A Decade Of GTA 6 Rumors And Hijinks Will Soon Come To An End

On Wednesday, Rockstar Video games formally confirmed that—after a few years of ready—the subsequent Grand Theft Auto recreation will lastly be revealed through a trailer in early December. Individuals on-line are understandably going wild over the information and it marks the tip of a weird period of infinite hypothesis and hijinks.

Rockstar’s open-world crime simulator, Grand Theft Auto V, launched on Xbox 360 and PS3 again in 2013 (see on Amazon). Within the 10 years since its launch, it has turn out to be one of many best-selling video video games in historical past. And never lengthy after it hit consoles, individuals started questioning: “When will the subsequent GTA recreation be introduced?” Up to now, the time between GTA fundamental installments was typically round three to 5 years. However this time round, it’s been a a lot longer anticipate simply the affirmation of the subsequent entry within the collection. In that decade of what felt like infinite ready, issues received bizarre, followers grew determined, and rumors endlessly flooded the online.

The early days of GTA VI rumors

Barely 4 years after the discharge of GTA V and its multiplayer part, GTA On-line, gamers had been already trolling the neighborhood concerning the lacking GTA VI. In 2018, hackers crammed GTA On-line with faux bulletins, purportedly from Rockstar, claiming that GTA VI pre-orders had been stay and that the sport could be launched in 2019. That, uh…didn’t occur.

By 2020, determined followers had been wanting into the smallest particulars to try to puzzle out the discharge date of Grand Theft Auto VI’s trailer and even simply when Rockstar would formally verify the sport’s existence. At one level, a random piece of robotic art work on Rockstar Video games’ official web site grew to become fodder for fan theories. (It turned out to be nothing. That’s the case with 99% of these things.)

Followers even tracked down a dust street in Virginia utilizing coordinates from a GTA On-line replace trailer and related it again to GTA VI. Based on some the street was formed equally to “VI”. I’m undecided this was intentional on Rockstar’s half, however it received the neighborhood riled up once more as they tried to attach the street to their theories. Maybe the subsequent GTA recreation could be set in that a part of the nation? Or perhaps it will likely be a rural-themed GTA installment? (Primarily based on what we learn about GTA VI, none of those theories panned out.)

The net business constructed on GTA VI hypothesis

As time went on, followers grew to become increasingly determined as Rockstar offered little or no to quench their need for GTA VI information. At this level, a cottage business centered on “GTA VI rumors” had absolutely fashioned throughout social media, YouTube, Reddit, and fewer respected information retailers. It led to GTA VI trending on-line again and again as trolls unfold faux rumors that had been picked up by fan accounts after which reported on by smaller retailers whose tales received shared on Reddit and YouTube resulting in extra fan hypothesis and tales earlier than all of it collapsed right into a pile of lies and disappointment. And this saved occurring for years.

In 2021, one fan—probably influenced by this neverending cycle of rumors—interrupted an episode of a stay TV present and demanded details about Grand Theft Auto VI. The present, host, and community had zero connection to Rockstar Video games or Take-Two, however that didn’t cease this fan from begging for solutions.

“What I wish to know is the place the hell is GTA VI,” shouted the person on stay TV, “I’ve been ready eight years for GTA VI!“

Determined followers even dug by way of the remastered and not-so-great GTA Trilogy assortment for clues. And so they discovered one thing: An out-of-place picture of a home that seemed to be positioned in Florida and confirmed a UFO above it. Now that we all know in 2023—primarily based on leaks and reviews—that the subsequent fundamental GTA recreation is prone to be set in Vice Metropolis, Florida, it’s attainable that this clue was pointing followers in the precise path in any case. Even when that’s the case, the monitor report for neighborhood rumors and theories is fairly poor.

The tip of an odd, exhausting period

Lastly, final yr Rockstar Video games confirmed that it was making one other Grand Theft Auto. Did this cease fan hypothesis? By no means! As talked about already, an business had fashioned round GTA hypothesis and people content material creators weren’t going to cease. They nonetheless had the possibility to squeeze out extra rumors about faux trailers and false launch dates. And so they did simply that, pointing to GTA On-line shirts as clues and working on stage on the Recreation Awards to say…Invoice Clinton needs to play GTA VI…?

Then, in September 2022, the primary large blow to the GTA VI rumor ecosystem of content material creators occurred. A large, unprecedented leak of early Grand Theft Auto VI gameplay hit the web.

Inside hours followers cataloged every clip and started poring over it with microscopes. Some started utilizing the clips to construct GTA VI’s map. Others combed by way of every leaked video for any particulars concerning the recreation’s plot or characters. For the primary time in almost a decade, GTA followers had one thing actual to have a look at and Take-Two Interactive’s legal professionals had been unable to cease them. Now that folk knew who the primary protagonists had been, the place the sport was set, and a plethora of different particulars, the business round GTA IV rumors began to expire of steam.

Earlier than Rockstar’s affirmation of a December trailer launch, the final elements of the hypothesis machine spent the ultimate months of this period predicting and re-predicting when the sport could be introduced, teased, or formally unveiled. All of those random on-line predictions had been fallacious, even a much-hyped October reveal.

Lastly, on November 7, Bloomberg reported {that a} GTA VI trailer was coming in December and the subsequent day, Rockstar confirmed it.

And so now, we wait, one thing the GTA neighborhood has gotten good at within the final decade. Come December followers will lastly get to see the primary official reveal of the subsequent Grand Theft Auto recreation after a wild decade of hypothesis, rumors, hoaxes, trolls, and leaks.

As soon as GTA VI is formally a factor that Rockstar can speak about, lots of this period might be misplaced to the ether as individuals transfer on and deal with actual trailers and screenshots. However I’ll always remember simply how bizarre and determined hundreds of thousands of GTA followers received once they had been compelled to attend 10 years for Grand Theft Auto VI.

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