Grand Theft Auto series is surely the best project of Rockstar Games. The first game was released in 1997, and the second game, GTA 2, was released two years after. These 2D games were enough to get Rockstar some fans, but after two more years, the next game of the series, GTA 3, came out with a 3D world. The next games until GTA IV, including GTA 3, is known as 3D Universe. In this universe, we played games like Vice City, San Andreas, and many more spinoffs like GTA Advance, Liberty City Stories, etc. When Rockstar released GTA IV, it was the beginning of a new universe called HD World. Every GTA fan of course knows these games. Because GTA IV is known for its story and game engine, GTA V is still one of the top-selling games… And fans are waiting for GTA 6 for a while.
Of course, the fact that GTA V came out 8 years ago is one of the main reasons for it. People are starting to theorize things about the upcoming GTA game. Some of them publish those addressing that these are their theories, while some of them claim that they have leaked some information from Rockstar. It’s true that Rockstar did not make an official statement about the game, but leaks-called-theories are enough to excite players.
In this post, we have compiled some leaks and can-named-as-official-information about GTA 6. While reading it, do not forget that they are not real, and they are nothing but rumors.
GTA 6 Release Date
“When Rockstar release GTA ?”, “They say the game will come out this year.”… Those are the sentences that we hear maybe like every month. Of course, everybody says everything, because there’s no official information about it.
But there are some sensible thoughts or rumors about it. And when you think about them, they start to make much more sense. One of them is the release of next-gen consoles. If you remember, there were some rumors like that for GTA V too. They said GTA V would be released for the current-gen and next-gen consoles of that time. And it kind of happened like that. PlayStation made its launch after a month of release of GTA V. And after a couple of months, GTA V is also released for the next-gen consoles. Moreover, it was rumored that before GTA V was released, they said it also is being developed for the next-gens.
The point is, the next-gen consoles of today’s world might be a milestone for GTA 6. There are also some leaks that support this. Maybe, you will also think that these leaks are very obvious lies, but they kind of drew some attention. A 4chan user claimed that they got some information about the release date of the game from Rockstar. The user claims that Rockstar will announce the game in Spring 2022, and they will release the game in October 2023. Of course, there is nothing supporting those dates, and that’s why we call it a “leak”, and not official.
Pachter: Announcement in 2021, Release in 2022
Another opinion is coming from Michael Pachter. Pachter is a video game, social media, digital media, and electronics analyst. And he made a guess about the upcoming GTA game. He said that “Rockstar will announce the game in 2020, and release it in 2021”. Of course, it’s a very false claim, because 2020 has ended, and we didn’t see any announcements from Rockstar. But he was also not believing that guess. Because he claimed that the most possible scenario would be “announcement in 2021, release in 2022”. He also gave an example by comparing GTA 6 to RDR2. Rockstar released Red Dead Redemption 2 after the eight years of Red Dead Redemption 1’s release.
“When There’s An Announcement To Be Made, It’ll Come From Rockstar.”
The CEO of Take-Two, Strauss Zelnick, joined the Investors conference not long time ago. An investor questioned him about GTA 6, and Zelnick kind of remained silent about it. He gave an answer, but it doesn’t have any hints or information about the game.
So, Rockstar hasn’t announced any new titles for the market and when there’s an announcement to be made, it’ll come from Rockstar, so I’ll probably leave you there, and I don’t think you would have expected anything else.
Strauss Zelnick
Actually, Zelnick is right. We wouldn’t believe any information about the upcoming GTA game, unless it’s an official announcement.
Map and Location of GTA 6
The Vice City Rumors
We are all curious about the location and the size of the map of GTA 6. Frankly, I don’t know why people strongly believe that we’ll go back to Vice City, and the biggest claim of those people is you write V and I next to each other, so the sixth game of the series will be located in Vice City. Yes, we love Vice City, the city that made us fall in love with Miami, even if we haven’t been there. But I don’t think just because of it, GTA 6 will be located in there, again.
But there’s a different opinion I also think can be possible. We want Vice City because we love and know it. GTA: Vice City was released in 2002, and its map is quite bigger than the games of that time. But, it’s been nearly 20 years, and why are we expecting Vice City while we could think bigger? Why are we thinking about Miami, while we could think about the whole of Florida?
