Bully Online, a mod that added online multiplayer to Rockstar’s classic open-world game, is shutting down less than a month after launch. The creators haven’t explained why yet, but fans are already blaming Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive, for the sudden demise of the project.
Developed by Fat Pigeon, a collection of modders and fans, and led by Bully content creator Swegta, Bully Online took years to develop and launched on PC on December 15. The mod added new content like mini-games, multiplayer activities, custom vehicles, and competitive racing. Fans were excited to check it out, especially as the original Bully didn’t include online multiplayer and Rockstar seems unwilling to make a sequel or remaster anytime soon. But now, not long after it was released, the mod is shutting down.
On January 14, a message was posted to the official Bully Online Discord server announcing that the mod will be shut down “forever” in 24 hours. According to the Discord announcement, as seen in a message shared by TheNathanNS on Twitter, the devs are stopping development of new content and scripts for the mod, removing the source code from the main site, and deleting any webpages connected to the mod, as well as wiping all account data connected to the project. The modders say players can hop on and enjoy Bully Online for the next 24 hours until the servers are completely wiped and deleted for good.
Why is Bully Online shutting down?
As for why Bully Online is being killed, nobody involved has provided a clear answer. On Discord, the announcement does make it clear that this wasn’t what the modders had planned, saying, “For now though, know this was not something we wanted.” The messages also promise that Swegta will be posting a video in the near future explaining more.
Kotaku has contacted both Swegta and Rockstar Games for more information, but didn’t hear back from either before publication.
Swegta himself also confirmed the news on Twitter, posting on Wednesday that he will make a “proper statement on the situation” on January 21. On the creator’s website, a new message was added that states: “The Bully Online project is shutting down. Thank you all for playing.”
Rockstar Games seems to be playing cat-and-mouse with some Grand Theft Auto Online players who are using newly added tools to recreate the assassination of Charlie Kirk in the extremely popular online open-world crime simulator.
On January 12, the Twitter account GTA 6Info posted a clip of what appears to be a user-created GTA Online mission called “We Are Charlie Kirk” that features the player being tasked with killing a man standing outside behind various props in a location that looks like a college campus. Once the man is killed, the mission is completed. GTA 6Info also claimed in the tweet that because of this mission, Rockstar Games has now added “Charlie Kirk” to GTA Online’s profanity filter. The tweet went viral, but it’s unclear if Rockstar did, in fact, add Kirk’s name to any such filter and if that particular mission is the reason.
Kotaku has contacted Rockstar Games for more information.
However, while Kotaku can’t confirm the specific claim in that tweet, it can verify that if you try to search for “Charlie Kirk” on the official custom jobs site for GTA Online, you’ll be greeted with an error regardless of which platform you pick. This also happens if you try to search for a slur or other vulgar term blocked by Rockstar. You can still search for Charlie or Kirk separately, and doing so will reveal that previously shared Kirk-themed maps, like the one from that viral video, seem to have been removed from GTA Online sometime between December 10, when the mission creator tool was added to the game, and today. Players appear to be using “Charlie Pink” or mashing his first and last names together to try and get around what appear to be Rockstar’s attempt to make it much harder to find and share these missions.
The question now is whether Rockstar Games will continue to play cat-and-mouse with creators trying to build and share recreations of Kirk’s murder. And if so, for how long will this trend continue in the live-service game? If I know the internet, Rockstar has a hard job ahead of it, especially as rumors of a banned topic spread online and entice more creators to try their luck at getting around any possible filters. We saw something like this happen in NBA 2K26 last year, with players using the in-game creator tools to create bloody characters referencing the killing.
Rockstar Games has announced Grand Theft Auto VI ‘s launch is being delayed once again to November 19, 2026. That’s roughly a year from now. It was previously delayed from its 2025 launch window to May 26, 2026. And now again.
If you have the feeling it’s been a while since the last GTA game, you’d be right. GTA V was originally released in 2013 and has been re-released multiple times since then. In fact, it’s a rare game that’s spanned PS3, PS4 and PS5.
Rockstar is likely self-assured that the game will do fine. Grand Theft Auto Online, a multiplayer mode for GTA V that can also be downloaded as a standalone game, remains a hit.
“We continue to supply content to GTA Online, and in fact we’ve had terrific results there. And GTA+ continues to grow its membership. In fact, it’s had 20 percent growth year-over-year. And GTA V has sold more than 220 million units,” said Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick in an interview with The Game Business.
The budget-friendly system is in early production.
Apple may debut a low-cost Mac laptop in the first half of 2026. According to a Bloomberg report, it’s in early production, and Apple is testing the devices internally. The idea may be to create a rival to cheap Chromebooks and Windows PCs, nudging folks into that money-spinning ecosystem. The company is said to be making the system with casual users, students and businesses in mind. (I’d guess many of those users are paying more for MacBooks with power they’ll never really tap into.)
The report suggests it’ll have a “lower-end LCD display,” and it’s expected to run on an A-series iPhone processor that would still, apparently, deliver better performance than the M1.
Everything you need to know about the Chinese company’s future in America.
DJI drones still face a potential US ban, due to national security concerns. It’s a combination of the company’s Chinese origins and laws compelling cooperation with state intelligence services. It’s also a very visible, notable drone maker — and flying robots understandably make folks nervous. After losing a recent lawsuit and an appeal, DJI is nearing a key December 23, 2025, deadline under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which could trigger an automatic ban. A recent FCC vote and pending legislation could also block sales and even theoretically prevent people from using already-purchased drones by cutting off radio access.
DJI might have to hope a ban will create enough customer outcry to stimulate a political response in its favor.
