GTA is well known for its jokes and spoofs, but this week it would appear someone has beaten Rockstar at its own game by falsely advertising the next installment in the GTA series. Over the past few days, GTA Online players have seen messages supposedly advertising GTA6 appear on the side of their screens. On the surface, the announcements appeared to be fairly legitimate: they used a font similar to the official Rockstar branding, and even included a link to Rockstar's website. Unsurprisingly, this was enough to hoodwink many players, who were ecstatic at the news of a new GTA game and rushed to Twitter to express their excitement.
Well, that was fun while it lasted. Earlier this week, GTA Online players managed to convince themselves that a sixth instalment in Rockstar’s premiere sandbox of crime was on the way. According to reports, players got their hands on an in-game pop-up that announced GTA 6 for 2019. Yeah, that ain’t happening, as it was the work of some savvy mods within GTA Online.
Considering Red Dead Redemption 2 is still in the making and that GTA Online is still being updated on a monthly basis, it would’ve been really hard to believe that the software house was already doing something on GTA 6 (or at least this early).
If you’ve played GTA Online over the past week, you may have noticed a peculiar message: “GTA VI Coming 2019.” If you’re wondering why the game industry isn’t exploding over the sudden revelation that the next Grand Theft Auto will be out next year, it’s because there’s been no such announcement - the message going up in GTA Online is a hoax.
The impromptu announcement has only appeared in the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 versions of the game, which happen to be way more open to playing online with hacked games. It seems this is exactly what’s happened here - a hacker’s figured out how Rockstar’s announcement system works, and managed to put out an intriguing message about the developer’s next game.
Open your world with the .
Slim as it is, there is a chance the message is real, but don’t take any bets on it unless you like some real long odds. Red Dead Redemption 2 is out this year, five years after GTA5’s original release. Unless Rockstar’s shrunk its development process down from a half-decade to a single year, the is probably a bit further off.
What is coming soon is a Red Dead sequel, and - yes, I’m going to harp on this again - it still hasn’t been announced for PC. Maybe that’s a good thing, though. If a PC version got similarly hacked, I’d have to write this story all over again for Red Dead 3, and nobody wants that.