During the internet age, approaching GTA releases has always created a fair bit of chaos. Crazy theories abound, astrology somehow becomes relevant, and people fall for all sorts of trolls.
This release cycle has been no different. So, while we all wait for the next trailer and for the game, why not distract yourself by taking a step into the past with me, and let’s look at the GTA 5 leaks and rumors that turned out to be true, and those that turned out to be dead wrong?
Let’s start with a brief snapshot of GTA 5’s development schedule.
The GTA 5 development timeline in a nutshell
Here’s a quick breakdown of the GTA 5 development timeline, just to frame the rest of the article here. GTA 4 launched in April 2008, and as always, Rockstar went quiet on what was next.
As early as 2010, whispers about GTA 5 began on GTAForums. Then, on 2 November 2011, the first trailer dropped. It confirmed that we’d return to Los Santos, but everything else was a complete mystery at this point.
2012 saw the rumor mills in full force, with silence from Rockstar, before a Spring 2013 release window was announced. On 17 September 2013, the game launched, and players could finally return to the sunny shores of Los Santos for real.
The most fun rumors
There were some pretty wild rumors before GTA 5 launched, so we thought it prudent to start our journey with some of the rumors we found to be the most fun. Buckle up.
We’ll play as a rookie cop
Back in 2012, we were still very much used to getting only one protagonist in our GTA games. It was simple, easy to connect to the main character, and it just worked. This rumor pretty much broke the internet for a while.
In a game about criminals, literally named after a felony crime, playing as a cop would have been wild. The rumor was widespread and gained plenty of traction, but obviously turned out to be false. Still, it makes one think, what if we do get to play as a cop in a future GTA game? It would be pretty interesting to see both sides of the line.
Tommy Vercetti and CJ to return
This rumor was set off by the middle-aged narrator in the trailer, with many taking to forums to debate whether this is the return of Tommy Vercetti. With Tommy being in Los Santos, the next natural conclusion is that he would run into CJ, and the two would tear up the city together.
This was a cool theory, but Rockstar has previously said that they’re keeping the 3D-universe characters separate from the HD-universe. So it never really held water, but it was fun while it lasted.
The Albert De Silva Saga
In March 2012, a story emerged that was supposedly from a sacked Rockstar North employee, containing specific details about the game. It stated that we would play as Albert De Silva, a half-Hispanic man from a crime family in Vice City. Albert has a lazy son who is obsessed with CoD (that part was kinda there).
This story also stated that the map would be five times larger than GTA 4, and a multiplayer mode supporting up to 32 players with a gang reputation system. These rumors have some overlap with what we got, but most proved to be utterly wrong, and the whole story was dismissed as false.
Fake Game Informer leak
A GameFAQs post came to light in late 2012, claiming to have a leaked copy of the December issue of Game Informer. It was said to contain an 18-page story on GTA 5, providing readers with a host of story details and screenshots.
The managing editor at the time, Matt Bertz, dismissed the rumors as fake. The December issue of the magazine still featured a GTA 5 story, though it wasn’t quite as detailed as the leaker had said.
What rumors got wrong
Sometimes, rumors get things right. Mostly, though, they’re plain wrong, and here’s some of what GTA fans got dead wrong about GTA 5.
The release date
There was a persistent rumor that the game would launch in the fall or Winter of 2012, despite Rockstar not publicly showing anything. It did not attend E3 nor reveal anything at Gamescom, yet fans kept up the 2012 release date theory so persistently that many were deeply disappointed when the season passed with no release.
Sound familiar? We’re in the same cycle with Trailer 3 right now.
Naturally, this rumor died quickly after it was proved false, and the game only arrived on 17 September of 2017.
All the cities in one game
A huge number of fake maps circulated the internet before GTA 5’s launch, some looking genuinely impressive and legit. Many guessed at which GTA location the game would take place in, and some even thought we’d get all the cities in one game, being able to fly between them.
None of these leaked maps or rumors turned out to be true, however. But you must admit, the prospect of Vice City, Los Santos, and Liberty City all in one game is incredibly alluring. We can hope for that in GTA 7, but even with technological advancements, that would be a massive scope for a single video game, and is highly unlikely.
A simultaneous PC launch
Oh, how nice a PC launch on day one would be. Users felt the same back in 2012, some so strongly that this rumor was somehow dreamed up. The same whispers started up prior to the release of GTA 6, but Strauss Zelnick later confirmed in an interview with Bloomberg that there would be no day-one PC release.
The same applied in 2013, and we had to wait until April 2015 for a PC release. That’s almost three years of patiently waiting, or rushing out to get a PS3 / PS4. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait that long this time around, but my hopes aren’t high. We might need to bite the bullet and get that PS5.
Character crossover
This one is related to the Tommy Vercetti and CJ rumors covered above, but focused more on the cast of the GTA San Andreas game. Rumors that Big Smoke, CJ, and Sweet would make a guest appearance roamed the net until right before release, despite Rockstar saying in 2011 that the universes were kept separate. In other words, CJ and the crew never even existed in GTA 5’s timeline.