Honda revealed its new hybrid car tech, and it’s lighter, faster and… actually fun. That’s accomplished by massive weight savings and a surprising S+ Shift mode, which simulates an eight-speed transmission for manual driving fans. We got a first look at the platform that will transform the next-gen Civic and Prelude, officially, hopefully marking the end of the slow, droning hybrid car.
Fans will have to wait a bit longer to return to Vice City. Rockstar Games has announced that Grand Theft Auto VI has been delayed once again to November 19, 2026. The open world game was previously delayed from its 2025 launch window to May 26, 2026 earlier this year.
“We are sorry for adding additional time to what we realize has been a long wait, but these extra months will allow us to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve,” Rockstar said on its official X account. The new launch date delays the hotly anticipated game by a whole six months from its previous date.
Rockstar Games, developer of Grand Theft Auto VI, has been accused of deliberately laying off employees who were trying to unionize, Bloomberg reports. The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) claims over 30 employees who were eliminated at the developer’s offices in the UK and Canada were either already part of a union or attempting to organize.
“Rockstar has just carried out the most blatant and ruthless act of union busting in the history of the games industry,” IWGB President Alex Marshall said in a blog post about the layoffs. “This flagrant contempt for the law and for the lives of the workers who bring in their billions is an insult to their fans and the global industry.”
Besides the disruption of having to find a new job, the union notes that several employees who were let go are particularly vulnerable. “Amongst the staff dismissed were those with visas sponsored by Rockstar and those with medical conditions who will lose access to essential workplace healthcare schemes,” the union says. It adds that “all of those dismissed at Rockstar UK were members of the IWGB Game Workers Union discord channel, and appear to have been targeted for this reason.” In response to the IWGB’s claims, Rockstar’s publisher and owner Take-Two Interactive told Bloomberg that the layoffs had nothing to do with union activity and instead were “for gross misconduct, and for no other reason.”
Rockstar and Take-Two have come into conflict with employees in the past over their return-to-office policy. Take-Two also laid off staff across multiple studios in 2024 and 2025, potentially motivated by the decision to push back the release of Grand Theft Auto VI to 2026. The game is expected to be a massive hit for the company and the wider industry, which is part of the reason why the IWGB believes the layoffs are motivated by something other than financials.
A TikTok content creator allegedly flew all the way from the United States to Edinburgh, Scotland to stand outside the offices of Grand Theft Auto 6 developers Rockstar North and yell at people entering and exiting the studio. According to the creator, he is “sick and tired” of waiting for a new trailer or information on any further delays.
On September 30, as spotted by TheGamer, TikTok user Backonboulevard shared a video on the social media service that appeared to show him staking out the Rockstar North office in Scotland and then yelling at two different people that he seemingly assumed were developers working on GTA 6 after spotting them entering and exiting the building. The video has over 140,000 views and is currently pinned on the TikTok user’s channel.
In the first incident, a person can be seen walking toward the office when Backonboulevard yells at them: “When’s the delay? When’s the next trailer? I wanna know!” The person shrugs, starts walking away quickly, and replies, “I don’t know.”
In another incident shown in the video, Backonboulevard seemingly follows a person after they have presumably left the office and shouts at them, asking: “When’s the delay happening? Is there another delay? What about the trailer? Another trailer? You can’t tell me? You can’t tell me? You can’t tell me nothing?” That person looks visibly scared and understandably nervous about a random dude aggressively confronting them in the dark, and quickly flees the scene as the TikTok creator follows before the video cuts.
Kotaku has contacted the TikTok user about the video and reached out to Rockstar Games.
“I’m sick and tired of waiting for the answers,” explained Backonboulevard in the video. At another point, he showed the outside of Rockstar North’s offices to prove he was there. “Right now we are here, right here, live from Rockstar North. I told you guys I wasn’t playing around.”
While many in the comments below GameRoll’s post shared disbelief and anger over what Backonboulevard seemingly did, there are many, many comments below the original video on TikTok that take the creator’s side and blame Rockstar’s lack of information and new trailers for the harassment. And to be clear: That’s fucking stupid and you should never, ever, ever sit outside a video game studio and harass the people inside and demand answers from them. That will never work out, it might get you in trouble legally, and it’s just a dick move.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to launch in May 2026 after being delayed earlier this year. It will launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Don’t yell at the devs about it, okay?
Tekken 8 has been out since January 26 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. While you might be tempted to jump straight into its online matches, which you’re not prepared for—trust me—you should check out the game’s story mode first. Not only does it introduce you to many ofTekken 8‘s characters and themes, but it also sets up a bombastic, relentlessly over-the-top narrative about breaking the chains that hold us back. And it’s a great way to acclimate yourself to some of the game’s new mechanics. This is a story mode you shouldn’t miss. – Levi Winslow Read More
In a new press release from audio electronics company Altec Lansing, it was revealed that GameShark is returning, sort of via an artificial intelligence-powered successor called “AI Shark” You don’t care about that. Instead, the big news out of this press release is that it might have leaked the release date for the Nintendo Switch 2. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
We asked and you answered. Some games and franchises, no matter how popular they are, just don’t make the cut for some of us, and we wanted to know which ones just don’t click with you.
While some answers were expected (like me, lots of folks don’t get along with Dark Souls), others left me a bit surprised, including the shade some threw at acclaimed 2023 role-playing game Baldur’s Gate 3.
Photo: Valve / Kotaku / Roman Samborskyi (Shutterstock)
A Steam user on Christmas Eve had a question: How do you earn just one measly little Steam Point? They were at 68,999 points and wanted to hit 69,000 because, you know, it’s a nice number and all that. However, because of how Steam Points are earned, there seemed no simple way to get that one measly point. But then a Christmas miracle happened. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Despite The Game Awards officially capping off the end of video game news for 2023, we’ve still got stories to share, from GTA 6 controversies to the inglorious end of E3. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.
