It has been seven years since Grand Theft Auto 5 first released on the PS3 and Xbox 360, and fans can't contain their excitement for a possible next entry. While there hasn't been any concrete evidence that could confirm whether Grand Theft Auto 6 is real, a new discovery over at the GTA forum might just have proved otherwise.
Since the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 back in 2018, fans have their eyes peeled for news regarding the next iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Rockstar Games, however, has been awfully quiet about what the studio is working on next and is currently focusing on releasing new DLC's for Grand Theft Auto Online and Red Dead Online. While the company has confirmed more single-player Grand Theft Auto experiences are on the way, there's still no news on when it will arrive.
Fortunately, that seems to have changed as new evidence regarding Grand Theft Auto 6 has just surfaced. A GTA forum user, while going through the code in Red Dead Redemption 2, stumbled upon a file called propsets.meta. The file contains the list of several weapons that were not part of RDR 2 or GTA 5's arsenal. Some of the weapons that were discovered are Browning (Pistol), L1AL (Rifle), and AK47. As the user DerekLeet suggested, none of these weapons could have existed in the era Red Dead Redemption 2 is set in. Additionally, the GTA 5 version of the AK47 rifle is referred to as "W_AR_ASSAULTRIFLE" whereas the one found here is "W_AR_AK47."
What's more interesting to note here is that these files have been present in Red Dead Redemption 2 since its launch on PS4 and Xbox One in 2018. While this doesn't necessarily confirm Grand Theft Auto 6, it adds up to the never-ending hype that the game has generated. GTA 5 meanwhile continues to sell incredibly well on current-gen platforms and may continue to do so when it launches on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2021.
While it's not confirmed when Grand Theft Auto 6 will release, what's confirmed is that it will be vastly different from the recent Rockstar releases. After the vast criticism Red Dead Redemption 2 received for its crunch filled development cycle, it was reported that Rockstar Games is taking a different approach to developing GTA 6. This means that the game may release in parts, more akin to episodic titles, or the live service ones. This, as Bloomberg's Jason Schreier( back then at Kotaku), explained is being done to "mitigate stress and crunch."
The crunch culture has been a huge part of the AAA games industry in the last few years and the most recent example of it is Cyberpunk 2077. Seeing such an unoptimized launch, Grand Theft Auto fans want Rockstar Games to take as much time as they need to develop GTA 6.
Source: GTAFORUMS