GTA 6 Isn’t the Longest Wait These Blockbusters Took Even Longer

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An industry roundup points out that while GTA 6 has already been in development for years, it is still not the longest wait among big-budget games. The comparison instead points to Star Citizen, The Elder Scrolls VI, and Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet - projects first announced in 2012, 2018, and 2024 that still have no clear release window. More than anything, that kind of delay changes how players think about a game long before it launches.

The first thing these long waits drain is not hype. It is trust. Star Citizen is the clearest example: it was formally announced and began crowdfunding in 2012, and after more than a decade it remains in Alpha with no firm full-release date. That creates a very specific kind of fatigue. Expectations keep rising, but they never get the closure of something concrete finally arriving.

The longer a game stays in development, the easier it is for player imagination to run ahead of reality. The Elder Scrolls VI is a good example of that. Bethesda revealed its first teaser back at E3 2018, but meaningful new information has been scarce ever since, with the company only confirming that the game has entered early development. The issue is not just slowness. A series like this carries so much emotional weight that players are not simply waiting for a product announcement - they are waiting to see whether it can pull them back into that world all over again.

The same applies to Naughty Dog's new sci-fi IP, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. It was formally unveiled at TGA 2024, and the premise is immediately appealing. Sci-fi also makes it easy for players to project their own expectations onto a game. But it, too, is still in the early stages of development. On top of that, Naughty Dog has not released a new game since The Last of Us Part II in 2020, so it is the kind of project that makes you trust the studio's storytelling while also making you wary of reading too much into it too early.

Less useful is how quickly discussion around these ultra-long productions turns into labels like "lifetime wait" or "empty promises." The jokes are understandable, but the more practical questions are whether the developers are being transparent, whether there are visible milestones, and whether the team is seriously delivering on its original commitments. A long development cycle is not a sin by itself. The real problem is when time keeps passing and the game still does not come into clearer focus.

Seen together, these games make GTA 6 feel more like a reference point than an outlier. If even a project of that scale can take this many years, then games with bigger worldbuilding ambitions, more aggressive technical goals, or a naturally cautious studio culture will take even longer. For most players, the best approach is simple: do not spend your emotions too early, and do not treat a teaser as a long-term relationship. Wait for real gameplay, clear development beats, and an actual release signal before investing too heavily.