What’s Coming Out Beyond Pokémon: The Indigo Disk | The Week In Games
The drama-filled saga behind one of Steam’s most-anticipated games of 2023 just took its weirdest turn yet. The Day Before maker Fntastic announced it will cease operations less than a week after accusations of swindling players with a massive bait-and-switch when it came to the true nature of its The Last of Us-looking survival game. – Ethan Gach Read More
Valve has a message to all you folks (myself included) who love huffing your Steam Deck exhaust fumes: Stop it. Please.
Have you ever taken a break from playing your Steam Deck to sample the complex fragrances emanating from its exhaust vent? If so, you aren’t alone. Since the release of the handheld PC, many owners have reported that they can’t stop sniffing the fumes that waft out of the Steam Deck during play. It’s become a bit of a meme among Steam Deck owners, with folks often posting online how much they enjoy the distinctive aroma. I’m one of those sickos, sticking my nose right above the exhaust and taking a big whiff each time I play. But someone finally asked Valve about this, and it turns out the company wants you all to knock it off. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
A Florida man is calling on Rockstar Games to pay him $2 million for showing literally one second of a character who looks like him in the reveal trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6. Lawrence Sullivan, AKA “Florida Joker,” accused the studio of stealing his likeness in his latest TikTok video. But a Red Dead Redemption 2 voice actor wasn’t having it. – Ethan Gach Read More
Remember when finding and capturing a Legendary Pokémon felt special? You would stumble upon these powerful creatures whose stories were woven into the world’s history. The Mewtwo encounter in the original Pokémon Red and Blue is an incredible endgame payoff for a story that’s unfolding in the background the whole time. When you finally find it in the Cerulean Cave during the postgame, you understand how significant it is to stand in front of this all-powerful monster. However, in the time since, the series has increasingly broken its own lore to come up with silly excuses for why these god-like entities are available to be caught in subsequent games, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Indigo Disk DLC seems to be the latest to continue the trend. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
‘Tis the season, once again, for Rockstar Games to drop another massive (and free) Grand Theft Auto Onlineupdate. And this time, not only has the company added a whole new chop shop business, but it’s also added drift races, new cars, and animals, too. Yes, it took a decade and three console generations, but finally, GTA Online will have animals running around its massive map. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Everything going on with failed Steam zombie shooter The Day Before continues to shock and amaze. The latest wild development is studio Fntastic’s response to the entire self-inflicted debacle: “shit happens.” – Ethan Gach Read More
Image: ESA / Kotaku / Frederic J. Brown (Getty Images)
E3, the video game conference that’s taken place annually in Los Angeles since 1995, is officially dead. After several years of struggles and rumors of its demise, its end was confirmed in The Washington Post’s exclusive interview with president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), Stanley Pierre-Louis. – Alyssa Mercante Read More
Today, Sony and Insomniac confirmed that the PlayStation-5-exclusive open-world superhero action game, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, will receive a big, free update in “Early 2024” that will add highly requested features. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
It was a big week for the scantily clad at Kotaku this week, with both GTA 6 and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth giving players plenty of skin. We’re also feeling veryexcited about the new Fallout show, but decidedly less enthusiastic about the minimal focus on the actual awards at this week’s Game Awards.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Comments: A Dramatic Reading
These are the week’s most interesting perspectives on the wild, wonderful, and sometimes weird world of video game news.
Grand Theft Auto 6 looks gorgeous. Unless its debut trailer this week was faked, it might end up being one of the best-looking games of this console generation when it comes out in 2025. By that time, my Xbox Series S will be five years old. I shudder to think of that sleek little white box trying to play Rockstar Games’ latest open-world blockbuster. – Ethan Gach Read More
I’ve played about six hours of Ubisoft’s new Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandoraand my big takeaway is that Avatar sickos will love this game, Far Cry Primal fans will get a kick out of Ubisoft returning to this formula, and everyone else, well… uh…dang, the game sure is pretty, huh? – Zack Zwiezen Read More
An intimate moment in GTA 6.Screenshot: Rockstar / Kotaku
Good news, everyone! Unless you’ve been living in a monastery, you’re likely aware that 2023 is the year that video games got horny again. And no, I don’t mean tastefully Hades frisky, I mean Leisure Suit Larry and Night Traplevels of unhinged lust, the likes of which “mainstream” gaming (whatever that means) hasn’t seen since the 1990s. – Jen Glennon Read More
Historically, TV and film adaptations of video games don’t have the greatest track record. The last few years, however, have started turning that around. Pikachu, Sonic, and Mario have all starred in successful movies, and earlier this year The Last of Us got a proper prestige adaptation that certainly left a mark on fans. – Claire Jackson Read More
And so that’s that. The Game Awards 2023 are over. 32 awards were handed out over three and a half hours. You might think, with that much time to spare, the show took its time and truly celebrated all the creators and games nominated for what the show calls “Gaming’s Biggest Night.” Nope. Instead, more so than before, the show sped through them at a rapid pace, making me wonder why it still pretends to be an award show at all. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the best games Square Enix ever produced, and it’s not available anywhere on modern consoles or PC. A remaster is an obvious way to fix that problem, and it seemed like all signs were pointing to one getting announced any day now. So it’s an especially cruel twist of fate that the original game’s director, Yasumi Matsuno, keeps toying with fans’ emotions about whether a remaster is actually happening or not. – Ethan Gach Read More
