Even though GTA 6 hasn't been officially announced, there are a lot of rumors about GTA 6 that make us worry about what developer Rockstar Games will launch next.
According to the latest rumors, GTA 6 may be released in October 2023, and the action will take place in Miami. This is from a dubious online source, but additional details from this leak including one protagonist, a male, the game takes place in the 1970s, with a story such as Red Dead Redemption 2. Add to that Rockstar teasing fans and Rockstar's official support account telling us to "stay tuned" to GTA 6 on Twitter and it just gets more and more exciting.
According to a report from Kotaku, "a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series" is in early development as of April 2020. This report also suggested that we could expect a smaller launch with the game expanding through updates in the form of an MMO or GTA Online.
Development timelines mean we can expect the game to be on PS5 and Xbox Series X, and a 2021 PS5 remastered GTA 5 release suggests we can wait until at least 2022 for GTA 6.
Keep reading to find out about the rumors circulating on the internet, which we've paired with some particularly enthusiastic theories from the GamesRadar team. To satisfy your appetites, below you'll find everything we know about GTA 6, from the number of playable characters to potential locations, thanks to a flood of information from an alleged GTA 6 Project Americas leak. Start reading!
This GTA 6 leak contains a ton of new information that could be true
Take all of this information with a grain of salt - doubly so, in fact, as the game is reportedly in a very early development stage - but the latest alleged GTA 6 leak comes from Reddit. User JackOLantern1982 provided a total of 23 details about the upcoming Rockstar game. In addition to confirming that the game is in development, they say its codename is Project Americas as the game will be set in multiple countries, namely Brazil in a fictional city based on Rio de Janeiro and Vice City in USA. Highly influenced by Netflix's Narcos (a phenomenal series about the origins of the cocaine trade), you can find information from JackOLantern1982 below, edited for clarity, along with details from a separate potential leak on Fireden.
- The next GTA game has been in development since 2012, but production didn't start properly until 2015, but even then the team focused more on Red Dead Redemption 2.
- This is another Rockstar Worldwide production.
- Codename PROJECT AMERICAS.
- The action takes place both in Vice City and in a new fictional location based on Rio de Janeiro.
- Some linear missions take place in Liberty City, but it's not an open world (remember Ludendorff in GTA 5).
- The game will have a balance between realism and arcade, and will not be as realistic as Red Dead Redemption 2.
- One playable protagonist: male, not female, despite alleged leaks.
- The action takes place in the 1970s and 1980s.
- You play as a promising drug lord named "Ricardo". Another key character named "Casey" is part of the story. You start out as a grunt, making runs as a cocaine smuggler from Vice City into the new big area of South America before making connections with big drug lords and working your way up. Several cities.
- There will also be a giant prison that will play a role in the game.
- A chapter system similar to a Tarantino movie or Red Dead Redemption 2 will be introduced.
- The weather is in the spotlight (hurricanes, floods, etc.).
- Buildings change over time, cars too. So old, rare classic cars get more expensive over time, etc. Total savings.
- Heavily inspired by Netflix's Narcos.
- They want to have an incredible 70s/80s soundtrack.
- A younger Martin Madrazo will appear, just like his father, who at the time was a major drug lord. You are on several missions for the Madrazo family, including attacks on other gangs.
- Building a drug empire is a mechanic similar to Vice City Stories, but on a larger scale. Think of the GTA Online system and dial up to 10.
- You can only carry weapons with you. No arsenal in your back pocket like in Red Dead Redemption 2.
- Your personal vehicle will look like the saddle of your horse in Red Dead Redemption 2. All your equipment is stored in the trunk. You also store body armor in the car. If you wear it, it looks like it's not just an invisible thing anymore.
- There will be a lot of subtitle reading. Think Max Payne 3 is very addictive, as if you were watching the Narcos series. Whenever you find yourself in South America, don't expect to hear much English. Vice City is a mixture of everything, but mostly English.
- The last piece of narrative information, it will discuss topics such as HIV and the immigration crisis of the time. Fictional version of Fidel Castro, etc.
- Next generation only, not PS4 or Xbox One [also known as PS5 and Xbox Project Scarlett].
- GTA 6 is now their main focus, along with another title (which could be Bully 2).
- The game is still in pre-alpha, so names, locations, and details can and probably will change.
- No ETA as of release date.
And here are the leaks from Fireden, also edited for clarity:
- The game takes place in modern Liberty City.
- The beginning of the game is reminiscent of The Wire.
