No game can be a poor man's GTA VI

The impact of GTA VI on the entertainment industry should not be underestimated - based only on 185 seconds of video and several handfuls of images from a 13-year plus development history. This week we’ve seen the impact of GTA on an unassuming game called Samson - the first release from Just Cause mastermind’s Christofer Sundberg’s new studio.

We’ve seen release dates pushed aside, the boxed game market ‘saved’ by the promise of a physical release, and now Samson being tanked on the basis of it not being as good as a game that cost billions of dollars to create and none of us have even played. Samson never set out to rival GTA and the comparisons seem unfair.

Don’t get me wrong - Samson deserves no awards in its current state and is a six out of 10 at best, but the comparison to GTA is a bit like someone comparing my Renault to an Aston Martin because they are both cars. Metro called Samson a “Poor Man’s GTA” in its headline, which in reality isn’t the diss they thought it was, because if we are comparing, Samson costs £20.99 in its Steam Early Access state and has publicly promised 25 hours of playtime - rather different to any of the recent GTA’s.

To fully appreciate and experience the finest Argentinian steak from Gaucho, the occasional Ikea Hotdog helps to ground that joy, and while I’d rather be watching a new film from Paul Thomas Anderson every year - I’ve seen plenty of Paul WS Anderson movies. There should be more room for acceptance when it comes to new games. The bugs and collision detection issues are very real in Samson, but screwing up a mission in this game weighs much heavier than going off the rails and performing a five star rampage in GTA, while having to spend half your mission awards on keeping your beaten up car going is far closer to reality than anything I’ve experienced in Rockstar’s game mechanic.

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The sad reality is that Samson might not get its chance to evolve, or a go-around with a second game in the series on the basis of how this first couple of weeks on Steam Early Access goes, but at the same time, a survey suggests that 49% of GTA fans following an X account would be prepared to splash out up to $100 (£75) to get their hands on GTA VI early. Let’s just hope it’s not a poor man’s Samson this time round.