Cyberpunk 2077 is in a pretty good spot these days. After a dumpster fire of a launch, the next-gen update, 2.0 patch, and Phantom Liberty expansion have gotten CD Projekt Red’s open-world RPG to a respectable state. The 2.1 patch that launched this week adds a nice little bow to the game as its “last big update.” It has long-requested features like a working subway you can take across Night City, and it also lets V, its mercenary protagonist, spend a little time with their lover in their apartment. The results are an adorable stay-at-home date with your paramour, but for as sweet as it is, these hangouts underline something that felt left out of the Cyberpunk 2077 redemption arc: the romance. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
The first trailer for Rockstar’s next Grand Theft Auto game, likely to be named GTA VI, comes out December 5. What can we expect the trailer to reveal? Well, based on Rockstar’s past GTA trailers, which are fantastic, there’s a pattern that can help us predict what we might see during GTA VI’s official debut. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Earlier this week, we asked you all to give us your choice for the best video game sequel. Any sequel would count and everyone was free to suggest any game they wanted, no matter how old, obscure, or divisive. And we tallied up all the answers, crunched the numbers, and figured out your top ten sequels. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Sultry singlets everywhere, oh my!Screenshot: Sega
The secret is out: the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series has great minigames. Whether you enjoy playing retro arcade brawlers like Virtua Fighter, dumping dozens of hours into becoming a real-estate tycoon, or chatting up bodacious babes at the hostess club, Sega’s goofy action series has plenty of pleasant timesinks to wile away the hours. Though it’s still several weeks away, it’s already clear that the upcoming Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is no exception to that rule. – Jen Glennon Read More
Gaming’s biggest night has come and gone, and perhaps the biggest surprise of all was just how little time devs were given to thank their family, fans, and recently deceased colleagues during their acceptance speeches. But before that, we finally got our first in-depth look at Rockstar’s GTA 6, the most anticipated game in a decade. Here’s your cheat sheet to the week’s biggest news.
Rockstar Games has confirmed that, at least at launch, the company’s long-awaited open-world crime sim, Grand Theft Auto VI, will launch on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 only, with no mention of a PC version. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is often heralded as one of the best adventure games of the past 25 years. With the nefarious Ganon once again scheming to conquer the land, it’s up to Link to traverse through time, space, and yet another aggravating water temple to save the Kingdom of Hyrule. While the epic for the N64 is celebrating a major birthday this year, inspiring tribute mash-up videos and social media celebrations, another classic Zelda title is quietly celebrating a major milestone of its own. – Jen Glennon Read More
The Day Before kicked off 2023 as one of the most wishlisted games on Steam. Now, after endless controversies, the self-proclaimed open-world survival-horror MMO styled after The Last of Us is finally in Steam Early Access, and it’s getting panned. The first players to lay hands on the much-hyped zombie shooter are sharing footage of game-breaking glitches and leaving thousands of negative reviews. – Ethan Gach Read More
Overwatch 2 season eight begins today, December 5, but Blizzard showed off its new skins, events, and latest tank hero, Mauga, before kick-off. And the sentiment from players about the skins for season eight has been mixed—Baptiste’s formal wear is a standout, but it’s sandwiched between some real stinkers and an unremarkable Mythic Skin. But one cosmetic has stood out for all the wrong reasons: Mercy’s Year of the Dragon event skin. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
2023’s The Game Awards just wrapped. Did you watch it? Well, no worries if you missed it (or had something better to do) as we’ve rounded up every major game trailer and world premiere you could want to watch in a single sitting. So if you’re looking to check out a new trailer or catch up on all the games that were announced this year, you’re in the right place. – Claire Jackson Read More
A seven-second TikTok reverberated across the internet over the weekend, after it claimed to show the “first look” at in-game footage of a city in Grand Theft Auto VI, the open-world blockbuster whose official trailer is just a day away. Frantic speculation about whether the footage was real or not ensued, including unverified rumors that the leak involved a Rockstar Games developer’s own kid. – Ethan Gach Read More
While Sony acquired Destiny 2 maker Bungie for $3.6 billion in 2022, it repeatedly claimed the creator of Halo and other hits would remain an “independent subsidiary.” Now IGN reports that if Bungie’s sci-fi MMO keeps failing revenue targets, Sony could dissolve its existing board of directors and take full control of the roughly 1,100 person studio. – Ethan Gach Read More
After a long and tumultuous road, Cyberpunk 2077 appears to be getting its final major update today. The sprawling patch includes a new ridable metro system and more romance options, as well as a host of other tweaks, changes, and additions. Unless it ends up breaking something big in the game, consider patch 2.1 Night City’s last overhaul until Cyberpunk 2 arrives a decade or so from now. – Ethan Gach Read More
By now it’s no secret that the trailer for GTA 6 has been released, and has gamers everywhere excited for 2025. The trailer itself has now amassed over 130 million views, and we ourselves are probably responsible for a good chunk of them! The question is though, did you notice all of the references?
Real-Life Occurrences from the GTA 6 Trailer
For this list we’re not going to be talking about the physics and mechanics of the game that people have noticed, just references to real-life occurrences or locations that have been replicated in the game. If you’re interested in other goodies we’ve picked up on, be sure to check out our list of easter eggs or little details you might have missed!
Wynwood, Florida
Image Source: Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games has painstakingly made a copy of Wynwood, Florida in the upcoming GTA. The place is full of vibrant graffiti and art work, and the game devs have paid close attention to give it a realistic feel. It was fun spotting real landmarks in GTA V, but it might be even more fun in the next game!
