The long, long wait for GTA 6 is coming to an end, as the game's November 19 release date approaches. Yes, there have been many leaks, but the genuine article arrives soon. It's been 13 years since GTA 5 launched in September 2013, and a lot has happened in the world of video games since then. When GTA 5 came out, Fortnite was not a thing. The live-service boom (and subsequent crash) hadn't happened yet. E3 was still a thriving, can't-miss annual summer event. Nintendo had just launched the ill-fated Wii U. In this post, we're running through some of the most notable gaming events and stories since GTA 5 launched more than a decade ago. To be sure, this is not an exhaustive list, and it does not touch on the many real-world, non-gaming high-profile events that have transpired. This list is all about big gaming stories, of which there have been many. GTA 6 approaches.A Comical Number Of Skyrim PortsThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim released all the way back in 2011 for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC--nearly two years before GTA 5 launched. Since then, we haven't gotten a new mainline The Elder Scrolls game either, but we have gotten a ridiculous number of Skyrim ports across a bunch of different systems. Those include Skyrim for Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and various VR platforms. There's even, sort of, a port of Skyrim available for Amazon Alexa-enabled devices. Dubbed Skyrim Very Special Edition, it lets you explore Skyrim like it's an old-school text-adventure, so you can even keep playing as the Dragonborn while you make dinner. -- Gabe GurwinThree Watch Dogs GamesShortly after the launch of GTA 5, Ubisoft released the original Watch Dogs, an open-world action game that offered similar freedom to Grand Theft Auto but with a particular focus on hacking infrastructure and weaponizing Chicago's electrical grid. It was followed by a far superior sequel set in San Francisco, Watch Dogs 2, a few years later, and the London-set Watch Dogs Legion in 2020. While the games--particularly Watch Dogs 2--certainly scratched a GTA-like itch, it's been radio silence on the series for several years. We're crossing our fingers for a true sequel to Watch Dogs 2 at some point. -- Gabe GurwinHalo Is On PlayStationIt would have been almost impossible to believe back in 2013, but a whole lot has changed over the last 13 years: Halo is now on PlayStation. During the Xbox 360 era, Microsoft was still sticking to a traditional exclusives-focused release strategy, with multiple Halo games releasing solely on Xbox 360. Even the real-time-strategy game Halo Wars initially released solely on Xbox 360, not coming to PC until 2016. But times have changed, and Microsoft opted to simultaneously launch Halo: Campaign Evolved on Xbox Series X|S, PC, and, yes, PlayStation 5. It remains to be seen if this will continue for future Halo games, as new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma seems interested in returning to exclusives, but it sure is weird to see a Halo game on Sony's system. -- Gabe GurwinHalo is now on PlayStation.GTA 5 Came To All These Other PlatformsGrand Theft Auto 5 was initially only available on Xbox 360 and PS3, with Rockstar following in its predecessors' footsteps by not launching day-and-date with PC. But the game did eventually come to PC, mod support and all, in 2015, and also released on Xbox One and PS4. But the wait for the next GTA has gone on so long that it also released for Xbox Series X|S and PS5, along with the separate GTA Online component. Up to this point, it hasn't come to Nintendo Switch or Switch 2, but it wouldn't be particularly shocking for that to happen in the future, as Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy is available on Switch. -- Gabe Gurwin15+ Call of Duty Games The Call of Duty series is annualized, and there have been a lot of Call of Duty games released since GTA 5 came out in September 2013. In the time since Rockstar released GTA 5, Activision has released 13 mainline Call of Duty games, with a 14th, Modern Warfare 4, arriving in late October. In addition to all of those games, Activision launched the mobile game Call of Duty: Mobile in 2019, the battle royale game Call of Duty: Warzone in 2020, and then another mobile game, Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, in 2024 (that game shut down in 2026). Also during the time since GTA 5 came out, the Call of Duty franchise changed hands, with Microsoft taking ownership of the franchise through its purchase of Activision Blizzard. -- Eddie MakuchCOD: Warzone launched in 2020.EA Gets A New CEOGTA 5 and EA executive Andrew Wilson are connected by way of GTA 5 releasing and Wilson being promoted to CEO in the same month. Shortly after GTA 5 launched on September 17, 2013, Wilson was named CEO, replacing John Riccitiello on September 20. Both GTA 5 and Wilson did well for themselves in the decade-plus that followed, with GTA 5 selling exceptionally well and