Rockstar Games hasn't officially announced that GTA 6 is in the works, but with a new generation of consoles on the horizon and Red Dead Redemption 2 on the sidelines, we expect a new Grand Theft Auto game to be in the works, we don't know when we'll see it. There have been plenty of rumors and leaks on GTA 6 over the past few years, but the hype is now at a fever pitch as we head towards the PS5 and Xbox Series X launch, some expect Rockstar to announce the next GTA sometime in 2020. There hasn't been a look from the developer though, and fans are in desperate need of some information. This led a bunch of pranksters to come up with an elaborate April Fools plan: fake the GTA 6 announcement. Now there have been a lot of leaks, rumors and unlikely countdowns around GTA 6, we've even debunked some of them to prevent the fans put your hopes up. But few GTA 6 hoaxes see planning quite like Joe Designs and his cohorts, who faked a GTA 6 logo, trailer, and ad sequence, all for April Fools sake. Editor's Note: TechRadar does not condone the actions of Joe Designs. This piece aims to show that you can't always believe every leak and rumor you see on the internet. At TechRadar, our goal is to provide authority on leaks and rumours, but we treat all speculation with skepticism.
Prepare the plan
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(Image credit: Rockstar Games) GTA fans were originally expecting an announcement for GTA 6 on March 21, and a trailer will be released on March 25. As we noted at the time, this was highly unlikely given that Rockstar Games hadn't teased anything or made an official statement that an announcement was coming. And, as expected, these dates passed without warning. However, with the hype for GTA 6 at a fever pitch, Joe O'Shea (aka Joe Designs) and his friends decided that now it was as good as anyone to release an elaborate fake GTA ad that they had been considering for a few years. months. "I think even for us it started small enough at first, then we kept throwing ideas away. And then it got bigger." Joe's friend Zach has a penchant for retrieving old, inactive usernames from sites and sharing them with others. It turns out that a few months before the prank, Zach got the username of GTAVI on Twitch. This spawned an idea, where Zach wanted to create a logo for GTA 6 so people would think an announcement was on the way. "If you're trying to fool people, the most realistic thing Rockstar would do in this situation would not be a logo on a black screen with a countdown timer," Joe O'Shead told TechRadar. "They would be great." Zach contacted Joe, who does freelance graphic design for YouTubers, and asked him to create a logo. Within 15 minutes, Joe had created the logo you see above, but they wanted to go further. "In my head, I thought 'yeah, I can make you a logo, but I could do a lot more than just a logo,'" Joe told TechRadar. "If we did a little more, there's a chance it could take off as a good April Fools joke." "I think even for us it started small enough at first, then we kept throwing ideas away. And then it got bigger." The plan turned into a whole idea: they were going to set up a 24-hour countdown Twitch stream until their fake GTA 6 announcement, complete with a trailer to really get the fans excited. The stream went live on March 28 and was run by another friend, Ryan, who had a PC capable of streaming a Twitch stream 24 hours a day.
obvious signs
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(Image credit: Rockstar Games) There were several points where Joe didn't think the plan would work. After all, the logo had been designed in 15 minutes and included a fake horizon he had found online and a dark image of Jason Statham. The music playing in the background is also from GTA: Vice City; after all, there are rumors that GTA 6 will take place in Miami. There were plenty of clues, but according to Joe, few people picked them up. But that doesn't mean that everyone believed in the hoax, most viewers got it right away, but that didn't stop many from hoping it could be the real deal. It also didn't stop 125,000 people from watching the feed. "I don't think the graphics are 100% convincing," says Joe. "The fact that there's so much hope probably adds to that and makes it a little more believable." The Twitch stream chat was shared between those who called it fake and others who defended the stream. "I think people have such high hopes for a new game that they're ready to accept things a little bit more," Joe said. "If they took a step back and wondered if it made sense, they'd probably realize: It's not. They want the game so badly it's like a slight illusion."
Scolded by Rockstar
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(Image credit: Rockstar) The plan was going better than the trio had anticipated, with an improved media audience and a popular YouTuber covering the stream. He was also helped by the group that harvested the seeds of the source of fake ads on the GTA forums and through social media. But the question remained: what would they do after the countdown ended? "Because there were three people: me, Zach and Ryan, there was a bit of a conflict of interest between what we were going to do," says Joe. "I was really in the mood, I wanted it to go on forever, I wanted to keep it a secret and never reveal it." While some members of the group just wanted to have their names on the screen at the end of the countdown, Joe had another idea. He wanted to make another trailer, using remastered snapshots of GTA: Vice City, subtly citing summer 2021 as GTA 6's release window. But then Rockstar caught up and the template was in place, and the reactions within the group were different. "I think people have such high hopes for a new game that they're ready to accept things a little bit more." "Zach kind of took over, he didn't expect him to go that far," Joe tells us. "I think he was half happy and half worried about it. Ryan didn't want anything to do with it anymore." Joe was personally pleased with the development, hoping that Rockstar's stream would add authenticity, but Ryan wanted to remove the cork, mainly due to Rockstar's legal history. Just two days after he appeared, the GTA 6 fake ad stream was removed on March 30. Two days before April Fool's Day. To try to prevent Rockstar from being sued, the group posted a statement to the feed clarifying that they were fans of the series and had no malicious intent with their prank. That didn't stop the community from thinking that Rockstar had sent the group a cease and desist order. "The truth is that nobody has done anything," says Joe. We still have the account and we could release it now if we wanted to. "Community reaction to the group's prank has been mixed, ranging from good humor to death threats. Some have even accused the group of using the hoax for their own monetary gain, in order to gather subscribers, before selling the he tells someone else. "If we wanted to, we could have misused it," Joe tells TheComparison. "But I think because he was an April fool, they're a little more chill about it. But I think by the time we decided to do something else with the current, it would be crazy."
A lesson learned?
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(Image credit: Rockstar Games) Joe and his henchmen never managed to figure out their planned April Fool's Day, and almost miss out on a Rockstar Games lawsuit, but what Joe got the most out of the hoax was not believing every leak and rumor you see. . "It seems like something happens once in a blue moon," says Joe. "So the fact that we did it and that it worked the way these things do makes me wonder what I read online and if it's absolutely true. "Anyone can do it, whatever their intentions. So be a little more aware." But does Joe feel guilty for the fans who caused collateral damage in the charade? "It was intended to be an April Fools' joke and my pride comes from the fact that my work was up height that a game company could have made this logo," he tells us. "But of course I feel overwhelmingly guilty for these people who have been waiting impatiently for it." TechRadar reached out to Rockstar Games for comment, but received no response Joe has created a video explaining how the plan was developed, which you can watch here.