Florida Rumors
There are also leaks about the possible location of GTA 6. A 4chan user claimed that they were friends with an employee from Rockstar, and this employee wanted that user to anonymously leak about GTA 6. Here are the leaks about the map and location of GTA 6:
1 – The map is set to be the size of GTA V & RDR2 combined
2 – The area is based on Florida, but Vice City isn’t the only major city in the area
3 – The map follows a design similar to that of GTA San Andreas’s map, 3 major cities and 1 smaller city to the far northwest of the map, but the terrain is way different from past entries
4 – You very briefly visit a small island in Central America, but it’s not Guarma (Guarma is a location from RDR2)
The Employee’s Claims
About the release date, we addressed another leak about GTA 6. We don’t know who leaked that information, actually, it won’t make a difference, those are leaking claims, not official announcements. There was also a 4chan post, that a Rockstar employee answered questions from the users. In those claims, there was some information about the map and location too.
1 – The map covers Miami/Florida and a smaller map that appears in limited interaction (similar to Guarma in RDR2)
2 – The map is smaller than RDR2 but way denser
3 – Liberty City has limited missions in the game. The Mafia family’s influence is heavy there
Q&A Claims
Can It Be Somewhere Other Than The US?
The fans are also thinking about somewhere different from the US, but in my opinion, I don’t think so. The series has thirteen games, and seven of them are main games. And every one of them is located in a parody version of the US, except GTA: London 1969, and GTA: London 1961, both of them were released in 1999 and developed by DMA Design. And the stories of the game are usually about criticizing the American lifestyle and culture. So, I don’t think somewhere other than the US would be appropriate to the story. There are also rumors that the location can be England or South America. Moreover, some of them are thinking about Asia as the location of the game. Those claims are so irrelevant and absurd that I won’t put them on this post.
Dan Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar Games, has left the company as you know, but he said a thing or two about the locations of the series.
At the moment, it feels like GTA’s DNA is contemporary-ish, American-ish, English-speaking-ish, because that’s what it has been… that doesn’t necessarily limit it to those.
Dan Houser
Of course, we can’t assume the next game will be located in a parody of the US, but I feel like it will stay like that.
Story and Characters of GTA 6
Those claims that we posted above has lots of claims about the story and the characters. But first, we will start with a more reliable leak.
Characters
There’s a Mexican actor named Jorge Consejo. Consejo did publish his past projects online not a long time ago. On this list, we see “Grand Theft Auto VI (CGI) 2018” project, and Consejo played a role as “The Mexican”.
Of course people started to ask lots of questions to Consejo about the GTA thing. We’re not pretty sure if that’s real or not, but Consejo, obviously, never answered any questions about it, and made a statement from Twitter.
A Female Protagonist?
One of the most popular rumors about GTA 6 is that there will be a female protagonist in the game. Some leakers claimed those rumors are true, but their explanations are very irrelevant. Honestly, I don’t think there will be a female character. And I’m pretty sure that egalitarian-looking-die-hard-feminists-that-ironically-supports-female-supremacy will criticize Rockstar about it. But the point is not the discrimination. The point is, we are talking about a project that probably has a ready-to-release story and scenario. And you can’t change a sixty-or-so-hours-long scenario to change the gender of the protagonist. Also, the leaks from 4chan that we mentioned before do not have any information about a female protagonist, one of them says the opposite while the other one is naming some protagonists.
“Female Protagonist Doesn’t Fit With GTA’s Narrative”
1 – Female protagonist was contemplated around 2017 but was not finalized because it doesn’t fit with GTA’s narrative
2 – One male protagonist (code-named Ricardo which was leaked previously). The name of the protagonist is a spoiler in itself which can potentially spoil the narrative
3 – The age of the protagonist is supposed to be 34 by the end of the game
4 – The main character is a white male, roughly 6’1″ and has a “sun-kissed” Tan. Italian raised in America and has jet black hair
5 – The Mexican from the previous leak is a very wealthy man who peddles Colombian marching powder (cocaine)
Q&A Claims
1 – There are 4 protagonists in the game, Walther Wallace, a driver, then an Israeli former IDF guy(don’t know his name), Thomas Branigan who has a smuggling plane called the raven, and the fourth guy was Marcus Burke, other than him being a single father of a son, he deals in drugs
2 – There are multiple child characters in the game, they mainly interact with Burke and his adolescent son (I wasn’t told more details but probably just his friends)
3 – Character specific powers are back, but they only implemented one power for Walther Wallace and its just Franklin’s ability from GTA V
4 – Character switching isn’t instant, but it’s (apparently) more entertaining than it was last time(instead of the game zooming out, the camera just travels quickly to where your desired protagonist is)
5 – Mori Kibbutz from GTA: TBoGT is in the game
The Employee’s Claims
Story
Like I said before, I expect a story that criticizes the American lifestyle, culture, and even politics. We exactly don’t know the details of the story, but those 4chan leakers published some claims about it.
