In the interest of transparency, I'll admit that I've never played GTA Online. I've just never been interested in continuing my Grand Theft Auto experience beyond what I've already been given in the full game. Half the fun of GTA, I've always thought, is just hopping back into the world that you've become so familiar with after the story is long over and doing whatever you want. And I don't need other online players coming in and messing with my fun.

As long as I've been playing video games, I've known Rockstar to be one of the best developers in this industry. I remember when we used to get multiple games published and developed by Rockstar in quick succession. It was a crazy pace to keep up, but there was a time when I would never have thought a year would go by without Rockstar releasing something new.

That was before the release of Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online. Since GTA V, Rockstar has made Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto VI. In the last decade, Rockstar has primarily been updating GTA Online, which means there are plenty of games that didn't deserve to be left in the past but were. Selfish as this list may be, here are the games I really wish Rockstar would have made instead of just updating GTA Online for a decade.

4 L.A. Noire 2

You don't need to be a detective to know this game should've been out years ago.

Firstly, I know that Rockstar didn't develop the original L.A. Noire. That was a now-shuttered studio, Team Bondi, while Rockstar worked on the game as its publisher. Still, whether Rockstar was to publish, find another studio, or apply its own teams to a sequel, L.A. Noire stands among Rockstar's portfolio as one of the most deserving of a proper return.

Even though today's standards date it, L.A. Noire pushed what players thought was possible with realistic character models and motion capture technology. With how much better motion capture technology has gotten in the years since its release, there's a chance it could push new boundaries — not just from a technology perspective, of course, but to go even further with a story that is even more gripping and eventful than the first time.

A refinement of its interrogation mechanic and another cinematic noire story all sound like the good times we could have been having. Rockstar did put the time and money into making a sequel happen.

3 Midnight Club 5

It would be nice to have more than one flavor of street racing game out there.

Street racing games are largely dominated by EA's Need for Speed franchise, and I think that's a shame. Not because I think the recent Need for Speed games are bad, but because fans of sports games and Star Wars games know all too well that it's never a good thing when EA has a monopoly on anything. Of course, that applies to any competitive market, but gamers know too well how genres can erode when EA is the biggest player within them.

The one constant I've seen in myself as a gamer and in gaming culture is that players love more options, not less. A new Midnight Club game would be that extra option to Need for Speed. The series had its own flavor that I, at least, sorely miss.

2 Max Payne 4

Thankfully, this one could end up really happening.

Remedy Entertainment and Rockstar's action-packed, slow-mo-shooting Max Payne series are regarded as some of the most fun action games the industry has ever seen. But it's been so long since we've seen a new entry in the franchise that spiritual successors have even appeared to fulfill the prophecy that, eventually, someone was just going to do it themselves if Rockstar wasn't going to.

At least compared to the rest of the games on this list, there's actually a strong chance we'll eventually see a new Max Payne game. It's been confirmed that a remake of the first two games bundled together is on its way. Those remakes and the new-found love players have for Remedy's work could be the perfect storm in which a Max Payne 4 game becomes a reality.

The last time we saw a new Max Payne game was 2012 with Max Payne 3, a year before Grand Theft Auto V would first launch. Over a decade later, it's long overdue that Remedy and Rockstar return to the series. I'm glad that we'll be getting more Max Payne with the coming remakes, but if not for GTA Online we could've reached this point a long time ago.

1 Bully 2

The game that really should have become Rockstar's marquee series.

This is a drum that many a Rockstar fan has banged before, but it's really a crying shame that we never got another Bully game. Bully 2 could've built on the already excellent foundation that the first game had, and even if it was just a different flavor of Grand Theft Auto, it was one that shook things up in a way that was universally loved by fans.

The original Bully was also not the kind of thing you see in games, nor is it the kind of thing we've seen since. Sure, there are plenty of games that focus on kids' school age, but few of them put you in the shoes of the biggest kid on the block looking to make yourself as mischievous as possible.

I'd like to continue hoping that one day, we will finally get another Bully game. But now that it's been so long since the first game and multiple console generations, I'm not holding my breath. Especially with Grand Theft Auto VI on the near horizon. The next era of GTA Online's dominance is almost here, and by the time Grand Theft Auto VII is due, anyone with the gall to walk into Rockstar and suggest they make a new Bully game would likely be laughed out of the building if they aren't being laughed out already.

Is GTA Online really worth it? It is to Rockstar, at least.

I know that this list is a bit selfish. Clearly, millions of people are more than content with just playing GTA Online and keeping up with each new expansion and content drop from Rockstar. They don't need, or perhaps care to get, a new entry in any of these franchises.

But I still can't help feeling like we'd have a better world if Rockstar didn't have to, or choose to, spend all its time and effort on one singular game. Call me crazy, but I liked it better when Rockstar tried different and new things. I hope the studio comes back to that someday.