At the beginning of time, there was nothing. Then, through the breath of the creator—or maybe it was some kind of gaseous explosion, Grand Theft Auto 5 was borne into existence. And ever since then—some 14 billion years later, Rockstar Studios hasn't come up with any new GTA game. Eons have come to pass and yet there's still no sign of Grand Theft Auto 6.
Now, with GTA 5 being as old as the known universe itself, it's probably time for a new GTA game. Any minute now. While the fans are waiting for GTA 6, they luckily came up with the best way to kill time—as per millennial (or later) standards: memes! Through memes, GTA fans have come to understand Rockstar Studios' transmundane development logic for GTA 6. Oh, and the most humorous of GTA 6 memes also ease the pain of waiting in vain.
10 Forefathers, One And All... Bear Witness!
GTA 5 owes its longevity to GTA Online. As the first-ever GTA game with an official and fully-realized online component, it was quite revolutionary for the franchise. Well, that's how it is on paper. In practice, it's an intergenerational mosh pit where kids and adults yell expletives at one another and proliferate toxicity of all kinds.
It's pretty average for a multiplayer community, after all, GTA is a game that champions criminal activity. The beauty in GTA Online, however, is that it's a game where both a young father and son can grieve other players. Not many games can bring together this kind of familial interaction.
9 Legend Says There's A GTA 6 Hard Copy In Area 51
Every time Rockstar teases something on Twitter or other social media platforms, there's always that lingering copium or hope with which fans keep clinging. But over the past few years, there has been nothing but false alarms from Rockstar as all their announcements mostly cater to GTA 5 DLCs.
In fact, they're rather mum about details or any breadcrumbs regarding GTA 6. This leads many fans to believe that the development hasn't even begun or reached a substantial stage yet. But there's always the off-chance that they're waiting for the reveal of the decade. Maybe somewhere, out there, a flash drive marked with a masking tape contains information on gaming's second coming of Christ.
8 Kowalski, Analysis On Release Date?
If there was any proof needed that GTA fans are growing antsy or too eager for GTA 6, one only needs to look at the older titles. Most of them have been modded to oblivion and are borderline unrecognizable with the way they have been spliced up.
GTA: San Andreas holds quite a milestone award for this as there's no shortage of graphical overhauls, model swaps, or utility mods to keep things fresh. Meanwhile, even GTA 5 is no stronger to tampering. It's not shocking to see Thanos or the Hulk running around the game anymore, or different multiverse versions of Lamar Davis' roasting of Franklin.
7 All You Had To Do Was Follow The Roadmap, CJ!
It was never officially admitted that the reason for the lack of GTA 6 was GTA 5's unparalleled profitability or sustainability. But the general consensus among the community is that Rockstar (or whoever pulls the strings) just can't let its steady and easy profit source go.
At least, that's the inference based on the heaping number of GTA Online DLCs now taller than Mount Chiliad. Most of these DLCs also solely focus on multiplayer content. Coupled with the Shark Cards and the live service model for GTA Online, it seems Rockstar just couldn't find the motivation yet to create the next big thing.
6 50? Awfully Optimistic
GTA 6's release has thus become the unicorn of the video game industry. It's been nearly a decade now since Rockstar Studios released a big GTA game and in that timespan, GTA 5 has been re-released several times even spanning three console generations.
At this point, it looks like it's contending with Skyrim for the number of re-releases it can pull off before the world finally freezes over. Sure enough, there's no release date yet. Hence, it has become a subject of countless memes regarding time travel.
5 Bummer. At Least Half-Life 3's Confirmed, Right? Right?
Further cementing GTA 6's legendary (but nonexistent) status is the pessimistic community sentiment that it might not even exist at all (yet). Some fans have probably resigned in acceptance after many years of denial and bargaining with Rockstar's Twitter account.
GTA 6 is well on its way to gaining Half-Life 3 levels of notoriety where both games might as well be urban legends. And with Rockstar being as tidy as they are with details or anything indicative of GTA 6, the game is currently about as real as Santa Claus.
4 Let's Add Valve And Bethesda To That List
Being the internet's favorite Billionaire (pending legal cases notwithstanding), Elon Musk memes are inevitable. With his buying Twitter relatively recently, it's easy to assume he also has the purchasing power to buy even some of the biggest multimedia companies.
Hence, this meme above. It's a hopeful joke from one disgruntled GTA fan where even the "nerd messiah" Elon Musk also got too impatient with Rockstar's development roadmap (or lack thereof). He seems to play video games anyway, but mostly Elden Ring at the moment. It's hard to imagine him stacking bills in GTA 5 and being content when his real-world wallet is probably fatter.
3 Ah Shoot, Here We Go Again...
Despite having been released several times in the span of nearly nine years, GTA 5 is still nowhere near as omnipresent as Skyrim. In total, it has only had three official releases— one for each generation of consoles. Skyrim has had 15 releases over 10 different consoles.
So if anything, GTA 5's release times are rookie numbers that they need to pump up if they have nothing slated for this decade. So, Sheen Estevez's enthusiasm for an old dog with new tricks isn't that far off from Rockstar's proclivity to keep GTA 5 up to date.
2 No Cheats, Pure MLG
In the time it takes to wait for GTA 6, its fans could have finished several double degrees, started families, purchased houses, and live through their first driver's license's expiration date. Rockstar usually doesn't take that long to deliver some stellar games, based on the first three 3D GTA games.
But of course, here we are. There's not much to do but wait. That meme above is the perfect encapsulation of fan impatience and longing. The sad part is that there really isn't an experience similar to GTA games as they're too bold and too hard to imitate. The closest experience is a blunderous life of crime in the real world. Not recommended.
1 No Worries, GTA 6 Is On The Horizon
With how Sony chose its release dates for the two Horizon games, the series has become somewhat of a running joke. Apparently now, every Horizon release coincides with another genre-defining or groundbreaking title which will overshadow the former. So the next Horizon game will have to pick release alongside GTA 6 if it wants to continue the tradition.
It's definitely just correlation and not causation but one can hope. After all, it seems that the next Horizon game has five years or so to prepare if they're aiming to be overshadowed by GTA 6. Everyone is currently banking on that possibility as it's the most optimistic expectation for a GTA 6 release date.
Grand Theft Auto 6 hasn't been released yet. Maybe next decade, or next century. Hopefully.