The Ocean View Hotel
Image Source: Rockstar Games
If you have played the definitive edition’s version of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, or if you were one of the OGs to play it on PS2, then you’ll recognize the iconic Ocean View Hotel. Of course, many places in Vice City were based off of real areas of Malibu — the Ocean View Hotel is modelled after South Beach’s famous Clevelander accomodation — but it’s nice to see the old save point landmark appearing in the trailer!
Club Space
Image Source: Rockstar Games
Many Floridians have noticed how familiar this particular night club from the trailer looks. Despite not yet knowing its name, it looks to be based off of a club called Space that can be found in Miami. It will be cool to see how accurate to real-life it is when the game finally releases!
The Pool Gator
Image Source: Rockstar Games
Is it Florida if there aren’t Gators in your pool? This is a reference to a news story from this year, where a Floridian woman found an 11-foot Alligator in her pool. Rockstar have always been good at riffing off of real events, but this still somehow seems overly comical even though it actually happened!
Woman Twerking on a Car
Image Source: Rockstar Games
This is yet another reference to something that really happened. Back in 2017, a woman was filmed twerking on top of a car on a highway. There have since been other similar videos, but the original is what has influenced this crazy clip from the GTA 6 trailer.
The Gator Entering a Store
Image Source: Rockstar Games
Once again, here we are with the Gators! This time, this is harking back to when an Alligator was found outside of a Walmart back in 2013 (which is when GTA V came out!) Dare we say, maybe it was looking for some Gatorade? Maybe not…
Florida, Man
Image Source: Rockstar Games
This clip has seemingly taken inspiration from multiple instances of the same thing happening. It would appear that police in Florida have to chase down naked guys regularly. There are so many stories where this has happened, it seems like that’s just the everyday life of a Florida cop!
Naked Gardening Man
Image Source: Rockstar Games
You didn’t think we were done with the revealing members of public, did you? In 2022, a news story broke about a man who was doing his gardening in his birthday suit. This had his neighbors complaining to the local authorities about having to see his family jewels. At least Rockstar put a thong on their guy…
Hammer Lady
Image Source: Rockstar Games
This one is from back in 2020, where a woman confronted her neighbor while duel-wielding hammers. She then proceeded to bash her neighbor’s car in with them. We can’t say we condone this behavior, but we sure do look forward to seeing it in GTA 6.
The Florida Joker
Image Source: Rockstar Games
This particular reference is quite famous at this point. There is a Florida native that has been dubbed “the Florida Joker”, due to his tattoos and impersonations of the DC character online. Needless to say, he has since been outspoken about his appearance in the trailer and is not happy…
This may potentially hold a little easter egg as well, as the word “impentinent” tattooed on his forehead could potentially be a misspelling of impotent, after the fake cartoon character Impotent Rage in the GTA world. It could also be an incorrect spelling of impertinent, which is also quite funny.
Petty Forever
Image Source: Rockstar Games
Last, but definitely not least, there are the references to Florida’s own Tom Petty. The song used in the trailer is “Love is a Long Road” by Tom Petty himself, but there is also a noticeable sticker on the door when Lucia and her beau are entering a liquor store to rob it.
Petty grew up in Gainesville, Florida and passed away back in 2017. So, it’s nice to see him being remembered in such a prominent way for the game’s trailer. There are also said to be murals of him about Leonida (the game’s version of Florida) as well. So, we look forward to searching for them!
Hannah is a freelance new release writer for Twinfinite. She has been writing and providing video game content for 5 years, and loves to cover games such as The Last of Us, Life is Strange, Grand Theft Auto, and The Sims just to name a few! If it has zombies in it, she has probably played it. Hannah has an American Studies degree from The University of Hull, as well as a Digital Media Master’s from The University of Sussex. Her biggest philosophical quandary is “will Ryo Hazuki ever manage to avenge his father?”
Earlier this week, Rockstar Games released the long-awaited first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, the massive sequel to 2013’s GTA 5. And while the trailer itself is quickly racking up millions of views every hour, the Tom Petty song featured in it is also doing pretty dang well, too.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Comments: A Dramatic Reading
I probably don’t need to tell you that on December 4, after a small leak, Rockstar released the first GTA 6 trailer a bit early and, in the process, blew up the internet. That trailer, which revealed the game won’t be out until 2025 and also showcased some incredible-looking NPCs, has since hit over 100 million views already, breaking some world records in the process. And the trailer’s song, “Love Is a Long Road,” is predictably blowing up too, according to Spotify.
Rockstar Games
As reported by IGN, Tom Petty’s “Love Is a Long Road” has seen a ridiculous increase in streams since the trailer went live. According to Spotify, streams of “Love Is a Long Road” have increased by 36,979% compared to last week. As of December 6, the song has over 11 million plays on Spotify.
Originally released in 1989, Tom Petty’s “Love Is a Long Road” was included on his massively successful album, Full Moon Fever, alongside hits like “Free Fallin’,” “I Won’t Back Down,” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream.” While “Love Is a Long Road” will no doubt continue to explode online thanks to the GTA 6 trailer, this isn’t the first time Petty—who died in 2017—has had his music featured in a GTA game.
Tom Petty / UMG
If you played GTA San Andreas back in 2004, you know that “Runnin’ Down A Dream” was included on the game’s classic rock radio station K-DST. According to the official Tom Petty Twitter account, the famous singer “loved contributing” the song to Rockstar’s massively successful open-world sequel.
I’d like to think if he was still alive today, Petty—who was born in Florida— would love his song being featured in a trailer for what looks to be the ultimate “Florida game.”
Forget Marvel, Star Wars, Harry Potter or James Bond. None of the next installments of these popular franchises will likely hold a candle to the anticipation of a new Grand Theft Auto sequel slated to land sometime in 2025.