- The cops are trying to crack down on a gang/drug business based around a nightclub.
- The game has four main characters, two police officers and two gang members.
- The plot then picks up and moves to upstate New York where it becomes more criminal like Ozark and Breaking Bad.
- It will have twice as much dialogue as in GTA 5, and a really crazy plot twist.
- The main storyline splits after a while, the criminal side being something of a sandbox game built on a criminal empire (Fallout 4 meets The Sims), and the police being more of a traditional action game with a slight LA Noire twist. .
- The earliest release is holiday 2021, but I think later, in 2022 or 2023.
What did Rockstar officially say about GTA 6?
The former president of Rockstar North teased the following entry of the series back in 2013 in a four-part interview with Develop magazine that started the online rumor mill:
"We don't know what GTA 6 will be like, but we have some ideas," Benzies said in an interview. “We have ideas that we want to realize in 45 years. We will choose the right ones. It first of all comes from the idea. Where it will be installed is the first question. This then defines the missions; you do different things in LA than you do in New York or Miami. The map and story are worked together and the story is the base flow of how it works so you can put together the mission."
Of course, Benzies hasn't said much about what form GTA 6 will take, and recently left Rockstar North under rather troubling circumstances. However, it's unlikely that Rockstar will break the tried and tested GTA series development process of world building with characters and structures layered on top. GTA 5 was created by over 1,000 developers from studios around the world, so it would be a bold move to change the template. In fact, it's likely that the location has already been set: we spoke to the software vendor at E3 2015, speaking at their own discretion, who suggested that work on GTA 6 is already well under way.
How the Fermi problem can help us make better predictions
In truth, no one but Rockstar North and their cast-iron non-disclosure agreements knows anything about GTA6, but by using historical precedent and an evaluation method called the Fermi problem, we can come up with a more reliable diagram.What is Fermi's problem? The term was recently popularized in the book Super Forecasting, which was preceded by the question:
How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?
Without searching Google for the answer, this doesn't look like anyone would know by heart, but your approach to solving the question says a lot about the potential accuracy of the prediction.
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In short, it's possible to "break down" the question into more worthy parts, such as what is my guess about Chicago's population? How many people are on average in each house? How many houses can have a piano? How often do they need tuning? A logical mind might come across a figure of 200-300 piano tuners (as stated in the link above). The actual answer is 290.
So while GTA 6 is unknown, it is not made up of the unknown. You can apply historical precedent, personal insights (about its creators), interview snippets, resume searches, and social and technological overlays to form a clearer picture. GTA 6 prediction is not a pure "Fermi problem" as it is not only a quantitative problem, but the structural approach matters.
When will GTA 6 release date?
Long story short: if Rockstar were to announce GTA 6 the day after Red Dead Redemption 2 was released (October 26, 2018 - write that down in your diary), then given the historical delays between the console GTA announcement and its release, we'd be waiting. 22 months means August 2020. Of course, Rockstar didn't. In fact, nothing has happened, so all we need to say is that GTA 6 is in "early development" as of April 2020. This makes it difficult to predict any release window, but we may at least hear about the game by the end of 2021 with a potential release in 2022.
We have approximated some dates, but this table shows the gap between "Announcement" and "Release" of GTA games, as well as the time elapsed between main entries.
It's certainly possible that Rockstar will try to minimize the interval between announcement and release, but that goes against everything we know about pre-release hype cycles and pushing for pre-orders. However, as the number of physical stores continues to dwindle, the "surprise" digital release remains more viable, albeit absurdly bold.
Where will GTA 6 take place? Didn't the former president of Rockstar North once talk about the world of GTA?
There are a number of wild rumors that we'll talk about in due course, but let's start with some historical thought. Currently, GTA games are located in the following locations:
- Liberty City – GTA 3, GTA 4, Lost and Damned, Ballad of Gay Tony
- Vice City – GTA Vice City
- San Andreas / Los Santos – GTA: San Andreas, GTA 5
If history repeats itself, Vice City or Liberty City look like the most likely candidates for a comeback... but it's possible that the game will explore new locations, which seems more likely in light of the expectations set by GTA Online, meaning the world won't get any smaller. Speaking to Rockstar's Leslie Benzies in 2013 on the GTAVoclock YouTube show, he stated that GTA Online's goal is to "grow this world until it'speace" . We're just going to add new things all the time, new places."
An excerpt from a GTAVoclock interview with Leslie Benzies in 2013.
