Grand Theft Auto Online's success is casting a long shadow over the possibility of single-player Grand Theft Auto 6 DLC.
We know three things about Grand Theft Auto 6 at the moment: it's scheduled to arrive in Fall 2025, the debut trailer is about to break 200 million views on YouTube, and everyone, including console manufacturers, is waiting on the game.
As the world holds its collective breath for Rockstar Games to confirm more details about GTA 6, slivers of more information is coming to light, though, including old news resurfacing. For example, Jason Schreier's report about GTA 6 from back in 2022.
In his report about Rockstar's "frat-boy culture", the prominent video game industry journalist revealed that GTA 6 DLCs are currently in the pipeline. However, two years after the news broke, fans are doubtful that Rockstar will ever consider working on any single-player GTA 6 DLC.
Earlier this month, a former Rockstar developer revealed that one reason Rockstar canceled its planned single-player GTA 5 DLC, which would have featured the fan-favorite character Trevor Philips, was that it didn't make financial sense to invest in it when Grand Theft Auto Online was, in his words, a "cash cow" already.
This revelation confirmed long-standing suspicions about why Rockstar hadn't released DLCs for Red Dead Redemption 2 or additional single-player content for GTA 5. Steven Ogg, the voice actor behind Trevor Philips, also confirmed that Rockstar had him voice lines for a single-player GTA 5 DLC but never followed up again.
Take-Two Interactive has never outright stated exactly how much money it has made from GTA Online. It has however referred to GTA 5 and GTA Online as separate entities in its earnings calls, somewhat proving that each title's financial bearing is big enough for Rockstar not to lump them together, unlike what it's doing with Red Dead Redemption.
For example, in its most recent earnings call, Take-Two revealed that the company made $1.3 billion in Net Bookings in Q3 2024 on the backs of "Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto Online, the Red Dead Redemption series, and Zynga's in-app purchases, led by Toon Blast."
Considering GTA 5 continues to rack up sales, who's to say GTA Online isn't earning as much revenue as its single-player counterpart for Take-Two, if not more? With constant updates and microtransactions available, chances are people spend on it repeatedly, as opposed to the one-time purchase of the main game.
With GTA Online continuing to be as financially huge as it is despite its shortcomings and controversies, fans are right to be doubtful that single-player GTA 6 DLCs will happen.
As @GhostTechGaming put it on X (formerly Twitter), "How many DLCs have we gotten with RDR2. That game was a success. I don't trust a word they say."
For what it's worth, Rockstar didn't altogether shelve the DLCs it was working on, at least for Grand Theft Auto 5. Some of the content did eventually make its way into GTA Online, including in the game's most recent update. The best case scenario is that GTA 6's online component will get consistent updates that, while not as expansive as Episodes from Liberty City for Grand Theft Auto 4, are enough to keep us interested in playing for years.
The last time Rockstar released DLC content for Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption was in 2010 with "The Undead Nightmare" expansion.