This hardly begins to scratch the surface of all the rumors that flew around, but it’d take a novel to capture them all. For now, let’s take a look at what rumors actually got right.
What rumors got right
Throw enough rocks into a bush, and you’re bound to come away with a bird or two. GTA fans often go far beyond rational thought, looking at star charts and astronomy as actual sources for dates and theories.
However, despite all the crazy mixed in, sometimes, we get it right. Here are some instances of what GTA fans got right.
Kotaku nails the setting and multiple protagonists
In 2011, Kotaku got information that claimed a return to Los Santos in GTA 5. This supposedly reliable source also claimed that it would feature multiple protagonists over the traditional one.
Both claims, obviously, turned out to be true. But then this wasn’t just a random forum post, it was an actual piece by a reputable media company, and journalist Stephen Totilo, who claimed to have an inside source. That gave it credibility from the get-go, but somehow did nothing to quell the Albert de Santa rumors.
The hidden Max Payne 3 vehicle list for GTA 5
Rockstar has been known to hide GTA files within other games, like Bully and Red Dead Redemption, so when a GTAForums user stumbled upon a file called “vehicles.ide” in Max Payne 3’s source code, he suspected he might have something.
It contained a list of vehicles and aircraft, and turned out to be quite accurate. It only had 48 cars, so GTA 6’s rumored 200+ would be an insane upgrade.
Weapon and vehicle customization
A post dropped in November 2011, mentioning that weapons would be customizable and that car customizations would return, was deleted almost immediately by GTAForums moderators, but not before users picked it up.
Naturally, this mysterious post proved to be true, and these features indeed made it into GTA 5.
The weapon wheel
The rookie cop rumor contained among its claims that a new weapon wheel system would be present in GTA 5. If you really think about it, this was rather obvious, given the first Red Dead Redemption’s weapon wheel.
It was obviously miles better than the weapon cycling system seen in GTA 4, so this was more of an obvious observation, rather than an accurate prediction.
Living Animals
Another rather obvious observation was that GTA 5 would feature living animals around Los Santos. This is because living animals were present, again, in the previous Rockstar game, Red Dead Redemption. However, many argued that GTA 5 was greater in scope, and wouldn’t be able to handle animals on the limited PS3 system.
GTA 4, after all, only had pigeons and cockroaches. But this rumor proved true anyway, with GTA 5 launching with over 20 animal species, some of which proved to be quite annoying, especially if you were fond of exploring the wilderness. You’ve all been eaten by a cougar, too, right?
Rumors that almost got it right
You have rumors that were right, rumors that were wrong, and then some that almost got it – and they’re equally as entertaining. Especially this first one.
Online Multiplayer
Rumors circulated about a multiplayer component in GTA 5, in which you’d be able to play the game with others in massive 32-player games. That sounded amazing, but what we got instead was GTA Online, a global sensation that generated billions of dollars and became Rockstar’s main commercial focus for over a decade.
Far more impressive than joining a lobby with some friends, and probably the biggest underestimate in gaming history.
Heists got new life injected into them
Heists of some or other form have always been a part of the GTA DNA, except maybe for those first two games. And when players saw the jewelry store robbery in the GTA 5 trailer, they correctly assumed that heists would make a return. What they got wrong was the scale.
Heists ended up being far more immersive in GTA 5, with multi-stage setup missions and planning becoming a core part of the gameplay. So, yes, we did get the heists, but they were better than we expected. Just a pity we couldn’t plan our own heists after the end of the game in single-player mode. Fingers crossed for this feature in GTA 6!
The size of the map
In the same OpenSurvivor QA tester post that got deleted from GTAForums in 2011, the user also stated that the map would be twice the size of Red Dead Redemption’s map. That turned out to be more or less true, but the details were all wrong.
The post said that there would be multiple large cities, three airports in Los Santos alone, and five district counties. Naturally, we got none of that, and instead, Los Santos was the only city, with the small towns of Sandy Shores, Grapeseed, and Paleto Bay hardly qualifying as cities.
The lazy son
The Albert De Santa rumor was obviously completely debunked, but it did get one part right: Jimmy. It didn’t mention him by name, but Albert would supposedly have had a lazy, drug-addicted son, and Jimmy certainly fits that description, lying in his room all day, smoking weed and playing video games.
Shedding light on the GTA 6 rumor mill
If there’s one thing that stands out from the above rumors, it’s that reliable reporters and confirmed leaks should be paid attention to. Rumors from random accounts? Not so much.
Another thread is that Rockstar always employs a pattern of randomness in its marketing. People try all sorts of crazy ways to predict what they’ll do, but behind the curtain, Rockstar most likely just releases stuff “when they’re ready to release.”
If there is a pattern to their marketing, no one has found it yet.
If you’d like to read more on your favorite franchise, why not check out our full guide to everything we know about GTA 6?