Looking Back at the Hype Cycle While GTA 6 Downloads

GTA 6 is downloading on my console as I write this, and I can hardly believe it. Also, don’t laugh at my slow internet; it’s pretty decent for a small, middle-of-nowhere mountain town, I think! At least we have something.

While that downloads to completion, I wanted to do a shoot-from-the-hip look back at the hype cycle from my perspective. The things I loved, the things I hated, and even one of my biggest goofs probably ever. We have eight days to go, and I want to do one of these every day until we hit that big, big day zero.

The Leaks Really Sucked

Those 2022 leaks were so pointless. I thought so at the time, and I think so now. Sure, they confirmed that GTA 6 was in development, but they showed nothing but a skeleton of a project in the works. Then we had that trailer leak, which pretty much ruined the excitement around it.

Well, I still watched the actual trailer when it came out at max quality without text plastered all over it. But it certainly sullied the experience.

Newsletter Free

The Vice Gazette

GTA 6 news, leaks and rumours — rounded up and sent to your inbox. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

• Release-date and trailer news the moment it lands
• Leaks and rumours, with our credibility rating attached
• Map, character and vehicle deep-dives from the wiki

You’re on the list.

The next edition of The Vice Gazette will land in your inbox.

Get the full GTA 6 Bible experience

Daily game streaks, comments, and your rumour votes saved across devices.

Create a free account

Email address

Subscribe Subscribing…

By subscribing you agree to receive The Vice Gazette by email. Unsubscribe any time. See our Privacy Policy.

And then those infamous Cyberleek leaks. He posted a bunch of early-build content, tried to prove to everyone that it wasn’t an early build, scammed everyone with their crypto coin (twice!), and then disappeared again. It was really frustrating to watch people fall for this (twice!).

It was, however, during these leaks that I made that major blunder. But I think I’ll save that for the end of the article.

The point is, I really hated the leaks, and I wish they didn’t happen. I saw the first few leaks, like most avid followers of GTA 6, but once I realized the person had a playable build, I stopped. I’m not in any way defending Rockstar, and I honestly don’t care how much they lost or made at any point. I only care about the quality of their games, which has so far been fantastic.

Every leak took a little something away from the process of waiting for GTA 6, but that’s just me. How did you feel about them?

That First Look

Despite feeling like an eternity ago, I still remember how I felt first casting eyes on that trailer. Yes, it was marred by the leak, but it was still amazing. Excitement, disbelief, but mostly, hope. Hope that with a new spin on the franchise, Rockstar could return to cracking stories that feel more than just skin deep.

It’s no secret at this point that GTA 4 is my favorite, but I’m really hopeful that GTA 6 could dethrone it, finally, after all these years.

And then, when that Extended Look dropped, oh boy. That was probably my favorite game trailer of all time, and I’m still hooked on that song, Inner Light! The pacing on that was brilliant, and each segment was so artfully transitioned. It was quite simply a joy to behold.

The Silence Was Painful

Of course, the run-in into GTA 6 wasn’t all happy. It rarely was, in fact. That period of silence between Trailer 2 and the Extended Look announcement was crazy. We actually started the newsletter right around that time, and filling those first few newsletters with nothing but an announcement was rough.

Speaking of the newsletter, you should sign up. You’ll get my takes from the week, structured like a good old chat with a friend (how I do most of my content), a news breakdown of the week, and my favorite section, a banger of the week featuring the best songs from the GTA universe.

But only sign up if you promise to open it every week, and also promise to call me out for being boring if, for whatever reason, you just don’t feel like opening it anymore!

Not the smoothest of segues, but there it is. Remember, this is shooting from the hip here. Moving on.

I had to go onto Reddit to plumb the depths for the tiniest scrap of news during those dry days. Even that GTA 6 unmoderated sub, which is wild on the best of days. Alright, I’ll admit, I had a fair few chuckles at everyone’s hopium posts. But I’m glad those days are done. It’s been a struggle just to keep up with Rockstar and all the info we’re getting of late.

My Biggest Blunder

Those are the things that most stick out to me, upon reflection. There’s a lot of smaller things I remember, but nothing quite as dramatic as these few things. The rumor train was always active, and my favorite is probably the one that we’d have hurricanes in the game (turns out that’s a thing). But by far my most vivid memory is when that very first Cyberleek video hit Reddit.

It was along with the title “Fan-Made GTA 6 Game.” And I was, sadly, fooled. It was low-res and an early build, and I thought that someone had just slapped together something with AI of Jason playing basketball. Know what I did? I screenshotted that thang and wrote about it on Destructoid, a sister site.

I still commented on how silly people were to believe that this was an actual leak. And when I went back to the Reddit post to watch it again — after publishing my article, mind you — it had been removed. I circled back to the X post where it originally was, and it, too, was struck.

This was real. Imagine my horror!

I sparked as I’d never sparked before to get that darn post and the screenshot down before Rockstar ninjas kicked down my door and threw me into their dungeon, where I imagine the core means of punishment is to play half-finished Rockstar games, one after another, never working your way towards a satisfying ending and slowly going insane in the process.

Thankfully, I pulled the article in time and didn’t seem to have incurred the fearsome wrath of Rockstar. I still felt like a total fool for… well, being fooled. I was honestly just happy I still had a job. And now I’m here, covering GTA 6 as my core focus. Go figure.

Well, that’s all from me for today. If you enjoy this type of article on the website, where we try to keep things more factual, please do drop me a comment, and I’ll see if I can write up some more. And do check back tomorrow, when I’ll share something in honor of being just seven days away from GTA 6 bliss.

And my download is complete. Now we wait.