GTA 6 news might actually be on the horizon, as the actor supposedly playing Jason shares a new image with a distinctly – and highly suggestive – Vice City theme. The next entry in the Rockstar open-world game series is confirmed to be set in the fictionalised version of Miami, with the GTA 6 gameplay footage that we have seen so far also confirming its two lead protagonists. Are we about to learn more on the GTA 6 release date? Joining together some Grand Theft Auto-related dots, it seems possible.
We start with an actor named Bryan Zampella. All the way back in 2016, Zampella shared a picture of himself alongside Joseph L. Rubino, who, at the time, was working at Rockstar Games as a camera artist. In 2017, Zampella shared another image of himself, with the caption “I know my way around a parking lot.” And just last year, a third image of Zampella came with the hashtag “#vicecity.”
Following all of these hints, the GTA 6 gameplay that we saw in 2022 offered us a look at Jason and Lucia, the two characters allegedly at the centre of the new Grand Theft Auto story. Jason bears a strong resemblance to Zampella – as well as having similar faces, the two even seem to have a penchant for wearing a backwards baseball cap.
Now, Zampella shares a new image, with heavier GTA and Vice City themes than ever before. Once again donning the Jason-esque backwards ball cap, Zampella is sat in front of some very Miami-looking palm trees, wearing an Hawaiian shirt, which Grand Theft Auto fans will remember as the top fit of choice for the original Vice City’s Tommy Vercetti.
There’s no caption this time, but with a little bit of digging – and this is where we maybe get a bit tin-foil hat – we learn that the original Vice City was released to PC on May 12 2003 in the US, and May 15 2003 in the UK. Posting the photograph on May 14, that would put Zampella’s teaser image right around the time of the 20th anniversary of Vice City’s PC release. Coincidence? Probably. But the backwards hat, the palm trees, and the shirt seem like a less-than subtle-hint.
So what could it mean? If you want sheer optimism, perhaps Zampella is actually in Miami to take part in some kind of announcement in the imminent future. If you want cautious, slightly apprehensive goodwill, there’s something being recorded by Rockstar down there right now, but we won’t see it for a while. And finally if you want total dispassionate solemnity, this is all just incidental, and official news on GTA 6 is still a distant dream.
The first trailers for GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 both arrived in the month of October, although Grand Theft Auto 4’s official announcement did in fact come in May. But here’s what we know: GTA 6 is coming, it’s going to be huge, and we can’t wait to find out more.
In the meantime, get the best GTA 5 mods to keep Los Santos feeling alive. You can also check out our revised list of the greatest GTA 5 cheats in 2023, or try the best GTA RP servers for a whole-new sandbox experience.