Grand Theft Auto. The name is historic, almost transformative. The entire gaming industry was forever changed with the apparition of the first GTA and the next ones. And from one edition to the other, from the original to GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas and IV, the game just got better and better. The last Grand Theft Auto, namely V, simply killed the competition. There are very few games that sold more copies in their history than the last Rockstar Games production.

Why are these games so popular? In a word, possibilities. The level of options that GTA games are able to offer to all gamers, regardless of age, sex, gender and interests, is one that can hardly be beaten. You have the exploration element, allowing you to go anywhere on the (huge) map and see what’s what. You have the driving experience, allowing you to try your skills in high-speed pursuits and rolling down the ocean’s front. And then you’ve got the missions.





While any game has missions you need to do, GTA took them to another level. While every mission has something to do with the other, they are also individualistic. They allow for even more growth and exploration, while doing them and also before and after you’re done with them. And finally, there’s the element of legacy. After so many generations have grown up with GTA it’s natural to have a continuous desire to play some more of the series. GTA 6 is coming.



A Little GTA History

Grand Theft Auto is a fascinating series of games not just for their features but for the history of the brand as well. Very few games are as popular as the GTAs, which means the history surrounding the titles is even more spicy and memorable than anything else. Everything started way back when the most popular games were still being played on ancient consoles. One day, in 1997, the first GTA was released on Windows and MS-DOS, if anyone remembers it.

The second GTA was released in a 2D configuration, the same as with the original game and its few expansions. It came about two years later, in 1999, with not much more of a success than the previous big hit. It was still enough to make ends meet and put the game on a path toward international fame. The game was set in Anywhere City, an imagined place that looked like no actual real-life location. The first game that took interest in remaking a real city into a virtual one was Grand Theft Auto III, released in 3D in the year 2001. Liberty City, a replica of New York City, was chosen as a playground for Claude and his illegal activities.





Vice City, the real breakthrough of the series, came in a year later, in 2002. Tommy Vercetti would go through the city of vice and crime, taking care of all the business as if it were nothing. Following the grand success of Vice City, producers released San Andreas, one of the most successful GTA games ever made. With a huge map made out of three main cities, all virtual replicas of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas, the game was a massive success. Ain’t no gamer out there who’s never played CJ at least for a few hours before.

The last two games of the series, IV and V, need no further explanation. They matched and then surpassed the success of their predecessors. Grand Theft Auto V is the second best-selling game in history, right after Minecraft. It sold over 165 million copies thus far. Will the next GTA beat this incredible record? Maybe.



Six Things We (Kind Of) Know About GTA 6

Now that we’ve talked about the history of the Grand Theft Auto Franchise, one of the most famous series of games ever made, let’s look into the future. We don’t yet know exactly what GTA 6 will look like. We don’t even know if the game will be called “GTA 6”, as no official announcements were made thus far. What we do know is a series of semi-confirmed rumours that the gaming community has lingered upon for months, even years in some cases.

It's coming - Probably the most important official news is that yes, GTA 6 is on its way. It's coming, the game that will most likely fascinate an entirely new generation of gamers, as well as the older players, anxiously waiting for the big reveal of at least a short trailer. That has not come yet but producers are confident that the game is on the move. According to the developers, cited by the large gaming media outlets, the game is well underway. This usually means that although there is no release date, production is well into maturity status. It's just a matter of time before the very first leaks will pop up. Any minute now!

The game will have "large-scale destruction" - According to a job listing by Rockstar, the developing team behind GTA 6 is looking for a VTX Artist at the New England studio. In the description of the job the company states that it aims to "bring extra life to the environment, character, weapons, vehicles, and more," with visual effects that "help to immerse the player in a believable world." Immersion can mean anything, from something as little as insects swarming around a player, or rain, as well as something as massive as large-scale destruction events, such as skyscrapers being crushed to the ground. The job also refers to systems that will create their very own effects, like bullet impacts, vehicles kicking up dirt and leaving debris, objects getting dirty when coming into contact with mud, and so on.

