Absence of GTA competitors creates lack of diversity in the open world genre

Posted on by Vaseline

Highlight of the story

  • GTA is such an influential franchise that it has become the benchmark for open-world sandbox games.
  • That’s why every modern open-world game struggles to compare with GTA and fails to live up to expectations.
  • With no active GTA competitors, the open world genre lacks the diversity it once had.

Grand Theft Auto is the only game franchise without a competitor, because it is the only franchise that no one can even come close to. The series is so successful that almost everyone in the world, 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 a GTA clone without even trying. It’s safe to assume that, at this point, GTA has become the benchmark for open-world games.

While GTA clones and competitors have come and gone for generations, this is the first there is no active competitor against which GTA can competeleaving the market wide open. GTA has always dominated the open-world genre, but the lack of competitors is not good.

Why it’s important: GTA clones have always been interesting. They take Rockstar’s blueprint and add a new twist, opening up new doors. They’ve kept us busy while we wait for Rockstar to produce new games.

GTA Contestants Suffer From Identity Crisis

Rockstar Games Mafia DE
Despite playing completely differently, Mafia is still called a GTA clone | Image credit: Tech4Gamers

As I said before, every open-world sandbox gets labeled as a GTA clone without even trying. This leads to comparisons between the IPs, and it’s clear that GTA always wins.

It makes sense, given 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 example. 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 with the same basic formula, creating a runaway parody series. While that worked in the past, the latest game, Saints Row 2022, felt like a low-budget mobile game and completely missed the mark.

The Mafia series, on the other hand, is very similar to GTA, but on paper it is completely different due to its linear and realistic approach. However, it was eventually dismissed as a GTA clone.

Other franchises include Sleeping Dogs, a game that was originally intended as a sequel to True Crime. For reference, True Crime was the most obvious GTA rip-off, and it even led to Rockstar trolling them.

Anyway, Sleeping Dogs became its own thing, and while it’s one of those games that has aged like fine wine, there hasn’t been a sequel in the series due to poor sales. This was all due to the contrast between Sleeping Dogs and the GTA games, with everyone labeling it as yet another rip-off when it first launched.

The long development times of GTA and other delayed franchises limit the diversity of the open world

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Watch Dogs failed to live up to expectations as a GTA clone, leading to the demise of the franchise

It is no understatement to say that GTA 6 is the most anticipated game in history. The last GTA game was released a little over a decade ago and fans have been hungry ever since.

Surprisingly enough, we have the run of the entire Watch Dogs franchise since the release of GTA 5with 3 titles covering the franchise. The franchise has reportedly been shelved while we still wait for GTA 6.

Titles like Watch Dogs, Sleeping Dogs and others have kept us entertained during the long hiatus of each GTA release. However, the modern open-world genre has become less diverse with each decade.

This is because these games could not match the comparison with GTA, which was used as a benchmark.

Watch Dogs is still one of my favorite games. Ubisoft ultimately went the wrong way with the series by trying to get rid of the comparisons, which reportedly led to the franchise being shelved.

Now that GTA 6 is coming out soonwe don’t have an open world sandbox game to look forward to, or as others would call it, GTA Clones. The only title coming out next is Mafia 4, which will probably be overshadowed by GTA 6 since it’s coming out in the same time frame.

It’s a shame that we won’t see as much experimentation or diversity in the open world genre as we once did. It makes sense, because these comparisons demotivate developers. Even if that’s not the case, all the development time and effort that went into the game is ruined after being called out for copying GTA games.

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