEO, Strauss Zelnick, in an interview before the company's third-quarter financial report.

While Zelnick did not provide specific details on GTA Online's future, he discussed Take-Two's approach to their other successful franchise, NBA 2K Online. Launched in 2012, and followed by NBA 2K Online 2 in 2017, both versions continued to be supported in the market. This strategy allowed fans of the original to keep playing without feeling abandoned.

"I'm going to speak theoretically only because I'm not going to talk about a particular project when an announcement hasn't been made," Zelnick stated. "But generally speaking, we support our properties when the consumers are involved with those titles. As an example, we launched NBA 2K Online in China, I think originally in 2012 if I'm not mistaken. And then we launched NBA 2K Online 2 in China in 2017. If I'm not mistaken. We did not sunset Online 1. They both are still in the market and they serve consumers and they're alive and we have this massive audience."

Zelnick's comments suggest a willingness to continue supporting legacy titles if there is an engaged community. This implies that even if GTA Online 2 is released, the original GTA Online might not be discontinued, provided players keep showing interest.

As we await more details about GTA 6, with only Trailer 1 and a release window confirmed so far, it's clear that Rockstar will need to provide more information soon, especially with the potential release of Borderlands 4 in September 2025. In the meantime, players can consider Zelnick's insights on whether skipping a PC launch for GTA 6 could be a mistake.