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.
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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 Grand Theft Auto 6 release date 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.
So many people asking about the ‘GTA VI’ message on GTA Online. It’s just some clever modder who found a way to use Rockstar’s announcement system, which is why the message also appears in Single Player, that’s all. pic.twitter.com/eCnirv4k6j
— Yan2295 (@Yan2295) July 2, 2018
With Rockstar now having a reputation for industry-redefining success, everyone’s a little scared about the game’s projected sales, and the Red Dead Redemption 2 release date is looking a little barren when it comes to other games. Whenever GTA6 comes out – and let’s be honest, it eventually will – we can expect similar results.