Unless GTA 6 "comes out and it's terrible" no open-world dev can hope to top Rockstar, original Saints Row design lead says – but "there's nothing wrong with trying to be a #2"

It's impossible to overstate just how big Grand Theft Auto has gotten. We're at the point where GTA 6 almost seems a lock to be the most important video game ever released, and woe be to any open-world developer who might hope to topple it. Chris Stockman, design director of the original Saints Row, knows a thing or two about trying to compete with GTA. His advice? Don't do it.

As Stockman says to FRVR, any open-world game trying to tread in the same space as GTA has "'gotta have its own identify back, it's gotta have its own thing, but you can't say, 'I'm going after GTA'. You can't. Not anymore. It's impossible." GTA Online has made the series more of "a lifestyle" than a straight-up video game, and as Stockman sees it, the only way anyone might have a hope of knocking off GTA 6 is if it's a disaster of unprecedented proportions.

"It's going to be the biggest game, probably of all time, and I'll just say this," Stockman continues. "The only way for someone to really give them a run for their money is if they have a huge misstep. If it comes out and it’s terrible, God forbid the industry, oh my gosh, right? It's E.T. all over again, but worse because the budgets. It's going to be a complete disaster. I don't expect that to happen but, if it is, oh my Lord."

E.T., of course, is the infamous Atari 2600 game which legend says single-handedly destroyed Atari and brought the pre-Nintendo video game industry to ruin. The truth is, of course, quite a bit more complicated than that, but E.T. turned into a laughing stock that helped break Atari, which was the pillar of the US video game market at the time.

GTA 6 is launching into a completely different set of circumstances, but its fortunes are still tied up with those of the industry as whole, with analysts calling its delay – that is, the delay to May 2026, not the new delay to November 2026 – a step into "nightmare scenario territory" for this year's video game industry forecast.

But hey, there still is room for you to make a mark with an open-world game, Stockman says. You just have to be comfortable not being the biggest one on the block. "The industry is bigger than its ever been in the sense that people hunger for games. People hunger for new experiences. I think it's entirely possible to be a number two, there's nothing wrong with trying to be a number two if you play your cards right."

Stockman continues, "You don't go crazy, you be very focused, you don't look at GTA as a North Star and say, 'I wanna be that'. You have a clear identity and this is what you’re trying to do. And you don't have to be a 100 hour masterpiece, and you just gotta be smart about it."

That doesn't sound far off from how Saints Row jumped into the market in 2006, making a splash as a GTA alternative with its own identity while fans waited for GTA 4. Saints Row dug out a niche for itself over the years that followed, but, well, GTA remains the one ready to shake the industry once again while it seems like a long shot for Saints Row to ever return to life.

There are plenty of great number twos on our list of the best open-world games.