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- GTA is such an influential franchise that it has now become the benchmark for open-world sandbox games.
- As such, every modern open-world game suffers from being compared to GTA and doesn’t live up to the comparisons.
- With no active GTA competitors, the open-world genre lacks the diversity it once had.
Grand Theft Auto is the only gaming franchise without a competitor because it’s the only franchise that no one can come even close to. The series is so successful that almost every person worldwide, gamer or non-gamer, immediately recognizes the IP.
The IP is so successful that every open-world sandbox game set in the modern era is labeled as a GTA clone even without trying. It’s safe to assume that, at this point, GTA has become the benchmark for open-world games.
While GTA’s clones and competitors have come and gone for generations now, for the first time, there is no active competitor against which GTA can compete, leaving the market wide open. GTA has always dominated the open-world genre, but the lack of competitors is not a good thing.
Why it matters: GTA clones have always been interesting. They take Rockstar’s blueprint and add a new twist, opening new doors. They’ve kept us busy while waiting for Rockstar to produce new games.
GTA Competitors Suffer From Identity Crisis
As I previously mentioned, every open-world sandbox is labeled as a GTA clone without even trying so. This leads to comparisons between the IPs, and it’s obvious that GTA always wins those.
It makes sense, considering the budget and development time Rockstar can afford. GTA’s level of detail, interaction, and lore is something that can’t be replicated.
Take Watch Dogs, for instance. It was a unique game with a cyber twist but was still called a GTA clone because of its third-person gameplay and modern open-world setting.
Saints Row tried to take a different route using the same base formula, making an unhinged parody series. While that has worked in the past, the latest entry, Saints Row 2022, felt like a low-budget mobile game and completely missed the mark.
The Mafia series, on the other hand, looks very much GTA-like but is entirely different on paper because of its linear and realistic approach. Still, it also ended up being discarded as a GTA clone.
Other franchises include Sleeping Dogs, a game first intended to be a True Crime sequel. For reference, True Crime was the most obvious GTA rip-off, and it even led Rockstar to troll them.
Anyhow, Sleeping Dogs became its own thing, and while it is one of the games that has aged like fine wine, there hasn’t been a follow-up in the series due to disappointing sales. All that happened was because of the contrast between Sleeping Dogs and the GTA games, with everyone labelling it as another rip-off when it was first launched.
GTA’s Long Development Times And Other Franchises Shelved Limit Open-World Diversity
It won’t be an understatement if I say that GTA 6 is the most-awaited game in history. The last GTA game was released a little over a decade ago, and fans have been hungry ever since.
Surprisingly, we’ve witnessed the run of the whole Watch Dogs franchise since the release of GTA 5, with 3 titles spanning the franchise. The franchise has already been reportedly shelved while we’re still waiting for GTA 6.
Titles like Watch Dogs, Sleeping Dogs, and others have kept us entertained during the long hiatus of every GTA release. However, the modern open-world genre has become less diverse with each decade.
This is because these games couldn’t live up to the comparison with GTA, which was used as the benchmark.
Watch Dogs is still one of my favorite games. Ubisoft eventually went in the wrong direction with the series, trying to rid itself of the comparisons, which has reportedly led to the franchise being shelved.
Now that GTA 6 is nearing release, we don’t have any open-world sandbox game to look forward to, or as others would call it, GTA Clones. The only title releasing next is Mafia 4, which will probably be overshadowed by GTA 6 since it will be released in the same time frame.
It’s unfortunate that we won’t see as many experiments or diversity in the open-world genre as we once did. This does make sense since these comparisons demotivate developers. Even though that isn’t the case, all of the development time and effort put into the game is ruined after being called out for copying GTA games.
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[News Reporter]
Shaheer is currently pursuing a Business degree while also working as a part-time Content Writer. With his deep passion for both writing and video games, he has seamlessly transitioned into a role as a Journalist. Over the past two years, Shaheer has contributed as a freelancer to various websites and landed positions on acclaimed platforms like Gamerant. Currently, his role at Tech4gamers is as a Features Writer, but he also covers News occasionally. Shaheer’s favorite gaming franchises are Assassin’s Creed and the God of War series.
Get In Touch: shaheer@tech4gamers.com
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