Ex-Rockstar lead says all GTA competitors have "given up," but there's still "an opportunity" to challenge Rockstar: "Everybody's kind of terrified of going against GTA"

GTA 6.

Former GTA lead Obbe Vermeij has explained why he thinks you don't see many games challenging the series for its city-based open world crown.

Now that Watch Dogs is rumored to be dead and buried, the reception to Saints Row's 2022 reboot probably demolishing any chance of the series coming back in a meaningful way, and Square Enix continuing to hate bangers by not greenlighting Sleeping Dogs 2, the GTA-style open-world genre is almost a thing of the past. And sure, something like Cyberpunk 2077 does scratch the itch of the city-based open world, but that's an RPG as opposed to a pure sandbox like GTA. But despite the lack of contenders GTA veteran Vermeij reckons there's still space for it.