As much fun as players have had with Grand Theft Auto Online over the years, it’s still unfortunate that Rockstar Games never released any GTA 5 story DLC. However, it turns out that the studio was working on single-player content at one point, and Online’s success played a role in its cancellation.

Why didn’t Rockstar make GTA 5 story DLC?

Former Rockstar developer Joe Robino recently spoke with YouTuber StanInPlay about the canceled single-player add-on. As he explained, the studio was working on GTA Online, Red Dead Redemption 2, and the canceled GTA 5 story DLC simultaneously. According to Robino, the DLC project was about halfway done when Rockstar paused development to focus on Online. The multiplayer mode’s success eventually made it difficult to justify continuing to spend resources on new single-player content.

“It was really, really good,” Robino said about the canceled GTA 5 story DLC. “But when GTA Online came out it was so much of a cash cow, and people were loving it so much that it was hard to make an argument that a standalone DLC would outcompete that. I think, looking back now, you could probably do both. But that was a business decision they made. I was a little upset about that.”

“That actually was a lot of the reason for me being a little sour at that time,” he adds. “Because I was like, yo, WTF guys? This s—’s awesome. Let’s keep going. Let’s finish this s—.”

The silver lining is that Rockstar didn’t waste everything from the unfinished GTA 5 story DLC. Instead, Robino says that a lot of it eventually made its way into Online. However, it’s still interesting for fans to imagine what could have been.

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Rockstar launched Grand Theft Auto Online’s Bottom Dollar Bounties expansion last week, adding a variety of new content. However, while fans were paying attention to the new cars and missions, developers added a sneaky GTA 6 easter egg in the form of a new cosmetic item.

What’s the GTA 6 Easter egg in GTA Online?

Bottom Dollar Bounties adds a piece of jewelry called the Silver Layered Necklace to GTA Online. However, as Reddit user DogWifDreads pointed out, it’s the exact same necklace worn by the bikini-clad woman, widely believed to be co-protagonist Lucia, at the rooftop pool in the GTA 6 trailer.

A few commenters tried to determine if the new item might contain hidden information about the upcoming game. “Considering all last digits [of the price] are 0, we could skip that, and we’ll have 4 digits, a possible date and month – for something,” one wrote. However, even they acknowledged that it could be nothing, and the easter egg probably doesn’t have any deeper meaning. It could, however, indicate that Rockstar will add more GTA 6 items to GTA Online.

In addition to this shiny easter egg, GTA Online’s Bottom Dollar Bounties update adds several law-enforcement-themed missions. Players can complete bounties for Bottom Dollar Bail Enforcement or help Vince with some off-the-books police work. The expansion also adds nine new vehicles to Rockstar’s online open world.

Meanwhile, Rockstar Games’ parent company plans to release Grand Theft Auto 6 in Fall 2025. The upcoming game features two protagonists, Luica and Jason, and takes players to the Miami-inspired Vice City.

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Rockstar has raised the price of its GTA+ subscription quite significantly in what could be the current form of GTA Online’s final full year.

GTA+ Subscription pulls a heist on players

The subscription was first introduced back in 2022 and gives players extra cash, cars, cosmetics, and events for GTA Online. It also provides a rotating roster of Rockstar titles, which currently includes the PS4 version of Red Dead Redemption and its Undead Nightmare expansion. L.A. Noire and Bully will be joining the service this year.

The price will now go from $5.99 / €5.99 / £4.99 to $7.99 / €7.99 / £6.99 per month, a fairly steep increase for fans in the US, Europe, and the UK.

It’s the latest entertainment subscription model to hike its price, with gaming subscriptions like EA Play and PS Plus going up a similar amount in the last year.

With GTA VI not due to arrive until at least 2025, Rockstar clearly has no plans to sunset GTA+ any time soon, but a price increase like this for a very limited subscription is a bit of a cynical move as GTA Online in its current form is well over a decade old, and there’s been no new Rockstar title in almost six years to add to the service.

You’d suspect that even GTA Online die-hards will look at the price increase as oddly-timed and a tad egregious.

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Just yesterday, Grand Theft Auto 6 developer Rockstar Games informed its employees they would be returning to the office full-time and scrapping remote work. Those employees have responded to the mandate, and they’re not happy. Some GTA 6 devs are even stating they fear a return to the “toxic ‘crunch’ practices” for which Rockstar was known during the development of games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA V.