Five years later, it's clear that GTA Online hasn't taken that route: the recent Doomsday Heist turned out to be one of the biggest updates in years, but only added interior locations, missions, and vehicles; not new states or countries. Leslie Benzies officially left Rockstar North in January 2016, but has been on sabbatical for much of the previous 17 months, so it's fair to assume his influence has been less critical since mid-2014.
Still, it's worth considering how much of what Benzies stated in 2013 holds true: “The only limitation is disk size and how much memory we have. We could, if we wanted to, simulate the whole world, different countries, whatever.” Rockstar might go back to familiar places first, he said: "Whether we do it or not... we have a bunch of old stuff that we're trying to use." Vice City, Liberty City and Alderney are obvious candidates but have yet to be implemented.
Back in December 2012, Benzies connected Vice City to the "GTA world" concept in an interview with Digital Trends: "Of course, at some point we would like to have one big world containing all of our cities and let the player fly. in between and get back to your favorite places, and in that context, a reimagining of Vice City would be very interesting.”
Will GTA 6 be exclusive to PS5 and Xbox Series X? Maybe, but it will definitely be the next generation game.
As the life cycle of PS4 and Xbox One is basically coming to an end, it's becoming more and more likely that GTA 6 will be a next-gen release. It may very well be a bit like GTA 5 and released on PS4 and Xbox One at the same time as the new consoles, but all the focus should be on optimizing for whatever hardware beasts Sony and Microsoft pull out of the bag.
Will GTA 6 be released on PC?
GTA 5 and GTA 4 eventually made it to PC, so hopefully a PC port of GTA 6 is just around the corner. It might not have a simultaneous launch, but that extra tinkering and development time has paid off so far, so hopefully PC fans will want to wait a bit again.
Rumors about GTA 6: which ones are the most reliable?
Futuristic plot
The Doomsday Heist in GTA Online featured flying cars, but it was a fantastic leap in tone from the single-player story.
According to a Christian Today report, there were rumors/fan fantasies that GTA 6's storyline would be more sci-fi than other games in the series, with one of the game mechanics allowing for time travel. Yes, there have been strange sub-quests in GTA games before, but none of them were as unrealistic as time travel.
This rumor comes from a ChristianToday post that does not state its source, but suggests that teleportation will be possible "in a fraction of a second". Specific time periods are not mentioned, but it can happen that you rewind time to previous moments in the hero's storyline.
Could this happen?A story told in different time periods? May be. Time travel? Very doubtful. GTA has traditionally taken a more grounded approach to the supernatural, at least until GTA Online's The Doomsday Heist update, which featured flying cars and orbital lasers. Otherwise, the series was more discreet: the GTA: San Andreas jetpack was pulled from the playable version of Area 51 and is only available very late in the game. GTAV Easter eggs - a little silly - are a curiosity that goes beyond the main story.
Each game in the series fits its own time period, with a key of realism to the game's storyline. It is worth noting that teleportation is already in GTA 5 - a kind of, but using mechanics that correspond to its history. The decision to use three playable characters was, in part, a way to allow players to quickly navigate a huge map without resorting to mysticism or wormholes, Rockstar told GTAVoclock on YouTube.
The game takes place throughout the United States.
There are fan theories that GTA 6 will have a map that will show all 52 states of North America, not just one city. You can read more at gta6grandtheftauto.com, but this URL is probably the most important indicator of how credible this rumor was.
If -if - the game was set to all 52 states, teleportation could come in handy for your protagonist so you can move across state boundaries instead of moving between time periods. Fans and bloggers have claimed that GTA 6 could use similar mechanics to Ubisoft's racing game, The Crew, which has swept across the country by placing key cities side by side.
Could this happen?It seems quite plausible that the scope of the game will increase, perhaps with famous locations like Los Santos, Liberty City, and Vice City… or spanning more states or global cities. It is more likely that the player will fast-travel by plane (as at the end of GTA San Andreas in the Saint Mark's Bistro mission) or switch between characters, as in GTA 5, a convenient way to quickly switch the player between locations without compromise. realism.
Return to London
Reports of a London setting for GTA 6 have come from Rockstar Games, potentially putting the next game right on its own studio's doorstep. Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser said the following back in September 2013 in an interview with Polygon:
“At this point, it seems like the DNA of GTA is modern, American, English because that’s what it was… but it doesn’t necessarily limit them, that’s exactly what we did. still."
