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Grand Theft Auto 6: is it ever going to happen?

TN

by Thomas Noss

TN

by Thomas Noss

The rumour mill has been churning for a long time about the possibility of Grand Theft Auto 6. But when will we finally get to see it?

Friends, it’s been a long time since our last fresh dose of Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft Auto V released all the way back in 2013, just towards the end of the era of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Prior to that, Grand Theft Auto IV got its launch in 2008.

In the eight years since release, Grand Theft Auto V has been rereleased time and again, and now spans three generations of consoles. Grand Theft Auto Online still enjoys a thriving community, and the world was recently treated to remakes of GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas by way of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition.

With Grand Theft Auto V going so strong after this long, when — if ever — will we get an announcement on the existence of a Grand Theft Auto 6? Here are all the rumours currently flying around.

The official word

Until recently, the official position was that Grand Theft Auto 6 doesn’t exist. That changed when Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick offered up the following juicy details:

“I’m thrilled Rockstar’s working on the next iteration of Grand Theft Auto. I have no doubt it will be just great, and there’s every evidence to believe from the past that the Grand Theft Auto catalogue will also continue to perform“.

It’s worth noting that Zelnick was responding to a question regarding whether Rockstar should even bother making a Grand Theft Auto 6 – because it might lead to fewer GTA V sales. To this, Zelnick specifically responded, “You always have to be willing to bring consumers what they want. The minute you try to protect the past, you become irrelevant.”

So the official word is that, yes, Grand Theft Auto 6 is being worked on right now. However, pretty much everything else regarding its existence is hearsay at this point.

Grand Theft Auto 6 Chop

The rumours

At the moment, the most solid hint at a potential release date comes from speculation arising from a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which gives potential investors information about a company and its activities.

This particular filing for Rockstar North’s parent company Take-Two Interactive just so happened to mention that they’re planning to drop a whopping $90 million USD on advertising in 2024, which is the kind of spending you’d expect to go towards something equally significant.

However, representatives from Take-Two have since refuted the analysis, stating that the uncommonly high spending will be directed to third-party companies, rather than internal companies like Rockstar.

Grand Theft Auto 6 Road
Image: Google

The shape in the road?

Sometimes, a stretch of road can lead to a stretch of the imagination. Fans hungry for any hint of Grand Theft Auto 6 noticed some GPS coordinates in a trailer for Grand Theft Auto Online. Loading them into Google Maps, they were led to the image above.

Yep, it’s a fairly standard stretch of zig-zag road somewhere in rural Virginia. But, if you’re really reaching, you could say that the road looks something like a VI, as in, 6. As in, GTA 6. Therefore, Grand Theft Auto VI confirmed, alert the media.

Keep searching, zealous GTA fans.

Setting and characters?

Following a daisy chain of rumours citing other rumours, you get to a report from YouTube channel Inside Gaming who released a video in 2018 claiming to contain uncorroborated information coming from an anonymous ‘inside source’.

This informant stated that Grand Theft Auto 6 was currently being referred to as ‘Project Americas’, and would be set predominately in a city resembling Miami, as did 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It would also allow players to visit South America, which would give Rockstar plenty of drug-smuggling fodder to work with.

Their report also suggested that Grand Theft Auto 6 might see a female character taking the lead role, which would be a welcome change from the sequence of strictly male playable characters the series has offered so far.

The only substantial lead we have towards characters is one that has been designated ‘The Mexican’. In June of 2021, voice actor Jorge Consejo’s resume leaked the existence of GTA 6 as well as the mysterious character.

Many journalists reached out to Jorge Consejo, however, he refused to comment due to contractual obligations.

Updated domains

It’s a verifiable fact that Take-Two Interactive has renewed its ownership of the domain names ‘gtavi’ and ‘gtavicecityonline’. While it’s not uncommon for companies to bear the relatively low cost of retaining ownership over domain names that may prove useful in future, the fact that they bother to do so at all indicates that the company might have something in the works.

Grand Theft Auto Loading Screen

The fabricated

When it comes to a franchise as monumental as Grand Theft Auto, there’s going to be folks who take advantage of the official silence to fabricate their own ‘leaks’. One example was a Reddit post from 2019 that has since been deleted, which appears to have stitched previously ‘leaked’ information together with the writer’s own inventions.

Industry writers, including Destructoid’s Jason Schreier, were quick to dismiss the post as foolishness and falsehood.

And so, for now, we wait. Grand Theft Auto 6 seems like an inevitability more than it does a possibility, but we won’t know anything for sure until it gets an official announcement.

Or, you know, at least some solid leaks.

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