The first trailer for GTA VI, in which gamers live out their fantasies as denizens of the criminal underworld, dropped on Tuesday after a leak on social media prompted publisher Rockstar Games to move forward with the planned December 5th reveal.
Not even a day later and the topic already dominates the trending list on YouTube, with over 7 million likes and counting. The 62 million views prompted a sore Linda Yaccarino—still in damage control mode following Elon Musk’s car crash interview—to plead with Rockstar to embed the trailer on X rather than direct her audience away and onto Google’s rival streaming platform.
The fascination around the game is partly because it’s been a full decade since its landmark predecessor landed. When GTA V launched in 2013, the game obliterated sales records, needing just three days to cross the $1 billion threshold.
It holds the record for the highest-grossing entertainment property of any kind—film, music or book—shipping 190 million units to date and still commands a price many years later between $20 and $30 depending on console generation.
“Grand Theft Auto VI continues our efforts to push the limits of what’s possible in highly immersive, story-driven open-world experiences,” promised Rockstar Games president Sam Houser in a statement, calling it the “biggest, most immersive evolution of the Grand Theft Auto series yet”.
Rockstar, founded by Houser and his brother Dan 25 years ago this month, revealed little of the story other than it appears to center on a Bonnie & Clyde pair of small-time criminals.
The scenery shifts from GTA V’s San Andreas, a microcosm of California, to the streets of Vice City, which served as neon-lit backdrop of the 2002 GTA installment by the same name. Given all the recent buzz around Miami as a new symbol of America’s wealth gap, Rockstar could hardly have picked a timelier setting for its protagonists’ fictional crime spree.
‘Dependent on the future success’
Like any trailer, it should whet the appetite for the game’s arrival sometime in the next 13 to 24 months (if the predecessor is anything to go by, expect a release in autumn just in time for the holiday shopping season).
But it is little indication about the quality of the finished product, and there are big questions surrounding the next installment.
Two of the most important figures credited with the franchise’s chart-topping success moved on after GTA V launched. Lead writer Dan Houser, the creative brain behind the franchise and Rockstar’s co-founder together with brother Sam, left in 2020.
Producer and game designer Leslie Benzies departed to found his own studio and is now working on a similar GTA-style game believed to incorporate blockchain elements from the crypto world.
Landing another hit is crucial for Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive Software. A decade ago when it launched the previous installment, consolidated annual revenue almost doubled.
“We are dependent on the future success of our Grand Theft Auto products,” Take-Two warned investors in its latest full fiscal year report.
Thanks to developers like Rockstar, CD Projekt Red and most recently Larian Studios, video games as a genre have long shed the stigma as a form of low art, becoming perhaps the major force in the entertainment industry.
“Research has shown that Gen Z and Gen Alpha prefer gaming to any other form of entertainment—more than social media, more than watching television or listening to music, more than going to the movie theatre,” said Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who himself landed a hit with this year’s Harry Potter-themed Hogwarts Legacy game.
On Thursday the industry is set to celebrate its equivalent of the Oscars, with titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom hot contenders for the top prize as Game of the Year.
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The long awaited (official) debut of Grand Theft Auto 6 is nearly upon us, Starfield is shedding like a bad wig, and Coral Island has hunks in every direction.
The Top 10 Most-Played Games On Steam Deck: October 2023 Edition
These are the week’s most interesting perspectives on the wild, wonderful, and sometimes weird world of video game news.
In the weeks following the launch of Skyrim developer Bethesda’s highly anticipated RPG Starfield, the game has caught a bit of attention for its plummeting player numbers on Steam. Its ranking from user reviews has also dropped on Valve’s digital storefront, falling from “Positive” into the pale orange of “Mixed.” Why is one of the biggest RPGs of the last few years seemingly falling out of favor with players so soon? Read More
One of my favorite Black Friday traditions is scrolling through GameStop on my phone and getting a bunch of cool games for cheap. Usually it works out just fine. Last weekend it was a nightmare. It’s hard to convey just how terrible navigating the experience of trying to buy something from GameStop has become in 2023, but I’m going to try. Read More
Wish, the 62nd film released by Walt Disney Animation Studios, is a bad movie. The film is meant to celebrate the studio’s 100th anniversary, but instead, its incoherent story and reliance on millennial cliches for cheap jokes come off like it was fed into an AI generator and spat out onto the big screen. And the music, always a staple in Disney films, has some really lovely parts that are sadly weighed down by terrible lyrics. Read More
Coral Island, the new farming and dating sim by Stairway Games, is the latest example of a game in which pursuing a handsome lad is enough to drag me through something I’m otherwise lukewarm on. I’ve spent chunks of my playtime chopping trees trying to make a real farm out of my designated plot of land. But I do not wish to chop trees, I simply wish to climb Coral Island’s residents like trees. Read More
I don’t have a lot of complaints about Baldur’s Gate 3, but the original ending is probably my biggest issue with Larian Studios’ excellent RPG. Though I was content with the ways the story concluded, its rushed execution left me wanting more, which was even more readily apparent when I tried the game’s “evil” ending and it was about as fleshed out as an intrusive thought. Larian has been adding new content to the ending since launch, including a new scene dedicated to Karlach, but in Patch #5, the studio has created an entirely new epilogue that feels like the debrief the original game was missing. Read More
I assume most of you reading this have played at least a few video game sequels in your life and while you might have enjoyed them all, this week at Kotaku we want to know: What do you think is the best video game sequel of all time? Read More
It’s that time of year again. Today, November 29, Spotify users all over are sharing their year-end “Wrapped” recaps, which try to sum up your past year of musical taste by giving stats and rankings on your most-listened-to artists and songs, alongside a sleek graphic to share on all your socials. I look forward to it every year. But as Spotify Wrapped has practically become an internet holiday, I can’t help but notice that it’s gamified how we listen to music throughout the year. Read More
At long last, the GTA VI rumor mill can slow down. Rockstar Games officially announced the sequel in February 2022, but the studio just confirmed that a trailer for the long-awaited crime sim sequel will arrive on December 5. As we gear up for GTA VI‘s reveal, we at Kotaku have just one question: What do y’all want to see from the game? Read More
Amouranth bought an orchard for a cool $17 mill, Bethesda’s attempting to win the hearts and minds of disaffected Starfield players on Steam, and Dan Houser is back! In podcast form!