This has led many to speculate that GTA may be looking to outside inspiration or even return to the UK. However, Houser also said that the GTA would not be returning to London in an interview with The Guardian the same month:
“I think in my opinion, GTA London was cool for the time, but then the games were more limited,” Hauser said. “These days, I think we'd like to make a UK game set in London, anywhere, but I don't know if it's going to be a GTA game. I think there are many great stories we could tell about the UK. , great demo environment, great game mechanics that the UK could love - I just don't think it's necessarily going to be GTA."
Could this happen?Potentially; London is not only home to publisher Rockstar, but is also a place the studio has previously visited with the appropriately titled Grand Theft Auto: London, 1869. While Houser may have questioned the viability of London back in 2013, a number of cultural and political events and world events may have brought the issue back to the fore, including Brexit, radical terrorism, high finance (and the public eye on rising inequality), non-residents in Russia, and “fake news”/algorithm-driven world (with references to the UK). firms such as Cambridge Analytica). However, given the size of GTA's US audience, this seems like a potentially repulsive move, and we assume that London will only emerge as part of a larger global constellation of cities.
Or Tokyo?
According to a source who spoke to TechRadar back in March 2016, Rockstar visited the Japanese capital as a landmark for a game called GTA: Tokyo a few years ago. Apparently, the idea of the game was eventually realized, but before that, the studio met with local residents, took many pictures and wanted to get a good feel for the city before embarking on this gaming journey.
Could this happen?If GTA moves out of the US, it will make a big difference to the series, and not just because Rockstar has set a number of series staples such as brands, restaurants, and counterfeit car makers all to be recycled. for the Far East. Agree, it would look amazing.
How Rockstar develops maps and what it could mean for GTA 6
Aaron Garbut, art director, spoke about Rockstar North's approach to worldbuilding during an interview with Develop in 2013: "We do a lot of Google search and StreetView," he says. – And some of us are Sam, Dan, Les and Me[Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Leslie Benzies] – I usually meet in places that inspire us, drive around these places and chat randomly.
“After that, we have six to eight people on the design for about nine months. up to a year. At this point, we have a pretty solid locked card. We treat cities like sculpture and make sure the perspectives on the streets look right. And we also make sure they have the areas that we need – both in terms of mission and as a city.”
Side-by-side comparison of all major GTA maps by GTAForums member KeWiS.
What does all this mean for GTA 6? Garbut talks about how the team spent "up to four years" in a virtual location, referring to the creation of GTA 5. Los Santos has been the biggest game world in the series so far, and you can see a comparison of all previous GTA maps. here. If GTA 6 is trying to replicate all 52 US states, or even a series of cities/regions comparable in size to Los Santos… that sounds like a lot of prep work, assuming Rockstar is doing the same. Rockstar North is currently hiring an environmental landscape artist "to create next-gen worlds for interesting future projects," which could be any game, but the ambiguity is deliberate.
We've estimated a potential gap of 83 months (about 7 years) between GTA 5 and GTA 6, and that would equate to a world twice the size of Los Santos...although that's a rough approximation and the time could have been spent elsewhere. ways. For example, what if GTA 6 isn't about scale... but about depth? GTA 4 was smaller and richer than, for example, GTA: San Andreas; as Rockstar took advantage of the jump from PS2 to PS3. Advances in AI, conversations, destructible environments, interiors (Rockstar North is hiring an interior artist), time and weather cycles would be much more exciting than the rough scale...but that's another story.
Will we finally get a female star as one of the characters in GTA 6?
Logic and the growing social/political momentum suggests that at least one of the playable characters in GTA 6 will be a woman. In GTA 5, you play as three male protagonists - Trevor, Michael, and Franklin - but while there were key female supporting characters, you never had to play as one. When asked about it in 2013, Rockstar co-founder and GTA lead writer Dan Houser told The Guardian that the team "didn't really think about it" this time around.
“That doesn’t mean we couldn’t or didn’t want to. This character set is exactly what we had in mind: it wasn't "we have X and Y, so we need Z". We didn't try to do it off the checklist - I don't think it will ever give you anything believable or attractive."
“In the future, can we make a game with a female lead? Certainly. We just haven't found the right game for it yet, but it's one of the things we're always thinking about. It didn't feel natural for this game, but definitely for the right game in the future - with the right themes it could be fantastic. But for GTA 5, it was organic, it was the characters that displayed the themes that we wanted to think about.”