The first look from an older game - Fans around the globe are circulating a new theory that suggests GTA 6 has been hinted at in a previous title. They are talking about San Andreas, in which there's an Easter Egg supposedly pointing to the future game. In GTA Trilogy, there is an added number of photos on the walls of Lil Probe Inn, featuring UFO sightings over locations from GTA V and Red Dead Redemption. Yet one photo of a house belongs to no other Rockstar creation. The palm trees, fans noted, could be a reference to Vice City, where VI could take place. The clouds are also heavy in the photo, suggesting newer graphics like the ones in RDR 2.

Release date - When Red Dead Redemption came out, fans of GTA asked around if the next title will also be announced, as Rockstar Games has let us have it in the past. So far though no release date has been put out by the developer. So far, we know that we have a game in production, with the official announcement made in February of 2022. Rumours suggest that GTA 6 will eventually come out in late 2024 or early 2025, although earlier rumours said that the game will come out in 2023 and be placed in Miami. The only responsible thing to do now is to wait and see... and not panic.





Where?! - Many rumours have been made about the place where GTA 6 will take place. Most of them indicate a replica of Miami, one of the most important cities in the United States. Following recreations of Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas or San Francisco, a Miami GTA is one of the more logical choices from producers. Many other speculations came about, talking about a game happening in both America and Brazil, for example, in a virtual replica of Rio de Janeiro. Another one suggests that GTA 6 will take place in a modernised Liberty City. If Miami is the answer or not, again, we can only speculate and hope it will be.

GTA 6 on PC - Being that the previous hits from Rockstar Games were huge on the PC, it's a good bet that the next one will also come on the personal computer. GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 were massive on the PC, which makes it a fair choice for the developer to bring the future GTA on the computer. A solid argument for this is the Rockstar Games Launcher released in 2019. Rockstar would never put something like a launcher out if they weren't planning on bringing VI to the PC later on.



Four Things We Don’t Know About The Next GTA

Most of the information that we’ve gathered about the future GTA game is in the form of rumours. Let’s call them “unverified information”, for more of an accurate description. There are some things that we do know, as you saw, as well as some things that we have no idea about. Here are four things we absolutely do not know about GTA 6.

Main protagonists - Although there are some rumours about who will be the main character(s) of GTA 6, there is still no information on the actual situation of the matter. One of the most circulated pieces of info states that the main characters will be a pair, a twin brother and sister. The information came out after fans speculated that it is now time for GTA to introduce a female leading character. The two brothers are apparently going to run opposite drug clans, being in constant conflict with one another. There is no information if you will be able to play them both.

Multiple eras - So far, every GTA game has been set in a specific timeline. The buildings stood the same, the people, cars, and so on. In GTA 6, these things will forever change with the addition of a time element that’s not just about the passing of hours between when Franklin puts his head down and later wakes up. While the game will be set in the ‘70s or ‘80s, there will also be instances in which the protagonists will literally travel forward in time, to the modern-day city of choice. Some of the rumours around multiple eras were disarmed by producers who have stated that the entire game will supposedly be set in a modern city.





Online version - Grand Theft Auto V was a big hit, and so was and still is the online version of it, GTA Online. Rockstar Games are still adding content to the online version of the game, an MMORPG for mobsters and heist fans of the virtual worlds. This makes it very plausible for the next generation of GTA to have an online version as well. Plausible but not certain, as there is no certainty in stating there is ever going to be another GTA Online besides the current one. With the release date being nowhere near the announcement moment, and online trends changing by the day, we never know if the online version of the GTA 6 will ever come to be. Or if fans will even want it once the game is out.

Bitcoin in the game - One of the more recent rumours about the future episode of Grand Theft Auto is cryptocurrency. Although not making the headlines for positive news these days, bitcoin will supposedly play a massive role in the future game. It is not yet certain how, or why, but it is most likely about a form of payment that gamers will be able to use for in-game purchases. The feature is probably going to appear for the online version of the game, should Rockstar Games ever come up with one. And if not, then the cryptocurrency aspect of the game can also be useful in offline purchases, for weapons or skins to be used in the campaign.