GTA 6 devs accuse Rockstar of broken promises

Rockstar has been trying to encourage its employees to return to the office since last year. When the developer tried to enforce a transition to a three-day office week in 2023, Rockstar claimed “this isn’t our first step to 5 days a week. No one wants to go back to the old way of working.” Now the GTA 6 devs are accusing Rockstar of breaking their promises following yesterday’s mandate that employees return to office full-time.

An anonymous employee told VGC that Rockstar is removing a remote working lifeline that allowed them to “balance care responsibilities, manage disabilities, and relocate as we need.” They continued:

Rockstar is snatching away that lifeline without a second thought for the workers who’ll be impacted most. After so many broken promises we now fear management may even be paving the way for a return to toxic ‘crunch’ practices. Senior leadership need to rethink their reckless decision making and engage with their staff to find an arrangement that works for everyone.

Rockstar had gained quite a reputation for its “toxic crunch practices” during previous games. Many of the accusations against the company involved 100-hour weeks, mandatory overtime, and fear tactics. As such, previous reports had claimed GTA 6 would be delayed until 2025 to avoid those crunch conditions.

However, mandatory overtime was a concern for another anonymous employee who said “just one of my concerns is being forced to work late hours in the office to maintain contact with global teams when before we could log on from home to attend late meetings.” The concerns have meant that the IWGB Game Workers Union has also issued a statement condemning Rockstar’s actions:

The workers in the IWGB Game Workers Union at Rockstar are pushing for transparency over pay and promotions, a healthy and inclusive workplace culture, and work life balance centred around what each worker needs. It is unacceptable that Rockstar leadership have gone back on their word time and time again and have ignored the workers’ requests for basic working conditions.

Workers across the industry are done with letting executives make reckless and harmful decisions and the Rockstar workers are showing us the start of what’s to come if they’re continually ignored. There’s no better time than now to join our union and push for this to be the healthy and sustainable games industry we know it can be.

IWGB Game Workers Union chairman Austin Kelmore

Rockstar is yet to comment.

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After a decade of waiting, Rockstar has officially unveiled the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, previewing the highly anticipated next entry in the iconic video game series. The 90-second trailer gives a glimpse of GTA 6 and the return of Vice City. It sets the tone well, utilizing a bunch of Instagram-style reels to showcase the wild setting.

Check out the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer below:

What do we know about Grand Theft Auto 6?

The game will be set in a fictionalized version of Miami, which will bring players back to Vice City for the first time since the PSP game GTA: Vice City Stories. It will feature two protagonists.

It’s been a decade since GTA V was released, and five years since Rockstar’s last title, Red Dead Redemption 2. Not that GTA has been left behind. GTA V is the second best-selling video game of all time behind only Minecraft, with more than 185 million copies of the game sold during those ten years and three different console generations.

Earlier this year, publisher Take-Two Interactive fueled speculations when it said it expected a record fiscal year in 2025. FY2025 will start in April 2024 and end in March 2025. Take-Two said it planned to launch “several groundbreaking titles” and if GTA 6 is one of those, the game could be out before March 2025.

GTA 6 was seen in action before, when hours of hacked pre-alpha gameplay footage were leaked from a network intrusion in 2022. The hack was investigated, and two UK teens were charged and convicted.

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Halloween is almost here, and with it comes some new content for GTA Online. Developer Rockstar has detailed what to expect from various GTA Online Halloween events.

One of the main events going on this year is the “Ghosts Exposed” event, an event that tasks players with traveling around the city and snapping pictures of ghosts who will appear at different locations. After collecting all 10 images, players will be given the “Ghosts Exposed” livery for the new Albany Brigham car in the game, making it look very close to the iconic Ectomobile from the Ghostbusters franchise.

Besides hunting for ghosts, players can also take part in some extraterrastrial activities. Halloween Freemode events for GTA Online include Business Battles that will ask players to steal spaceship parts from places like Fort Zancudo.

Alongside the new two events, new cosmetic items will also be included in the Halloween update, including a free witch mask and two masks that require players to complete Bunker missions in order to unlock. Finally, new Halloween props are available in the GTA Online Job Creator, allowing fans to create missions that have spooky themes to help celebrate the season.

