Insider Gaming Predicts GTA 6 Will Score Just 83–87 on Metacritic — Fans Are Furious

Three of gaming media’s best-connected journalists think GTA 6 is about to underwhelm the critics — at least on paper. On the latest episode of the Insider Gaming Weekly podcast, hosts Mike Straw, Tom Henderson and Albert Perkins predicted that Grand Theft Auto VI will land somewhere between 83 and 87 on Metacritic — a score that would make it the lowest-rated major Rockstar release since GTA III.

For context on just how provocative that call is: GTA IV holds a 98, GTA V a 97, and Red Dead Redemption 2 a 97. Every big Rockstar game of the last two decades has lived at or near the very top of the all-time charts. So an 83–87 isn’t merely a modest score — it’s a prediction that the most anticipated game in history will break a 25-year streak.

Unsurprisingly, fans are not taking it quietly.

The debate in one sentence: Insider Gaming blames the “Paris Syndrome” effect of impossible expectations; the community says Rockstar has never shipped a game this hyped without also being this good — and history is firmly on the fans’ side.

The prediction: what they actually said

The score discussion took place on the Insider Gaming Weekly episode released Friday, September 25, 2026 — the same show where the team discussed the long-awaited confirmation that GTA 6 gameplay footage is finally on the way. Roughly 57 minutes into the episode, the hosts turned to the question nobody can answer yet: what will the scores actually look like?

The trio converged on the 83–87 range. Their central argument: after more than a decade of waiting, two record-shattering trailers, and a launch date (November 19, 2026) circled in red by tens of millions of players, GTA 6 has become something no game can survive — perfect in the public imagination. Any real game, however excellent, will feel like a disappointment against the one people have been building in their heads since 2013.

They dubbed it a “Paris Syndrome” effect, borrowing the term for the phenomenon where visitors feel devastated by the real Paris because their romanticised image of the city couldn’t possibly be matched. In their telling, reviewers — who are fans too, whether they admit it or not — will judge GTA 6 against a decade of accumulated fantasy rather than against other video games. Even a masterpiece loses a few points in that comparison.

Why fans say they’re wrong

The pushback was immediate and fierce. Across X, Instagram and the ResetEra discussion thread that blew up over the weekend, the same counter-argument kept surfacing: look at the track record. GTA IV (98), GTA V (97), Red Dead Redemption 2 (97) — no major Rockstar title has dipped below 95 since GTA III. Fans argue that predicting the first sub-90 score in a quarter-century isn’t analysis; it’s a hot take. The studio’s quality floor, they say, has simply never been at the level Insider Gaming is projecting.

And there’s a subtler version of the argument gaining traction on ResetEra: that gaming media has changed, not Rockstar. Aggregate scores above 90 have become genuinely rare as outlets apply harsher, less forgiving scoring to AAA blockbusters. In that light, one user noted, the real question isn’t whether GTA 6 can hit 95 — it’s whether even an 89 would have fans declaring that “Rockstar fell off,” when the same score for any other studio would be a triumph.

The “Paris Syndrome” theory, examined

Let’s be fair to the hosts for a moment, because the Paris Syndrome argument isn’t nothing. Games media has a documented history of punishing over-hyped titles: when expectations are set at “generational event,” anything short of perfection gets framed as failure. A perfectly respectable 90 for a normal blockbuster becomes “disappointing” for GTA 6 simply because of the decade of waiting behind it.

But there’s a serious problem with applying that logic to Rockstar specifically. The studio has faced this exact dynamic before — and beaten it. GTA V arrived after a five-year wait with an unprecedented marketing campaign, and it scored a 97. Red Dead Redemption 2 followed eight years after its predecessor with the entire industry calling it the game that would define the generation, and it scored a 97. If “impossible hype” were going to break Rockstar’s streak, it had two very good chances already.

The other thing worth noting: the 83–87 prediction conflates critic scores with public disappointment. Metacritic aggregates professional reviewers, who historically have been the most generous demographic toward Rockstar’s output. Fan backlash — the forum threads, the Steam review-bombs, the “overrated” discourse — shows up in user scores, which are a different animal entirely. A game can be a 96 with critics and a 6.2 with users simultaneously, and that gap tells its own story about expectations.

What history says about pre-release score predictions

This isn’t the first time commentators have predicted that a much-hyped Rockstar title would fall short with critics. Before GTA V, analysts suggested the open-world formula was getting stale. It scored a 97 and became the best-selling entertainment product of all time. Before Red Dead Redemption 2, the worry was pacing: an intentionally slow-burning western in an era of instant gratification. It scored a 97.

The pattern is consistent enough that it’s become a running joke in the community: betting against Rockstar’s Metacritic average is the surest way to look foolish in November. Insider Gaming’s hosts know this history — Tom Henderson in particular has reported on Rockstar extensively — which is why the 83–87 call reads more like a deliberate contrarian position than a data-driven forecast.

What this means

Nothing — and that’s the honest answer. Pre-release score predictions are content, not information. Nobody has played the full game (review copies are months away), nobody knows what build state it’s in, and Metacritic scores are decided by dozens of individual reviewers who will have their own relationship with the hype.

The prediction does reveal how the conversation around GTA 6 is entering its final, strangest phase. With the game 53 days from launch and review embargoes far off, the discourse has nowhere concrete to go — so it goes meta instead. We’re now debating not the game, but the scores, which will be about the game.

And here’s the delicious irony: if GTA 6 lands at a 96, the hosts get to say “told you the hype machine was the story.” If it lands at an 86, they look like prophets. They’ve made the one prediction that can never really fail — which is how you know it was never really about the number.

The real verdict arrives November 19. Until then, place your bets: 83–87, or does Rockstar extend the streak to 25 years? The comment section is waiting.

Sources

• Insider Gaming Weekly — GTA 6 Gameplay Is Finally Coming (score discussion ~57:35)
• EGW News — GTA 6’s Score on Metacritic Might Not Be As High As Fans Expect
• ResetEra — A Way Too Early GTA VI Metacritic/OpenCritic Discussion
• Insider Gaming — Podcast: GTA 6 Gameplay Is Finally Coming (And Netflix Is Airing It)
• streetgrind.tv on Instagram — reacting to the 83–87 prediction