GTA Fans, we need to talk…
Things are going too far... again.
The GTA 6 hype cycle feels like it’s in full force if you look at the chaos of the last few days. And Rockstar hasn’t even uttered a word, so we have to wonder, is this genius levels of marketing, or a fully-focused push to avoid another delay?
We simply don’t know. What we do know is that things have gone a little too far of late, and fans need to take a second to breathe and calm down.
The GTA community has always been fairly rabid when a new release approaches. A lot of this spills over into some of the craziest fan theories you can find in all of gaming. People are charting the moon, reading into bullet holes on the side of a car, and even looking into century-old crime cases for information.
That’s all fun, and please, keep doing that. It gives everyone a laugh, for the most part, when these theories turn out to be completely wrong. But online stalking, spamming, and even abuse are a step too far.
Reece Reilly, a game developer interviewer, has been getting spammed to hell, apparently. And now GTA fans have taken to messaging his wife, who is recovering from serious surgery, to ask Reece questions.
In a heartfelt plea on X, seen above, he asked people to “please stop spamming me” and “please stop spamming my wife.” He goes on to call GTA fans crazy, and with this sort of behavior, it’s hard to argue with that.
Game Informer, the popular print gaming magazine, also took significant flak this week for posting a teaser of a game with four words in its title as the cover of the next issue. GTA fans automatically took this to be GTA 6 (Grand Theft Auto VI).
The hype would have been cool if, when the game turned out to be not GTA 6, people didn’t lose their minds. Threats flooded in, with many commenting that “this company is cooked.”
In my opinion, GI probably should have quelled the rumors ahead of time, but even so, the hate they’re getting is unreal. Fans are also livid at Rockstar, which promised nothing, but fans somehow convinced themselves that May 12 was the day Trailer 3 would launch.
When the standard Red Dead Online post came through, fans went nuts, expressing their dismay. If you were amongst them, the following may be of importance.
Rockstar has never announced trailers that coincide with phases of the moon. Rockstar has never run an ARG or anything similar in order to point towards their next trailer launch. They also haven’t encoded the date of the next trailer into anything we have available. That’s just not Rockstar’s style.
They’ve actually been quite direct in their prior announcements of this kind. With RDR 2, they changed their social media profile picture, and then bam, trailer. With the first GTA 6 trailer, Sam Houser actually just straight-up told us when it would drop. The second trailer was entirely random – like most of Rockstar’s announcements.
So, rationally, no one knows when trailer 3 will come out, or even if there is a trailer 3 (we’re pretty sure there is, given the timelines at play). Not Reece, not the stars, not Zeus.
The only people who know the date of the next trailer are likely a very small inside group in Rockstar, and that’s if they even have a date for us yet. It’s far more likely that it’ll be ready when it’s ready, offering less chance of more leaks.
In the meantime, look to reliable sources for GTA 6 information, play your part in potential ARG’s if you find that fun, but don’t harass people or dish out threats. We play GTA as an outlet, not to influence our behavior and become degenerates ourselves.
In just six months, we’ll be able to play the game. Focus on work, focus on your loved ones and family, or play a fun game (I really recommend Ball X Pit) to pass the time. Chill out, and the wait will be over before you know it.