Full list of content coming to GTA Online’s Halloween update

Check out all the content comping to GTA Online this Halloween below:

• Double GTA$ and RP on New Halloween Deathmatches, Bunker Sell Missions, Judgment Day, Alien Survivals, and the Halloween Bunker Series
• Triple GTA$ and RP on Slasher
• Halloween Freemode Events including Business Battles requiring stealing spaceship parts from Fort Zancudo, phantom cars, UFOs in the sky, possessed animals, and more
• Halloween Masks:
  • Free Green Vintage Witch Mask for playing GTA Online any time this week
  • Complete a Bunker Sell Mission to earn the Orange Vintage Werewolf Mask
  • Complete a Bunker Steal Supplies Mission to receive the Light Green Vintage Vampire Mask
• New Halloween Props available in the GTA Online Job Creator including pumpkins and Jack-o’-lanterns
• On PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S:
  • HSW Test Ride: The Karin S95
  • This week’s HSW Time Trial takes place between Del Perro Beach and Murietta Heights
• Returning Vehicles at Simeon’s Premium Deluxe Motorsport Showroom: The Dewbauchee Exemplar, Enus Cognoscenti Cabrio, Ocelot F620, Grotti Carbonizzare, and Vapid FMJ
• On Display at The Luxury Autos Showroom: The returning Annis S80RR and Lampadati Tigon
• Lucky Wheel Top Prize: The Karin Futo GTX
• LS Car Meet Test Rides: The Declasse Vamos, Grotti GT500, and Vapid Peyote Gasser
• LS Car Meet Prize Ride: Place Top 4 in the LS Car Meet Series two days in a row to earn the Annis Hellion with the limited-time Nightmare livery
• 30% off Bunker Properties and their Upgrades & Modifications
• Vehicle Discounts: 20% off the Vapid Ratel, 30% off the Mammoth Streamer216 plane, 40% off the Vapid FMJ, Annis S80RR, Grotti GT500, Vapid Peyote Gasser, and Karin Technical Aqua
• GTA+ Members: Free Albany Brigham and Love Fist livery, Double Rewards on Halloween Deathmatches, Free Striped Suit, Skeleton Morph Suit, Metal Anime Shirt, Gun Van Discounts, and more

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More and more about the potential Grand Theft Auto 6 continues to be hinted at. Recently, actor Bryan Zampella may have teased more about the upcoming game.

During a recent Instagram live session (via Gamevro), Zampella — who is rumored to be playing one of the main characters in the upcoming game — could be seen wearing a shirt very reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City main character Tommy Vercetti.

In a conversation with Joseph L. Rubino (who has worked with Rockstar in the past as a senior camera artist and currently works as head of cinematics and storytelling at NetEase Games), Zampella also continued to reference Florida and hanging out at various clubs as part of “missions” that he was on. The actor also mentioned that he will be around the gaming community for a long time, and that they are now part of a “crew.”

Zampella continued to reference the world of Grand Theft Auto, noting that he couldn’t talk much about what was happening in the future, but that he will be able to open up more “in the next few weeks.”

Due to the mysterious nature of Grand Theft Auto 6, fans are skeptical on whether or not Zampella is actually hinting at future news for the highly anticipated game, or simply using the moment to get some extra attention his way.

What do we know about Grand Theft Auto 6?

Previously, publisher Take-Two Interactive hinted that Grand Theft Auto 6 could be coming out at some point in 2024. In a statement accompanying Take-Two’s yearly earnings, the company shared projections stretching out into the fiscal year of 2025, which hinted that the Grand Theft Auto 6 release window could be sometime in 2024 at the earliest.

Included in those projections are estimates for “several groundbreaking titles” that will help the company achieve “over $8 billion in net bookings” in the fiscal year of 2025.

“Looking ahead, Fiscal 2025 is a highly anticipated year for our Company,” the statement reads (via IGN). “For the last several years, we have been preparing our business to release an incredibly robust pipeline of projects that we believe will take our company to even greater levels of success. In Fiscal 2025, we expect to enter this new era by launching several groundbreaking titles that we believe will set new standards in our industry and enable us to achieve over $8 billion in Net Bookings and over $1 billion in Adjusted Unrestricted Operating Cash Flow. We expect to sustain this momentum by delivering even higher levels of operating results in Fiscal 2026 and beyond.”