Wilson presiding over a run from about $25/share to $200+, increasing EA's market cap by billions upon billions. This culminated in Wilson and his team agreeing to sell the company to a group of investors led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund in August 2026 for $55 billion. -- Eddie MakuchThe Death Of E3 Not long after E3 2013 wrapped up in June that year, The Figueroa Hotel, located near the Los Angeles Convention Center where E3 was hosted, was adorned by impressive and gargantuan GTA 5 artwork. While GTA 5 and GTA Online would persist and thrive in the decade-plus that followed, E3 would not. Once a private trade show for industry professionals and media, E3 opened to the public in 2017, but it wouldn't last. After COVID led to the cancellation of the 2020 show, organizers held a virtual show in 2021. The 2022 event was canceled entirely, and though organizers promised a "reinvigorated showcase" for 2023, that didn't happen either--E3 was canceled permanently. Rockstar was known to make announcements at E3, as the company unveiled a brand-new PS3-exclusive spy game called Agent at E3 2009. -- Eddie MakuchCOVID And Its Impact On GamingThe COVID-19 pandemic, which took hold in early 2020, had a massive impact on the world, of course, including the video game industry. Due to stay-at-home orders and general social distancing policies, people spent more time--and money--on things they could do at home. Naturally, home gym and fitness equipment sales soared, but so did spending on entertainment like video games. Sales of games and consoles skyrocketed, Twitch set unprecedented viewership records, and naturally, the surging spending on games made dollar-signs appear in executive and investor's eyes. Coupled with historically low costs to borrow money, this led to a situation where companies ramped up hiring and investors funded new studios, thinking the momentum might be sustainable. Painfully, it was not. Experts are now looking back and saying executives and investors mistook a bubble for a baseline. Subsequently, the past few post-COVID years have been some of the most tumultuous in recent times, with thousands of layoffs, numerous studio closures, countless game cancellations, and investment funding slowing down significantly. The pandemic may be behind us, but its impacts are still being felt today. -- Eddie MakuchWhat's more, the surging spending on games made dollar-signs appear in executive and investor's eyes. Coupled with historically low costs to borrow money, this led to a situation where companies ramped up hiring and investors funded new studios, thinking the momentum might be sustainable. Painfully, it was not. Experts are now looking back and saying executives and investors mistook a bubble for a baseline. Subsequently, the past few post-COVID years have been some of the most tumultuous in recent times, with thousands of layoffs, numerous studio closures, countless game cancellations, and investment funding slowing down significantly. The pandemic may be behind us, but its impacts are still being felt today. -- Eddie MakuchDestiny came and wentGTA 5 has been a hell of a success story for Rockstar Games, earning the studio critical acclaim. But GTA Online? That online portion of the game hit the mark for critical and commercial success, emerging as a giant in the live-service game space. Few games can compare to it, but for a brief time, Bungie's Destiny presented some stiff competition in a market where player attention spans are everything. It might have gotten off to a slow start, but a year later, Destiny was firing on all cylinders with the release of its Taken King expansion.That momentum would begin to stall over the next few years, but once Bungie found its groove with Destiny 2's seasonal model, every Tuesday was a reason to sit down and enjoy everything that the weekly reset had to offer. For a few years, things were good: new content rolled out at a steady clip, new game modes made the wait for the next expansion flow by fast, and that gratifying grind for new loot was always welcome. That magic couldn't last forever, and following the release of The Final Shape in 2024, Destiny's days were numbered. The Edge of Fate saga saw two more compact expansions released, but by mid-2026, Bungie was ready to move on to new projects and its extraction-shooter Marathon--with mass layoffs being an unfortunate side effect.Destiny's lifespan was short in the grand scheme of things, but ask anyone who played, those few years of gallivanting across planets and saving existence from would-be gods was downright magical. – Darryn BonthuysSaints Row fizzled outHas there ever been a true GTA-killer? At one point, Saints Row was being positioned as the Bovril to GTA's Marmite, and it's not hard to see why. GTA adopted a more serious tone and became increasingly grounded in reality, whereas Saints Row operated like a Looney Tunes sandbox that embraced absurdity. Saints Row 2 got the ball rolling on that idea, but by the