GTA 6: 10 Specific Lessons It Must Learn From Recent Games
2. Side Quests As Engaging As Story Missions
Side missions have never been GTA’s strong suit. With rose-tinted glasses, it’s easy to forget towing cars with Tanya, attempting to win a triathlon against a middle-aged woman with trust issues, or collecting 50 spaceship parts for a tin-foil hat enthusiast.
Like with many entries on this list, we’ve seen progress with side quests in Red Dead 2. These missions featured exciting action, deeper character development and extensive world-building to accompany the main story. So again, we hope Rockstar can take some pointers from their own property, alongside good examples from external products.
In 2015, The Witcher 3 came along and raised the standards for video game side quests permanently. Fetch quests, escort missions and collect-a-thons were no longer going to cut it. The market decided it preferred a capped number of well-written stories to limitless, procedurally generated dungeon crawls.
From now on, players will expect their side missions to be every bit as rewarding as the main story, if not more so. With each GTA instalment, Rockstar provide a massive playground for us to enjoy and it’s surely understandable that we’d want to get the most out of it.
Although GTA is always a monumental success, it’s doubtful any instalment will be mentioned in “Greatest Game of All Time” debates. Maybe this lesson could be the one to push them into that category, alongside Red Dead 2.