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.
In a newly released preview of Amazon Prime’s upcoming Fallout TV show, we learned a lot of new details about the world, characters, and story of the highly anticipated live-action adaptation of Bethesda’s popular post-apocalyptic RPG franchise. For example, the show is considered canon with the games. And Walter Goggins still looks good, even as an undead ghoul. Read More
An intense debate ignited November 13, when The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley announced the nominees for this year’s trophy ceremony. While some folks were surprised Pikachu face byStarfield’s absence, most people were shook by one particular title offered up for the “Best Independent Game” category. Now, after a couple weeks of silence, Keighley has tossed his two cents into the discourse. Read More
Reader, if you don’t mind a quick look into my personal neurosis, let me tell you that when I’m really looking forward to something, I get a great deal of anxiety about possibly dying before I get to experience it. I’ve felt this about video games, movies, albums, concerts, and pretty much anything else worth being excited about. Right now, the third live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie is near the top of my list of Things I Must Survive Long Enough To Experience. This isn’t because I think the movie will be great, or even good, it’s because Shadow the Hedgehog, the best character in the franchise, is set to appear as a main character. All those feelings of excitement and existential dread have been roused today, as Paramount has released a picture of the angsty, broody, gun-toting king on set…well, his feet, at least. Read More
The meta-narrative around Starfield just took a very weird turn. Steam reviews for the sprawling sci-fi RPG recently fell to “mixed” on Valve’s storefront, and now Bethesda employees are arguing with players in the comments about why the game isn’t as boring and soulless as some of them claim. Read More
The hardest thing about Destiny 2 is getting any of your friends to play it. Fans of Bungie’s ambitious and imaginative sci-fi shooter have long hoped for a simple on-ramp that would make it easier to get lapsed players and newcomers back into its universe. Destiny 2’s new “Starter Pack” might sound like exactly that. Instead, it’s a pricey bundle of random items that fans can’t stop dunking on. Read More
When Overwatch 2 shifted the hero shooter’s economy away from loot boxes and into a seasonal battle pass, the customizable Mythic Skins unlocked at the end of that pass were framed as the light at the end of the grindy tunnel. Unlike any other Overwatch skin, these would be somewhat customizable, offering a few style and color options for players to make them their own. In the game’s first year, seven of its iconic heroes have gotten one of these Mythic skins, which mostly been well-received. But after Blizzard revealed season eight’s skin for tank character Orisa, players are noticing a downward trend in Mythic Skin quality. Read More
Photo: Absurd Ventures / Kotaku / Patrick McMullan (Getty Images)
Dan Houser, who co-founded Rockstar Games and was the lead writer on multiple Grand Theft Autoand Red Dead Redemption games, has finally revealed what his new studio is working on. If you were expecting a video game…well, you’ll have to keep waiting. Read More
Dragon’s Dogma 2 looks awesome, right? The much anticipated action role-playing game about dragons and pawns came out swinging with a hefty new gameplay showcase on November 28, showing off the impressive character creator and some spectacular combat and officially revealing a March 24, 2024 release date. One thing that isn’t so awesome, however, is the game’s relatively high price tag of $70, which marks the first game from Capcom at this price. Read More
The November 10 launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III reignited the seemingly endless debate about multiplayer matchmaking, with players demanding Activision and Infinity Ward provide details, or even abolish it entirely. This conversation has perpetuated across multiple Call of Duty releases, but the team behind the popular first-person shooter has yet to properly acknowledge it—until now. On November 30, an official statement was shared by popular CoD website CharlieIntel on X (formerly Twitter). Read More
Ahead of next month’s Grand Theft Auto VI trailer, three classic GTA games from the PlayStation 2 era are coming to Netflix’s mobile library in December. These might not be the versions fans actually want ported to more platforms, though, even if some visual improvements seem to have been made.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Comments: A Dramatic Reading
We first reported on Rockstar’s plans to remaster GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas for new consoles and mobile devices back in 2021. These remastered ports were finally released as Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition in November of that year on Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch. While select parts of them looked okay, the games were a mess, with new bugs, broken graphics, and other glitches. The issues were so bad that Rockstar Games did a very un-Rockstar thing and apologized to fans while offering them free copies of the original versions of the games on PC. And while the remastered GTA Trilogy did get some updates to fix its more egregious shortcomings, the games are still not fan favorites. That all being so, I’m not sure many people will be excited about these remasters making the leap to phones.
On November 29, Netflix announced that Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas—all released originally on the PS2 between 2001 and 2004—would be available on mobile phones starting on December 14. As with other Netflix-hosted games, you’ll need to be a Netflix subscriber to play these GTA ports on your iPhone or Android device.
Things look a bit different this time around…
Interestingly, comparing the screenshots of the new Netflix ports to the current console and PC versions of the GTA Trilogy reveals some changes have been made. I noticed this a lot in an early moment in GTA: Vice City. It seems as if the colors have been toned down a smidge and the overall image looks darker and more like the original PS2 version’s.
