ARC Raiders made a huge splash last year. In a fall season that was expected to be a head-to-head showdown between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, ARC Raiders surprised not only shooter fans, but the industry as a whole. The past two decades have been huge for first-person shooters, but ARC Raiders feels like the first real sign that extraction shooters are going to be the next major genre wave. It's still early in the trend, but ARC Raiders is definitely off to a strong start. The game has consistently been a bestseller since its launch, but there's an unexpected competitor on its tail: Grand Theft Auto 5.
When looking at the PS5's top-selling games of January, ARC Raiders is right at the top in the U.S. And Canada. That's not really too surprising, but what's shocking is that GTA 5 is right behind it in second place. The wildly popular Rockstar game is 12 years old, and it's still going strong. Grand Theft Auto 5 managed to surpass 2025 games like Ghost of Yotei and Battlefield 6, and that's wild. Not only is it impressive, it's further proof that the hype surrounding the GTA franchises is reaching a completely new level.
ARC Raiders is a Fresh Experience, But Grand Theft Auto 5 Has Been Thriving For Over a Decade
ARC Raiders is only a few months old at this point, but it already has tons of potential to go strong for several years. However, reaching the same milestones that GTA 5 has managed to hit may be far more challenging for the extraction shooter. Surviving 12 years is one thing, but thriving and still being one of the most played games around is a completely different accomplishment that very few games achieve. GTA 5's sales have continued to be a goldmine for Rockstar. The developer's most recent game, Red Dead Redemption 2, has also been incredibly successful, but GTA 5 is a juggernaut on Rockstar's resume. It's outperformed every other Rockstar game by leaps and bounds, and one of the main driving forces behind its success is the ongoing popularity of Grand Theft Auto Online.
Rockstar Brought Something Special to Gamers With GTA 5, But It Completely Hit the Jackpot With GTA Online
- GTA 5 was released on September 17, 2013.
- GTA Online went live a few weeks later on October 1, 2013.
When GTA 5 hit the scene, Rockstar came out swinging with a double dose of content. Including a huge open-world online multiplayer mode was a major turning point for the franchise, and it's proven over and over that Rockstar made the right call by developing it. From role-playing groups to free-room exploration to new heist updates, GTA Online is filled with hours upon hours of content. GTA Online's career paths allow players to live out their wildest crime fantasies. Living life as a biker, nightclub owner, or shady CEO to build a crime empire is all made possible in GTA Online. It's simply addictive. Of course, players don't necessarily have to engage in criminal activity, but trying to become the powerful person in Los Santos by any means necessary can be pretty fun.
Heists Have Been Some of the Best Post-Launch Support the Industry Has Seen
At the height of GTA Online's popularity, large-scale heists offered extra content that truly made the player feel like they were part of a blockbuster heist movie. Even though Rockstar hasn't introduced a big mission since 2020's Cayo Perico heist, smaller quest lines have been added fairly regularly. Just at the end of last year, A Safehouse in the Hills brought a fresh chain of missions. It also marked the first big GTA Online cameo for GTA 5's Michael De Santa.
Celebrities have even gotten in on the heist action. GTA Online's The Contract featured Dr. Dre and Anderson Paak in special cameo roles, and it's still one of the coolest missions that the game has featured. GTA Online may not get major updates at the same rate that games like Fortnite do, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, either. Rockstar makes sure that larger pieces of content bring something really impressive to the table.
GTA Online still gets weekly updates with rewards and smaller events.
Every Game GTA 5 Outsold in PlayStation's January 2026 List of Top-Sellers
- NBA 2K26
- Minecraft
- EA SPORTS Madden NFL 26
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
- EA SPORTS FC 26
- UFC 5
- Forza Horizon 5
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
- Battlefield 6
- Fallout 4
- EA SPORTS College Football 26
- Among Us
- It Takes Two
- NHL 26
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Ghost of Yotei
- Mortal Kombat 1
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Now It's Time to Address the Elephant in the Room – GTA 6
GTA Online has been the secret sauce that keeps GTA 5 alive and well, but the other main reason why the latter is catching up to ARC Raiders on the charts has got to be the impending release of GTA 6. After two record-breaking trailers and just as many delays, gamers are ready to see what Rockstar has up its sleeve next. GTA 5 was its wildest entry in the series yet, and Red Dead Redemption 2 took the developer's storytelling and immersive realism and created something that is still seen as an RPG blueprint. Combining the best qualities of both GTA 5 and RDR2 could set GTA 6 up as the game that ushers in a new era for the industry. If it meets expectations, the GTA 6 online mode is bound to attract even more attention and help the new game thrive for years to come.
GTA 6's launch is going to be wild. Even if the game doesn't meet every expectation, it's going to be a major pop culture moment. People are going to be taking off work, avoiding the internet in fear of spoilers, and spending that first weekend glued to their TV or computer screens. The hype is reaching new levels, and GTA 5's bump in purchases is very likely a direct result of that excitement.
Now that Take-Two Interactive's recent earnings call claimed that GTA 6 won't be delayed again (hopefully) and that marketing will begin in the summer, the long-awaited return to Vice City feels closer than ever. Things could still change, but if GTA 5's sales are this strong 12 years after its release, it's hard to even imagine what numbers GTA 6 will pull.
Grand Theft Auto 5
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 92 /100 Critics Rec: 92%
- Released
- September 17, 2013
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
- Developer(s)
- Rockstar North
- Publisher(s)
- Rockstar Games
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Action
