Report: Grand Theft Auto VI Teased for 2019 Release in GTA Online, or Is It Just a Clever Hack?

Once again, rumors persist of an as-yet unannounced Grand Theft Auto VI. It’s been a long time since the release of Grand Theft Auto V, and players are getting antsy to see what could come next from Rockstar. While the real answer to that is Red Dead Redemption 2 later this year, players are holding out hope that Rockstar will announce the next iteration in the GTA series. We have yet to have a Grand Theft Auto game full this generation (GTA V originally released on last-gen consoles), but much of Rockstar’s efforts have been focused on GTA Online, including the brand new Nightclubs update.

GTA Online players on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC have been getting a message in-game that appears to advertise a 2019 Grand Theft Auto VI release date. The message is supposedly directly from Rockstar and simply says “GTA VI Coming 2019″ with a link to the Rockstar Games website. Unless Rockstar is trying to go with some subtle/not-so-subtle viral marketing campaign, we’re going to chalk this one up as a fake (and frankly, that’s just not Rockstar’s style with a new game announcement).

The studio is currently gearing up to release Red Dead Redemption 2 in October, and while they undoubtedly have a studio working on GTA 6 as I type out this article, they aren’t going to begin announcing or marketing it right now. The GTA Online message itself is real–many players confirm getting it–so how did this elaborate prank happen? The messaging currently only appears on the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC versions of the game–in other words, it only appears on versions of the game that can be modded. The so-called “pure” versions of GTA Online, namely PS4 and Xbox One, have yet to see the GTA VI advertisement at all.

Grand Theft Auto V recently surpassed 95 million units sold, so they five-year old game is still going extremely strong. Rockstar will be taking us back to the Wild West later this year. With all eyes on that, it may be quite some time before we see any hint of a Grand Theft Auto VI release date. Maybe Rockstar will celebrate 100 million sold in some special way? Until then, we’ll have to make do with some prankster’s idea of a joke, because we’re highly doubting this Grand Theft Auto VI release date “leak” is actually real.

[Via: Game Revolution; Source: GamesRadar]