Most upcoming games have looked to steer clear of the behemoth that is Grand Theft Auto 6 and avoid the month of November entirely. The upcoming remaster of 2002’s Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee is a notable exception, and as it turns out, the developers didn’t think about GTA 6 at all when choosing its release date.
In an interview with IGN, senior designer at developer Pipeworks Simon Strange revealed GTA’s looming release of November 16 wasn’t a factor when choosing Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee: Remastered’s November 3 release date.
Like others online, the development team got a kick out of kaiju fans celebrating the fact that the King of the Monsters (and Barbie) were the only two pop culture icons brave enough to face off against developer Rockstar’s open-world juggernaut.
“Honestly, [it] wasn’t even in our heads at all when we were picking the release date,” Strange said. “That’s not my business. I make the video games. I’m not too worried about when they come out. If Atari had come to us and said, ‘Wow, we can’t because we think it’s going to affect the sales with GTA’, we would’ve had that discussion. But no one ever said anything.”
As Strange points out, November 3 is a special date for the Godzilla fandom. It was on that same day in 1954 that the original Gojira film was released and is regarded as Godzilla’s official birthday. Strange said the upcoming remaster arriving on the same day was “respectful,” and that at the end of the day, Godzilla fans would show up no matter when it was released.
“I wasn’t looking at the calendar and being worried in any way, or thinking about what other games are coming out because the Godzilla fans are very excited for it,” Strange said. “They’d buy it on any day that it came out, and putting it out on Godzilla’s birthday, that’s just respectful.”
While Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee: Remastered and Barbie Rewind, a collection of classic Barbie games, are both releasing in close proximity to GTA 6, there is one game brave enough to release on the exact same day. Publisher Devolver Digital recently revealed Volvy’s Adventure: Reslimed, a “remaster” of a nonexistent remake that will release on Steam November 16.
For those eagerly awaiting GTA 6, Rockstar recently posted a lengthy gameplay presentation that revealed tons of new details.