Screenshot: Rockstar Games / GTA Series Videos / Netflix / Kotaku
If you look carefully, you can still see the remastered Vice City Definitive Edition models and textures, so this is still (presumably) that version of the game.
But it seems someone has gone in and tweaked some visual settings—including the fog, based on other screenshots—to perhaps improve these new Netflix ports.
I’m intrigued by the changes, even if they are minor, as they seem to help the remastered versions of these beloved games look a bit more like Rockstar’s original open-world classics. So I might check these out once they arrive on mobile devices next month. I just have to remember how the hell you play Netflix games on a phone.
Major questions have obviously been posed about where GTA VI will take the franchise. While some want the franchise to continue pushing in a modern direction to feel more like a “sequel”, others have been more interested in the prospect of returning to past locations and time periods to be more of a “prequel.” Here are six reasons why we feel that Grand Theft Auto VI should push forward and become a sequel, rather than a prequel.
Prequels Are Playing Themselves Out
Image Source: Rockstar Games
Video game prequels have become so commonplace in today’s gaming industry. In just the past six years, franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Battlefield, Fallout, Pokémon and Red Dead Redemption have jumped backward and released new mainline entries as prequels. While they can turn out good, video game prequels can often feel like unnecessary additions to franchises that should be moving forward.
In the case of Grand Theft Auto, while the games do have an overarching canon, the stories are largely standalone. You don’t need to play one game to play the others in the series, since they always focus on a new cast in a new location. While the franchise constantly features compelling characters, there’s not much of a need to waste the resources you’d allot to a mainline game on a prequel in the current video game climate.
Save the Prequels For the Side Games
Image Source: Rockstar Games
With that said, prequels could absolutely work in the form of side games, as they have before. 2005’s Liberty City Stories and 2006’s Vice City Stories served as prequels to Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, respectively. They were compelling titles on the PSP that took minor characters from their respective games and managed to make fleshed-out titles featuring them.
While the games were well-made, they worked on a much smaller scale than their respective home console counterparts. If Rockstar were to adopt the prequel approach, it would be best to do that in the form of a smaller side project. Plus, in this current world of DLC and expansions, a Grand Theft Auto prequel could be released as an expansion to a pre-existing game when the time is right.
What Would a Prequel Do Differently From the Other Games?
Image Source: Rockstar Games
Grand Theft Auto VI is under an enormous amount of pressure, maybe more than almost any upcoming game right now. With how beloved Grand Theft Auto V was, this follow-up will have to find some way to not only live up to its predecessor but continue to innovate on it. It’s hard for any franchise to make it to a sixth mainline entry, but it’s even harder to stay fresh once you reach that vaunted sixth title.
Stepping back in the past would potentially limit the gameplay, as characters would have fewer resources to work with in regard to things like weapons and vehicles. Grand Theft Auto has always thrived off of the sheer amount of content it allows players to utilize to shape their own adventure, but a prequel might limit the power and quantity of resources to mess around with. As a result, with less for players and characters to engage with in the game, the sixth entry may just end up feeling like a big retread of its predecessor if they decide to take the prequel approach.
Rockstar Can Do a More Modern Satire
Image Source: Rockstar Games
Another important thing that Grand Theft Auto is well known for is its societal satirization. While the games often tell very serious stories with fleshed-out characters, they also poke at the sociopolitical climates of their respective time period. That said, as Grand Theft Auto has already taken place over several decades, returning to a previous time period might feel like a desperate attempt to recapture what may feel a bit played out.
A modern Grand Theft Auto game would be something players could relate to, as its satirical take on current-day culture will feel immediately familiar to younger adults getting into the series for the first time. And while GTA V took place in a then-modern setting of 2013, enough time has passed that Rockstar has plenty to satirize now. Thus, a return to an earlier decade may not hit as hard as it did in the past.
A New Setting Would Make Things Feel Fresh
Image Source: Rockstar Games
Early reports – and the aforementioned gameplay leaks – have indicated that Grand Theft Auto VI will be taking a modern-day return to a classic locale, Vice City. Other reports, however, have indicated the game could have multiple locations and may partly take place in South America. This would be a refreshing location that could provide a nice change of pace for the series.
While Grand Theft Auto has succeeded plenty of times with one large open world, it would be a clever switch-up to allow players to travel to multiple different places. It could keep the game feeling fresh across a long playtime by diversifying the level design while also making changes to the gameplay depending on which particular area the player is in. This could be a huge addition to the game that brings it over the top and gives the franchise another generation-defining title.
Clear Up Some Loose Ends
Image Source: Rockstar Games
Since GTA V has had a long reign of success, many players have grown fond of the cast, including the main characters Franklin, Michael, and Travis. So, if GTA 6 follows the sequel route, we could be seeing this chaotic bunch once again to hopefully give us an idea of what happened to them. It wouldn’t be the first time for this to occur, as past Grand Theft Auto characters have been brought back or discussed in various conversations.
The voice actors of the playable characters have also added more fuel to the fire by teasing their returns. During an interview with Ned Luke and Shawn Fonteno, the actors didn’t confirm or deny Franklin and Michael’s comeback, so there’s no telling if and possibly when it could happen.
But what do you think? Should GTA VI try to be a true sequel? Or should Rockstar step back in the time machine and make this game a prequel? Tell us what you think in the comments!
About the author
Matt Anderson
Matt has been a freelance writer at Twinfinite for a year, and he’s been in the games media industry for three years. He typically covers topics related to console news and industry trends for the site, and he has a major interest in first-party console games. Matt also has a Bachelor’s in Screenwriting from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, is an avid content creator on YouTube and TikTok, and legend has it he once asked Super Smash Bros. Melee to be his Prom date.