Could this happen?Absolutely. Rockstar is never shy about controversy - as if representing 50% of humanity as a playable character could be considered debatable - and growing social momentum (and therefore a financial imperative, while being pragmatic) for the main character. However, we'd be surprised if the series didn't feature male players based on GTA 5's multi-character model. A wild guess? In the first GTA 6 trailer, you'll be asked to play exclusively as a female character - essentially throwing a hornet's nest at less progressive online communities - before revealing multiple characters in the future. This would be a welcome change from the history of the Hot Coffee series and stripper mini-games for female players.
GTA 6 will have several main characters - with a twist?
Another GTA 6 fan theory suggests that we will have several main characters with a twist. Imagine a cops vs robbers scenario where one of your playable characters is a police officer and the other is a criminal, aka a regular GTA hero.Where did this fan theory come from? Most likely from the GTA Reddit forums and fans who role-play as cops in GTA Online, but this is also a theory I threw around during an early episode of GTAVoclock as it would allow Rockstar to explore the morality of a gray area with no overt heroes or villains (e.g. a playable version The Wire).
Red Dead Redemption 2 has only one playable character, Arthur Morgan, and not several GTA 5 protagonists. Is this a foreshadowing for GTA 6? Not necessarily, says the developer. "We loved the switching system in GTA V and had a lot of fun with it," Rockstar told jeuxactu.com, "Maybe we'll do it again with another game, but in Red Dead Redemption 2, you'll be that person. share your adventure."
Could this happen?Potentially. We'd love to see GTA 6 have a multi-protagonist option and rich storytelling potential in replaying events from multiple perspectives, even if it's not as new as it once seemed.
GTA 6 VR - Any chance?
LA Noire for the HTC Vive was a teasing, albeit more measured, glimpse of how GTA can feel in VR.
According to rumors circulating on online forums citing known sources (without *sigh* actually quoting them), GTA 6 will come with full VR support. No, it's not just a few missions in VR, but rather the whole game in the style of Resident Evil 7.
Could this happen? Virtual reality has not become as popular as everyone expected, and - technical problems aside - aiming for such a limited user base seems like a giant financial gamble. In August 2017, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick was skeptical of VR, stating that AR is a much more viable alternative in the long run. “The concerns I raised about VR don’t apply to AR,” Zelnick said. “You don't have to wear glasses or a headset to experience AR. You are not burdened by being in a certain place, and the discomfort factor does not necessarily exist.”
However, it's hard not to consider LA Noire: The VR Case Files for the HTC Vive as a test case, and we were openly wondering what it could mean for GTA when we announced Rockstar's crime noir in late 2017. At best, GTA 6 may - may - follow the same path as the VR version of LA Noire, offering players the game's seven missions rebuilt specifically for VR. However, completely ignoring VR or opting for AR sounds more likely.
Putting it all together, what is our best prediction for Grand Theft Auto 6?
Combining the most credible pieces of the puzzle into a single prediction, GTA 6 will release on a new generation of hardware (like the PS5) in late 2020 or later, across multiple locations with multiple playable characters and at least one main character. GTA 6 will essentially be a "shell" for the revival of GTA Online on new hardware, moving the audience from one platform to another. The story element will be retained due to potential outrage over the launch of a game that acted solely as an "online playground", but it could - with some stretch - be presented as a hybrid of single-player and online, just like the story. a component of GTA Online's recent Doomsday heist that could be played in co-op mode.
The success of GTA Online cannot be overestimated, with the biggest ever hit in 2017 with record player numbers in December. Take Two's recent February 2018 earnings report. Over 90 million copies of GTA 5 have been sold so far, but GTA Online continues to be a key source of revenue, with profits to date estimated at $1.09 billion in July 2017, according to SuperData analysts. Watch the money, as they say in The Wire, and GTA 6 can only be played online.
Thematically, GTA 6 will likely address global issues of inequality, immigration (although GTA 4 has a lot to say here), terrorism, "fake news", the rise of authoritarian leadership, and extreme partisanship. A technologically complete leap into VR seems unlikely, but don't rule out VR/AR experimentation. A more interesting tech leap could be moving the online gaming community off the platforms to some kind of console cloud server (something GTAVoclock discussed with Leslie Benzies back in 2013), but GTA 6 might still be too early for that to be a reality.
Visually, you can appreciate the leap from GTA: San Andreas (PS2) to GTA4 (PS3), or look at the work of the GTA 5 modding community on PC, as well as the incredible "real life" GTA Redux mod. GTA 6's real successes may lie in behavioral AI, dynamic time and weather cycles, constantly deforming environments, and player stat tracking.
