To say that Grand Theft Auto is a popular video game series is an understatement. This is one of the most popular and influential game series of all time.
One of the biggest add-ons came in July 2019, when Rockstar opened access to the massive Diamond Casino and Resort. The Casino allows you to trade GTA$ cash for casino chips, which you can then gamble on slot machines, virtual horse races, and a variety of table games including Poker, Blackjack, and Roulette. If you fancy spinning some reels but don’t have any GTA dollars you can always visit a $5 deposit casino. It might be your lucky day.
Going back to GTA, it’s no wonder that Grand Theft Auto Online has been incredibly popular for the past eight years, even though it’s rare for a multiplayer game of this type to stay popular for such a long time.
This is not strange when we consider that GTA Online lets players join forces in the crazy GTA 5 setting and do all sorts of shenanigans they would typically do in single-player mode. But players always crave for more.
Seven years after the release of GTA 5, Rockstar Games is finally in the early stages of developing GTA 6. News is scarce for now, but many would agree that it’s high time for the makers to add a much-beloved retro feature — a couch co-op or split-screen mode for the GTA 6 campaign.
GTA V Set the Stage
We all know most players would love a split-screen mode as it’s one of the best ways to enjoy gaming with friends. Plus, at the moment, we don’t have that feature in the story mode. Players can play together, but only in the online version of the game.
You can team up with as many as four players and perform co-op heists in GTA Online. But we can’t do the same in the story mode where the heists involving the three protagonists, Franklin, Michael, and Trevor, were the best part of the game. You would start a heist with the three characters and switch between them in the middle of the action.
It’s quite baffling that this incredible part of the story wasn’t endowed with a feature where different players play different characters in the main story. It would have been much better than playing with friends online, as this mode can never replace the charm of being in the same room, staring at the same TV, like we did when we were kids.
That’s why I believe it’s high time for Rockstar to introduce this retro way of playing their next installment in the GTA series.
As GTA 6 is still in its early development stage, we can only speculate that the developers are thinking about introducing this feature. However, it is a reasonable thing to hope for, especially when we consider that the game is likely to have more than one protagonist, a feature GTA 5 introduced and popularized.
Going Back in Time
Rumors say that GTA 6 will take place in the 1970s and 1980s, at the peak of the war on drugs. Players are reportedly going to be in the shoes of a drug lord in the making and a second character who would help the protagonist build their empire.
The most important thing about this supposed setting is that it’s perfect for co-op missions and, consequently, a split-screen mode. Players would need to synchronize their actions in these missions, and the best way to do that is via couch co-op.
Naturally, the developers can still make these missions available in the typical GTA 5 fashion, with a single-player switching between characters. However, we can’t help but think that this story would be perfect for split-screen mode, and it wouldn’t be too hard to add this feature as an optional mode of playing the main story.
What’s more, a split-screen mode wouldn’t be too demanding for next-generation consoles — PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The hardware needs to render the game twice for a split-screen mode to work, and the custom eight-core CPUs in both consoles are perfect for that.
Everything tells us that a split-screen mode is not just possible but quite likely for GTA 6. Rockstar Games is unlikely to release the game anytime soon, so they have ample time to plan and introduce the mode. The game is likely to come out between 2022 and 2024 or later.