1 – Main story set to be about 60 hours long
2 – It is the best story ever put in a GTA game but not quite emotional as RDR2
3 – The game is very politically incorrect
Q&A Claims
1 – Part of the game is set in the 1980s, but time skips to present day
2 – It’s about the drug trade
3 – The story is in the middle between GTA IV Dark and GTA V Bright, and you start playing as Branigan
The Employee’s Claims
The Rest of Those Leak Claims
We placed some of those claims in their corresponding topics, but there are also lots of claims about the game itself. In this part, we will tell you the remaining claims both from Q&A claims, and the employee’s claims.
“The Employee”s Claims
I was a friend of one employee who was disgruntled during 2019 and wanted me to anonymously leak info about GTA 6, but things improved later, and lost contact with the guy
To keep this within the text limit, I will keep this short.
1 – The game was worked on in full active development since 2016 or 2017, but pre-production began shortly after porting GTA V to current-gen consoles in 2014
2 – Mission design isn’t as linear as it was in RDR2 and GTA V (this goes for most missions)
3 – The game retains the cores from RDR2, and they function much in the same way as they did in RDR2, except that the fortifying items are changed to resemble drugs
4 – There is improved parkour in the game, inspired by Sleeping Dogs, but it isn’t as extensive as in there or other games (Can’t wall run for example)
5 – Weapons function more realistically in gameplay than they did in GTA V, rocket backblast is 1 hit kill and can cause you to accidentally kill side characters and alter mission outcomes(In one mission you are supposed to destroy a helicopter but instead of using a rocket you can use a sniper, if a rocket is used a side NPC will get back blasted, but the mission won’t fail)
6 – Hand-to-hand combat is retained from RDR2 except its harder to fight using hand to hand in GTA 6 than in GTA V
7 – You can gain weight, and it affects the same attributes as they did in RDR2, except also what kind of body armor you can use
All this info was acquired throughout 2019, I have no knowledge of trailers, but I do know that the game is definitely not in early development
The Employee’s Claims
Q&A Claims
1 – Chapter system similar RDR2 and the first 2 chapters set in the late 1970s
2 – The leaker claims that Dan Houser left because he exhausted himself after RDR2 crunch, could return in the future
3 – GTA:O counterpart to release a few months after the single-player counterpart release. (Something similar to what they did with RDR2 and Red Dead Online)
4 – The mission structure supposed to be quite free
5 – RDR1 is technically being “remastered” and coming before GTA 6
6 – You may see NPCs beeping their horn and driving aggressively around other drivers because they’re late for work
7 – Direct contact with explosions can blow off limbs, you can leave deep cuts on people with a machete and close combat shooting can result in bone fragmentation
8 – Nudity level similar to Cyberpunk
9 – Developers impressed with Sony and the load times are surprisingly good for a game of this size and detail
10 – Consoles being prioritized so the PC version releasing later on after optimization
11 – Body form alteration can happen like in San Andreas but not as dramatic. People will comment on your apparel choices.
12 – Storms and weather effects are “genuinely insane”
13 – Car customization improved upon from GTA V. Cars change with time, so do clothes and hairstyles. The older cars become less common with time and if someone sees you drive an old car, they might call it a piece of crap
Q&A Claims
Summary
To summarize, the best thing would be waiting for an official announcement and not believe any bit of these leaks/claims. Besides the ones that we included, there are maybe hundreds of thousands of claims and leaks about the upcoming GTA game. So, it won’t be the right thing to make assumptions about the game after seeing those possibly-fake claims.
My personal opinion is, we can see something like an announcement from Rockstar this year, or next year. I don’t think they will release the game in the near future, because GTA V itself is still one of the top-grossing entertainment products, and Rockstar is still earning tens of millions of dollars from GTA Online every year.
