GTA VI Coming Next Year, According to In-Game Alert

There’s a suspicious message popping up in GTA Online that’s telling players that the sixth Grand Theft Auto game is releasing in 2019.

The release timeframe for GTA VI is something that players have been speculating about for a while now, though this source is perhaps one of the last places that many expected to see such an announcement. GamesRadar spotted multiple players on the Rockstar support forums sharing screenshots of a message that’s showing up in their online games saying “GTA VI Coming 2019″ with a link to Rockstar’s site, posts that are backed up from those on Twitter and other platforms. The popup appears as a “Rockstar Message” as well, so it’s led some to question whether this is just an unexpected marketing tactic, a slipup on Rockstar’s part, or the more prevalent theory that it’s a modder taking everyone for a ride.

Suggestions that a hacker is behind the message were reinforced by the fact that many of the players who shared their screenshots of the message on the forums said that they were playing on the PC version. The fact that there haven’t been any reports (that we’ve seen yet) of it happening on either the Xbox One or PlayStation 4 platform adds to this theory since those consoles aren’t nearly as easy to tamper with. At least one player in the forums said that the message has shown up on the PlayStation 3 as well, but those older consoles are now more prone to hacks and mods as well.

News of the likely hack but probable release timeframe for GTA VI has now caught the attention of many more players outside of the forums who shared “proof” of the announcement on Twitter and other platforms while looking for some type of verification from Rockstar or anyone else who can help validate GTA players’ hopes.

In a post within the game’s subreddit where players debated on whether the release timeframe was likely or not given the never dwindling popularity of GTA Online and the upcoming release of Red Dead Redemption 2, some players pointed out that they’d also received the message when in an empty, invite-only lobby. Others said that they’d received the message in single-player mode as well without joining any online lobbies.

Rockstar of course hasn’t confirmed anything about GTA VI releasing next year, but GTA players will hope for the popup to be true until the developers say otherwise.