On paper, everything about Grand Theft Auto Online‘s newly-dropped Kortz Center heist sounds exciting. It’s a high-risk, high-reward robbery where players gather intel and develop strategies on the fly. The update also includes fancy upgrades, like an art studio mansion expansion and slick new sports cars. Most of all, fans were thrilled at the idea that the Kortz Center heist would be the best-paid mission in the entire game. But now that the heist is playable, fans are discovering that Rockstar Games has made GTA Online as a whole a much worse experience.
The situation is dire enough that some fans are feeling anxious about what the new heist means for Grand Theft Auto 6.
To balance the Kortz Center heist, Rockstar made a number of so-called quality of life changes to the game’s mission structure. Kortz, alongside a number of other heists, awards the biggest payout on a player’s first weekly playthrough. Rockstar says that subsequent playthroughs now “saturate the market and lead to buyer fatigue” for any spoils pilfered by the player.
The idea is to raise the stakes, and to encourage players to try a wider swath of missions. But fans say Rockstar is forcing the appeal of the Kortz Center heist by reducing the payouts of many other heists. Fans are particularly upset about changes to the Cayo Perico heist, which was already regarded by some as the worst mission in the game.
It didn’t start out that way. At first, Cayo Perico was considered to be one of the best GTA Online heists available. The payouts were so good that they arguably ruined GTA Online‘s wider economy. Since its introduction in 2020, Rockstar has reduced Cayo Perico’s rewards twice. The Kortz Center update is the third nerf. Fans say that, even after completing Cayo Perico under an Elite-level challenge, the mission pays out less than a million dollars. The Pink Diamond loot target went from paying over $1.4 million to less than $900,000.
Though the Kortz Center heist is fun, as a whole, the community has dubbed it GTA Online‘s “worst update ever.” It certainly doesn’t help that the Kortz update has also introduced a number of new bugs. Another pain point is the sheer cost of running the heist: $15 million if starting from scratch, or $4.7 million if the player already owns a mansion. Rockstar is giving out millions for logging in, and for having a GTA subscription — but the upfront cost is still expensive relative to the rewards.
The Kortz Center has proved to be such a downgrade for GTA Online that fans are also starting to get anxious about what it may portend for GTA 6. Rockstar has clarified that GTA 6 is a single-player experience — so presumably, GTA Online will continue trucking along. A new game will undoubtedly bring about an influx of GTA Online players. With GTA 6 only a few months away, tweaks made to the quasi-MMO could be read as a reflection of a new era of GTA monetization.
In particular, fans are worried that GTA 6 will bring about a worse experience for GTA Online. After all, one of the most expensive games ever made is going to retail for under $100. So if Rockstar isn’t planning to squeeze out extra dough from the base game, fans fear that GTA Online (or its next iteration) will continue to function as the company’s big, ongoing moneymaker.
“I don’t even want to think about how grindy GTA 6 Online is going to be,” one fan wrote in a Reddit thread bemoaning the Kortz Center update.
“Just wait and see how intense the monetization in GTA 6 will be,” another player wrote in a different thread.
“Really makes me worried for what they’re gonna do to GTA 6,” yet another fan mused.
