The future of GTA Online in terms of events has just been teased by some of the leads on the game at Rockstar. In an interview ahead of GTA Online’s 10th anniversary, Scott Butchard and Chris Bell from Rockstar Games spoke with GameRadar to discuss what’s next.

A decade of evolution

Before we get a sneak peek at what lies ahead of us in GTA Online, here are some interesting tidbits about its early days. Scott Butchard says “When I first started working on GTA Online we were still finding our feet. We were pushing these smaller updates while working hard to bring together the first Heist.” As you might know, Heists were one of the main selling points of GTA Online yet they took a few years to release following developmental changes. Scott continues by saying it has “been an epic learning experience – with tons of fun and unexpected twists and turns thanks to the incredible feedback from our community.” This is a good time to remind you that Rockstar Games take feedback directly from you on their website here.

Rockstar made several improvements to the game in 2022 which all stemmed from feedback the community had given them over several years. Another key quote from this interview is “what feels like the simplest fixes can be the most challenging to implement. So it might take some time for the community’s desired changes to make their way into the game. Hopefully recent improvements to the game have shown that we are working to address the community’s requests as we move from update to update.” A nerf to the Oppressor Mk II probably would not have taken too long though. Despite the time it has taken to see such improvements come to the game, the general sentiment is the game is in a real good place right now.

Feedback is not also only taken via their website as we linked above. Rockstar specifically say they are inspired by the community with “comments on forums or videos and screenshots players have taken of things they’ve done in game”.

What goes into making new updates?

GTA Online’s lead designer, Chris Bell, says making content for GTA Online always offers new challenges but is a lot of fun covering so many different things. In terms of how Rockstar decide what they should make updates on he said this “Part of the decision process is how they can complement other areas of the game as well as offering something new to engage with.” He added that despite the game will be 10 years old this year, the team has “so many cool ideas and directions to take”.

What’s coming to GTA Online?

We briefly mentioned above that Rockstar have been inspired by what us players have done in the world of GTA Online. Chris Bell has given us a fun example of this saying “this year’s Halloween event that makes me laugh every time, I can’t wait to see how players react to it”. Begin your speculation now…

The next confirmed content is Part 2 of the Los Santos Drug Wars update which for many has been a long, drawn out, boring drip-feed. It sounds like more community events in the same vein as the Sprunk vs. eCola and Heists Challenge will happen this year too. Those have been received rather well by the community so there’s no surprise there. Rockstar did not comment on GTA 6 and how GTA Online will work with it in this interview of course. It did end with Scott Butchard looking forward “to what lies ahead in the immediate future”. He explains “It’s super important to us that players find new ways to connect with each other. We’ve got a bunch of ideas in the works right now, all the way up until the Holidays at the end of the year, so please stay tuned!”

The full interview is a pleasant surprise and we’d urge you to read it in full here. It covers far more than what we shared with you in this article. It’s very rare Rockstar employees are able to openly talk about their on-going work as well as some stories of the past. This sort of content is super insightful and always appreciated. Perhaps more like this could pop up later in the year? We can only hope as GTA 6 appears to be far out.

To stay up to date with everything happening in GTA Online and anything with the GTA series, check out RockstarINTEL.