While there’s no specific mention of a new Grand Theft Auto title, the projected earnings of over $8 billion suggest that some significant title would have to be coming out at some point in 2024 for the company to reach that much in the fiscal year of 2025.

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A new GTA Online update is coming soon, bringing with it the addition of tons of new content for players exploring Los Santos.

When does the new GTA Online update come out?

According to Rockstar, the new GTA Online update, titled GTA Online: San Andreas Mercenaries, will release on June 13, 2023, for all players on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. The highly anticipated summer update will include tons of new content as well, including new gameplay, vehicles, jobs, weapons, and more.

The new GTA Online update will have players joining up in the Los Santos Angels, a group of elite pilots who are trying to take down the private military faction Merryweather Security. As part of the Los Santos Angels, players will play through various missions that have them stealing data from server farms, conducting raids, and more.

Of course, the update is also set to include new things for players to play with as well, including a brand-new tactical SMG, daily time trials, new vehicles, and more. Rockstar has also said it addressed a handful of player-requested improvements to the game, including:

• When calling Mors Mutual Insurance, you’ll be able to claim all destroyed vehicles at once.
• An alternate sprint control option (hold to sprint) will be added to the Settings Menu.
• Custom description tags for garages to help quickly locate your favorite rides.
• The Willard Eudora and Albany Classique Broadway will become eligible for Taxi Work when using Taxi Liveries.
• Updates to the Creator to incorporate additional props and weather options, including snow.

More information, including news about future gameplay, vehicles, and activities appearing in the new update will come before the update’s launch on June 13.

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Grand Theft Auto 6 is one of the most anticipated video games of all time. The developers at Rockstar know this — and that’s a tough line to walk when making the game, according to Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick,

Speaking during a recent appearance on the Good Time Show podcast (via VGC), Zelnick was asked about the game. According to the CEO, it’s difficult to make something new and exciting while ensuring the game feels familiar enough for established fans.

“In the entertainment business… we adopt our hits like they’re part of us, they’re part of our family, you know, we have a great affinity for them and we take it personally if people screw around with them, like it’s not okay if the creators make a choice that is inconsistent with how we think these hits should be developed,” said Zelnick.

The CEO also notes Rockstar faces these challenges every time a new version of Grand Theft Auto comes out. While it “needs to be something you’ve never seen before,” Zelnick also mentioned that it has to still feel like the series fans have come to know and love.

“I think that’s a challenge that the folks at Rockstar face every time there’s a new iteration of Grand Theft Auto,” Zelnick said. “It needs to be something you’ve never seen before on one hand, and it needs to reflect the feeling that we have about Grand Theft Auto, and that’s a big challenge for the team. Now, Rockstar’s answer is just seek perfection, seek nothing short of perfection and we’ll get there.”

What do we know about Grand Theft Auto 6?

Not a whole lot is known about the next Grand Theft Auto at present. The title is definitely in development, with recent comments suggesting that the game could come out sometime in 2024. Last year, very early footage of the game leaked online, and showcased new mechanics in the early stages of development at Rockstar.

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Part of the GTA V source code has apparently leaked online before being rapidly removed by a DMCA takedown. The source code included content from two different builds of the game, including some data that never made it into the final version of Grand Theft Auto 5 on any platform.

The content reportedly leaked in the GTA V source code

The leaked source code allegedly included scripting functions, turntables, developer notes, some parts of the anti-cheat, and even some content that never made it into the final version of Grand Theft Auto V according to DSO Gaming. It’s difficult to verify any of this data seeing as the leak has since received a DMCA takedown, although Reddit managed to capture a screenshot of some of the files before their removal.

The GTA V source code was reportedly stolen at the same time as the massive GTA 6 leak back in September. Developer Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two Interactive later confirmed the leak to be real and the hacker was later arrested and charged with computer misuse. It was reported the hacker managed to sell the GTA V source code before his arrest and the buyer then attempted to sell the source code himself. Although none of the GTA V theft details were ever confirmed, the alleged leak does add more fuel to the fire.

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