Since its release way back in 2013, Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto 5 has gone on to become one of the most celebrated titles in video game history. Not only did GTA 5 break industry records to become the fastest-selling entertainment product of all-time, earning over $1.4 billion in its first three days of sale, but the game has been universally praised by critics, winning countless awards and is currently the third best-selling video game ever.
The game continues to gain new fans thanks to Grand Theft Auto Online, with millions of fans flocking to multiple online servers to take part in one-off missions and discover new parts of the ever-expanding GTA world.
But it’s now almost six years since GTA 5 debuted and fans are beginning to wonder if and when the next instalment is due. Considering Rockstar’s other main project, Red Dead Redemption 2, was released last year to critical acclaim, it appears the New York-based company now have all the time in the world to focus their efforts on GTA 6.
Rockstar has kept it hush on details regarding the game, but if you scour the Internet enough you’ll find a few tasty morsels here and there. Until Rockstar officially announces the game, here’s everything we know about GTA 6 so far.
The Setting
The cities in GTA get bigger and bigger with each release, so don’t be surprised if GTA 6 features the largest open world in the series yet. While many have speculated the next game in the series will take place in Liberty City (GTA 3, GTA 4, Lost And Damned, The Ballad Of Gay Tony) or Vice City (GTA Vice City), it’s more likely Rockstar will create a whole new environment for players to explore.
Chicago and Las Vegas have both been rumoured cities while there’s also talk of the game spanning the entirety of the USA, as the folks at TechRader have speculated. International cities such as London, Tokyo and Cape Town have also been flagged. YouTube Channel The Know even suggested a source from inside Rockstar Games leaked information regarding GTA being set in Miami, which could see a return to Vice City.
Plot
As well as discussing the possibility of GTA 6 being set in Miami, The Know also spilt details on the game’s rumoured plot. Going under the codename “Project Americas,” the game is said to be a possible Vice City reboot set in Miami and will include missions in South America. If this is the case than GTA 6 could be some kind of Narcos meets Scarface hybrid in video game form, and I am 100% here for that!
The Biggest Map Yet
Reddit user VermillionDemonFox got tongues wagging when they posted a picture of the proposed map for GTA 6. As you can see below, the map connects every GTA map into one location and would be a unique way for players to travel between every city seen in the series in one huge game.
While the map is likely photoshopped, there could be some truth to VermillionDemonFox’s idea, with Rockstar Producer Leslie Benzies telling Digital Trends in 2012, “Of course at some point we would like to have one big world containing all our cities and let the player fly between them and revisit their favourite areas.” Interesting…
A Female Protagonist?
Every GTA game has featured males as the main protagonist, but while fans have been keen for a kick-ass woman to be front and centre for a while now, Rockstar isn’t that sure. Co-founder and lead writer Dan Houser stated in an interview with The Guardian back in 2013 that a female lead wasn’t what they were looking for with GTA 5.
“We didn’t really think about it this time,” Houser said. “That’s not to say that we couldn’t or we wouldn’t. This character set is just what came to us: it wasn’t, ‘we’ve got X and Y so we need Z’. We weren’t trying to do it off a checklist – I don’t think that will ever give you something that’s believable or engaging.”
“In the future, could we do a game with a female lead? Of course. We just haven’t found the right game for it yet, but it’s one of the things that we always think about.”
Fingers crossed they take the leap, change things up and GTA 6 will enable gamers to take control of a woman.
Vocal Talent
One of the key aspects to GTA‘s success is the vocal talent involved with each game. While the first few had a standard voice-over work, GTA III took things to another level with the likes of Micheal Madsen, Kyle MacLachlan, Joe Pantoliano and Micheal Rapaport featuring. Since then everyone from Ray Liotta and Samuel L. Jackson to Jenna Jameson and Danny Trejo has made an appearance, and it seems GTA 6 is going to have an even better cast.
TechRader have noted real-life couple Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling have both been rumoured to play main characters in GTA 6, with the possibility of players being able to alternate between the two, similar to GTA 5.
Release Date
As there is no concrete confirmation this game has been green-lit, coming up with an exact release date is impossible, but that hasn’t stopped Rockstar Games’ co-founder Dan Houser having his say. “It’s really unclear what we would even do with it, let alone how upset people would get with whatever we did,” Houser told GQ in an extensive interview.
“Both intense liberal progression and intense conservatism are both very militant, and very angry. It is scary but it’s also strange, and yet both of them seem occasionally to veer towards the absurd. It’s hard to satirise for those reasons. Some of the stuff you see is straightforwardly beyond satire. It would be out of date within two minutes, everything is changing so fast.”
From those comments, it seems we shouldn’t get out hopes up for GTA 6 anytime this year, but with the PlayStation 5 expected to hit shelves sometime in 2020/2021, GTA 6 would make the ideal launch title.
