Will GTA 6 Be the Best Open-World Game of All Time?

The Day I Put Down the Controller in Red Dead 2 to Watch a Sunset

It wasn’t planned. I was riding toward a mission, crossing the Heartlands on horseback, and suddenly the sky caught fire. Orange, violet, pink. I stopped galloping. I set down the controller. And for thirty seconds, I just… watched. A video game had made me forget it was a video game.

That’s the standard GTA 6 has to beat. Not just a massive map. Not just stuff to do. A world that pulls you in so completely you forget you’re sitting on a couch.

The question is straightforward: can a game truly be THE best open world of all time? And if so, does GTA 6 have a shot?

The Four Kings to Dethrone

To claim the throne, you first need to know your rivals. And in 2026, the open-world pantheon has four founding members.

The Witcher 3 (2015) — The Master of Storytelling

Ten years after release, Velen still gives you chills. CD Projekt Red understood before anyone else that an empty open world is a dead open world. Every side quest in The Witcher 3 was written with the care of a main quest. The Bloody Baron. The quest for Whoreson Junior. Those names conjure specific memories for millions of players. The Witcher 3 proved an open world could tell stories everywhere, not just along the critical path.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) — Absolute Immersion

GTA 6’s own older sibling, and its most dangerous rival. RDR2 remains, seven years later, the gold standard for simulating a living world. NPCs have routines. Weather affects gameplay. Your horse remembers you. Rockstar set the bar so high with RDR2 that the studio is effectively competing with itself.

Elden Ring (2022) — Pure Freedom

FromSoftware did something remarkable with Elden Ring: an open world with no points of interest on the map, no GPS, no quest markers. Just a horizon and the desire to see what’s over the next hill. And behind every hill, there was always something memorable. Elden Ring reminded the entire industry that player curiosity is the best exploration engine. Not minimap icons.

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023) — Limitless Interaction

Nintendo took game physics, laid them on the table, and said “what if the player could do anything?” TOTK is the most systemic open world ever created. Every object has properties. Every problem has ten solutions. It’s the ultimate sandbox, where the player’s creativity IS the content.

What GTA 6 Must Get Right

So, facing these titans, what could make GTA 6 number one? Not just a good game — the best. Here’s what that requires.

1. A World That Lives Without You

RDR2 started down this path, but GTA 6 needs to go further. NPCs need to have lives, not just routines. Relationships between them. Dramas that unfold whether you’re there or not. Imagine: you walk past a restaurant three times in one week. The first time, a couple is having dinner. The second time, they’re arguing. The third time, one of them is dining alone. Rockstar has the technical capability to do this. The question is: did they?

2. Fewer Icons. Please.

The Ubisoft syndrome — a map drowning under 400 markers — has run its course. Elden Ring and TOTK proved it. The 2026 gamer wants to discover, not check boxes. GTA 6 has a golden opportunity: Vice City is such a visually rich setting that it doesn’t need 200 icons to draw you in. A sketchy bar with a flickering neon sign is enough. You’ll go check it out because you’re curious.

3. Activities That Actually Matter

This is the trap 90% of open-world games fall into: stuffing the map with repetitive activities to pad the playtime. Collect 150 feathers. Find 50 chests. Liberate 30 outposts. By the tenth one, it’s a chore.

GTA 6 needs to do the opposite: fewer activities, but each one unique. A heist that doesn’t resemble any other. A random event that tells a complete micro-story. A hidden location that rewards exploration with a memorable moment, not just a collectible.

4. Combine Narrative AND Systems

This is where things get truly ambitious. The Witcher 3 excels at narrative. TOTK excels at systems. Nobody has managed to combine both perfectly. A world where every story is carefully crafted AND where emergent physics-based interactions are possible everywhere. If GTA 6 achieves this — brilliant narrative missions set in a world where systemic chaos can erupt anywhere — it’s game over for the competition.

The Limitations (Let’s Be Realistic)

GTA has always had a problem that neither Zelda nor Elden Ring face: ludonarrative dissonance. The game tells you a serious story about complex characters, and thirty seconds later you’re mowing down pedestrians in a monster truck. This dissonance is part of the series’ charm, but it prevents GTA from achieving the emotional coherence of an RDR2 or a Witcher 3.

Then there’s the question of density versus surface area. The trailers show a massive map — Vice City, the swamps, the Keys. But a large empty map is worse than a small packed one. Skyrim in 2011 was a fraction of the size of Just Cause 3, and nobody would argue Just Cause was a better open world.

So, What’s the Verdict?

My take, and it’s mine alone: GTA 6 probably won’t be the best open world in history in the way Tears of the Kingdom is a perfect open world in its design philosophy. TOTK is a masterpiece of game design. GTA 6 is a masterpiece of production — the most ambitious recreation of a real place ever attempted in a video game.

But it will probably be the most impressive open world ever created. The most detailed. The most visually alive. The one where you’ll stand in the middle of Ocean Drive watching the neons flicker on at dusk, exactly the way I watched that sunset in RDR2.

And honestly? That’s enough for me.

This article represents the editorial opinion of our team and does not constitute a definitive judgment on the game’s quality prior to release.