If you are going by titles, GTA 6 is expected to have a reasonably deep single player storyline filled with cultural references.

The more recent trailer just seemed like them recreating events that happened in real life, and less being a mockery to create commentary on events of real life.

IMO this is the distinguishing difference I noticed from trailers of previous titles and this current one. Of course it was literally only a minute and 15 seconds of trailer, but it does just seem a little odd to me. Of course, when I wrote a small essay the only comments were “bro piss off it’s GTA” and “it’s GTA you’re reading too much into it.”

Most just don’t care. And many more have not played the earlier titles which were a little more brazen in their commentary due to the world these characters are living in – CJ as the experience of living in a poorer urban area surrounded by a wider richer city, where you have the dichotomy of what is happening in the story alongside the events on the radio (mostly the hosts reactions), or Niko as an immigrant in New York which brings a different perspective but keeps that thematic class separation while having some pretty decent social commentary.

GTA5 just doesn’t hit those marks IMO. Yes, there’s active class divide what with Trevor and Michael, but the storyline and the events of all 3 characters definitely have some emotional moments, IMO it just doesn’t hit the same points. Part of this I think is due to each of these characters almost acting as a sort of archetype, not necessarily of character but of game play. Michael is very much set for success, so you can easily progress. Franklin isn’t, and thus has to work for his status. And Trevor is the maniac who just blows shit up.

In terms of social commentary, there isn’t much that the game actually tries to say, IMO as a byproduct of their overemphasis of the heavily conservative and hyper-capitalist radio, which further is failed by Trevor and Michael being the most average Americans who are part of the problem. And while I like Franklin and his story, it’s ultimately just another story of someone in a bad spot trying to do better, and falling victim to how hard it is to get out. Which, yeah, that’s a decent and very real message, but it’s undermined by it all working out for him and owning a business – don’t worry y’all, crime pays as long as it’s with the right friends!

So, for me to see the trailer of GTA6 just literally recreating the events that happened in the real world, I sort of feel like the creative insanity where GTA allows us to see whacky shit that could never actually exist is highly diminished as a result of that. Again, it was under 2 minutes of footage and of course there’s plenty more.

I also personally think RDR2 is not fun and the hype around it is pretty much entirely manufactured as “it’s so good because it’s R* and the ultimate realism!”. Well, that “realism” made for shit gameplay for horses and boring fetch quests. It’s a beautiful game, it’s got a great story, it is not a good game because of that. That’s not to say it is terrible through and through and never has fun moments, I just personally was more frustrated with the game than I was enthralled with it for a majority of my time playing it. Shooting is nice though.

I must also say, I’ve never been a particularly die-hard fan of GTA or R*. I grew up playing their games at friends houses, so they’re really nostalgic to me. RDR and RD1 were great for their time, Revolver still holds up pretty well today through emulation. Slow for sure, but it holds up. GTAIV was my first real experience at open-world sandbox games, and while I enjoyed my time with it, it definitely is not my sort of game for long-term enjoyment. I can only play the story so many times and then get bored just driving around like a maniac. The best part of IV’s replayability is the physics, which seemed to have been drastically scaled back for GTA 5.

And I haven’t even gotten into what GTA:O has done, so I don’t have high expectations. I think your assumption of the developer output perspective is likely very apt. GTA5 came out in 2013, 11 years ago. It will likely be on 4 generations of consoles, unless they choose to only sell GTA6 for the PS6 and Xbox1920.

There is no way that their focus is on a long term single player experience. There’s just no way.