time that Saints Row 4 hit the scene, the shark had been jumped, flipped off, and killed with a rocket launcher. Volition's Saints Row reboot in 2022 was seen as an attempt to bring the franchise back to reality, but that's probably why it didn't take off with fans. With one foot planted in the realm of realism and another testing the waters of silliness, Saints Row ultimately felt like a game that didn't know what it wanted to be. The launch was middling, the game was buggy as hell during its first few weeks, and the whole experience felt like an open-world game designed by a committee, devoid of any real identity. Not long after, Volition Studios was shut down, and for now, it looks like the Saints Row franchise is dead. – Darryn BonthuysA scene from 2022's Saints Row.The Entire Phil Spencer Era Of XboxAfter joining Microsoft as an intern back in 1988, Phil Spencer was promoted to head of Xbox in 2014, kicking off his 12-year stint as one of the most notable figures in video games. In a situation eerily similar to current Xbox head, Asha Sharma, Spencer came in during an extremely volatile time for Xbox. Following the disastrous reveal of the Xbox One, Spencer was brought in to revitalize the brand and restore player trust, and did so by prioritizing backwards compatibility, fostering relationships with third-party studios, and creating Xbox Game Pass. Spencer was quickly embraced by the Xbox community, who championed him as a true gamer who understood what players wanted. But while his various initiatives and spending sprees might have endeared him to fans initially, his reputation soured over time due to his mismanagement of the various studios Xbox acquired and the rapidly increasing prices of both Game Pass and Xbox hardware. Spencer officially retired as Microsoft Gaming CEO earlier this year, leaving behind an extremely unstable company and a legacy tainted by layoffs, price hikes, and an overall weakening of the Xbox brand. And somehow, all of this happened in the span of time between GTA 5 and GTA 6. -- Jessica CogswellThe Nintendo Switch's Entire ExistenceA year before Grand Theft Auto 5 hit shelves, Nintendo unveiled a new (oddly named) console: the Wii U. Despite the success of its predecessor, the Wii, the Wii U was met with confusion and mixed reactions, both of which led to it becoming Nintendo's lowest-selling home console of all time (if we aren't counting the Virtual Boy). Following this commercial failure, Nintendo quickly went back to the drawing board. Five years later, Nintendo released its next console: the Nintendo Switch.In combining its talent for creating fantastic handheld systems and the public's desire for a home console with a little something for everyone, Nintendo struck gold. The Switch is now the second-best-selling console of all time, with nearly 156.6 million units sold--less than 4 million units shy of the PlayStation 2. In 2025, Nintendo released the successor to the console, the Nintendo Switch 2, which has already hit nearly 23.7 million units sold--a whopping 10 million more units than the Wii U sold across its five-year life span.In addition to these consoles being tremendously successful themselves, they've also helped usher in a new golden era for Nintendo games. Titles like The Legend of the Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Donkey Kong: Bananza, and Super Mario Odyssey have effectively reshaped their respective series; less active franchises, like Metroid, Luigi's Mansion, Pokemon Snap, Kirby, and Animal Crossing, have been reinvigorated with critically acclaimed new entries; and the release of definitive versions of Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart have made the Switch the ultimate destination for all things Nintendo. Combine all this with the addition of Nintendo Online's catalog of games, and it truly feels as though the Switch is Nintendo's pièce de résistance. -- Jessica CogswellConsoles Got A Lot More ExpensiveAlthough video games have technically never been cheaper, console prices have risen astronomically in the time since GTA 5's release. These price hikes have been especially bad in recent years, as tariffs and the ongoing components crisis--linked largely to the rise of AI data centers--have made the cost of making consoles a lot more expensive. As a result, consumers are now paying more for five-year-old consoles than they would have if they purchased them day one.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiYNNGR4uLoThe Xbox Series X, originally sold for $500 when it launched in November 2020, now rests at $800--and it's already rumored that the console will see a price hike again in 2027. The PlayStation 5 Digital Edition has risen from $400 to $600, while the version with a disc drive has jumped from $500 to $650. Even Nintendo has increased its console prices, with both the Switch 2 and Switch OLED seeing $50 price increases. And don't even get me started on how unreasonable it would be to build a PC these days. -- Jessica Cogswell