Happy Grand Theft Auto VI was originally supposed to release today day. While there’s no doubt there will continue to be tons of articles drip-feeding information and speculation about the game in the lead-up to its actual release in November, everyone and their mom have christened it the final video game that could slap any price onto itself and move the needle for years to come, or they make guesswork of its plot from the few tidbits we’ve gotten from Rockstar Games. I’ve never actually been concerned with GTA as a gangster shoot-em-up game. I like it as a fun little sandbox game that I can chill in and listen to good music—something I can only hope GTA 6 will be just as good for. 

My earliest memories of playing Grand Theft Auto go back to Vice City. Of course, I was six and shouldn’t have been playing a violent game where you could wander the streets and blow random passersby’s heads off. I had the wherewithal to recognize it was referencing Scarface (since the film was a Thanksgiving staple with my family, alongside The Godfather), but nonetheless, I was a kindergartener playing GTA: Vice City because my older brother (who’s 25 years older than me) didn’t punk me with the tried-and-true passing of the unplugged controller. He let me free-roam using his finished memory card. 

There, I’d spend countless hours beelining to the tank I knew he kept in his Tony Montana garage and cause mayhem until I got wasted. That is, until my mom caught wind of my brother letting “baby Isaiah” play the M-rated game unsupervised and bought me a PlayStation 1 with more age-appropriate games like Spider-Man, NASCAR, and Looney Tunes, like hand blocking a trained puppy with a toy to keep them from teething on furniture. While I acquiesced to her wishes, I’d already gotten a taste for GTA’s sandbox potential and longed for the day I’d be “old enough” to play to my heart’s content. That day would come when San Andreas came out.

Like history repeating itself, my brother would let me play his copy of San Andreas when I turned 12 with my mom’s blessing, since I’d already seen the worst of it. She didn’t know about Hot Coffee, and we wanted to keep it that way. But I didn’t fall in love with San Andreas for the debauchery it promised. I loved it for its music. While Luke has gone on record as saying Vice City has the best (licensed) video game soundtrack of all time, my favorite is San Andreas. I loved the songs on San Andreas so much that I’d boot up the game for the express purpose of turning on the radio and having CJ go on a road trip to the countryside while flipping through its stations. I took my sandbox role-playing so seriously that I was obeying traffic laws. 

With San Andreas being “the Black GTA game,” with an immaculate time capsule of cookout classics including but not limited to Michael Jackson, The Isley Brothers, Rick James, Boyz II Men, and Slick Rick, the licensed OST already felt like home off rip. But what pushed it over the edge as a formative gaming experience, one I’ve been chasing in the years since with games like Saints Row, is its all-star playlist of licensed OST serving as a gateway to music I’d otherwise never have heard. More specifically, it exposed me to absolute banger folk and country music songs before 9/11 irreparably warped the genre into that jingoistic Bo Burnham bit. 

Thanks to San Andreas, my musical tastes expanded after hearing Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses,” Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn’s “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man,” Whitey Shafer’s “All My Exes Live in Texas,” Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Lookin’,” Ed Bruce’s “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” Juice Newton’s “Queen of Hearts,” and (my all-time favorite) America’s “Horse With No Name.” Many of these were classics that didn’t make it into Rockstar Games’ GTA: The Trilogy remaster. 

Looking back on it, my love of road-tripping in San Andreas has everything to do with my brother taking me on night drives when I was little to help me fall asleep. My memory now plays back those drives like that one dreamy, Wong Kar Wai-esque clip of Anthony Bourdain adrift in a busy city street. He’d hit the expressway, and I’d nod off singing OutKast’s “So Fresh So Clean,” knowing damn well I didn’t understand what it was they were rapping about, but was fully convinced André 3000 was the coolest guy alive. 

It's uncanny that my nostalgia for those nights would manifest as San Andreas music, which I’d return to in my daily life as my own sort of digital nostalgia playlist. And with GTA 6 dropping the week of my 30th birthday, I hope its OST will hit the same mark as my all-around fun sandbox game. But I’m not gonna lie, I’m nervous it won’t. Case in point: I couldn’t tell you a single track on the GTA 5 soundtrack, and I played that jawn front to back. 

That’s not to say GTA V didn’t have bangers. It’s just that, as a time capsule of the music I was listening to back then—music I knew inside and out—it never stood out the way San Andreas’ Smash Bros.-style “All the warriors” tracklist did. If anything, I remember more of the silly shit DJ Cara would say between tracks than the tracks themselves. Deadass, I had to look up that Freddie Gibbs rapped "Welcome to Los Santos" this weekend. As someone who fucks with dude heavy, it's not a good sign that I couldn’t recall his presence on GTA V’s OST. And what with GTA 6 shaping up to be the latest piece of media slow-cooking during the unreality of the Trump presidency, I’m also worried that whatever podcast-type listening experience it no doubt has queued up will age more like The Boys or an SNL bit than something as timeless and razor-sharp as The Simpsons. 

But more than that, I can’t shake the old man feeling that today’s popular music just doesn’t build the same way older tracks did, where songs had multiple verses, a sticky chorus, dynamic instrumentation, and four-minute-plus runtimes. Now, sometimes the best we can hope for with songs today is something shy of two minutes that feels more formulaic and derivative than unique and bold. 

Having lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for almost a decade, I know firsthand how rural music scenes can feel frozen in time. I’m talking about folks blasting Tech N9ne and Hopsin while Jid and J. Cole were blowing up everywhere else. Sure, the big Drake hits filtered through, but only because they were inescapable. Otherwise, contemporary hits had as much chance of getting play as a third-rate phone carrier’s signal coverage in areas that weren’t metropolitan. One of my best friends confirmed that Florida is pretty much the same way, which has only increased my fear that the frozen-in-time songs phenomenon would carry over in the game as well. But if GTA 6 wants to be a true time capsule, its licensed OST needs to have bangers Floridians would actually bump. 

Should GTA 6 have a similar frozen-in-time vibe to its licensed music as GTA V, I can only hope its soundtrack leans less on the pop music slurry built to trend as a TikTok dance and more on that euphoric 2016 prom night energy—the kind of tracks I’d throw on during a late-night cruise across the highway. Should all else fail, I’ll look forward to muting the game and spinning San Andreas’ soundtrack instead. 

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A famous video game voice actor has a warning for all those “douchebags” who wish to weaponize the law.

Ned Luke, known best as Michael De Santa in Grand Theft Auto 5, has been the target of several “swatting” incidents over the past few years. It’s been going on since at least 2023, but for now, some justice has been served.

Luke shared a picture of a letter he received from the US Department of Justice today, which states that the perpetrator of at least one incident has been sentenced to four years of incarceration and a release under supervision for three years.

“Don’t drop the soap in the shower douchebag,” Luke said on social media. “Won’t be swatting anyone anytime soon…and they’re coming for the ones he ratted out as well.”

It’s taken multiple years, but thankfully and hopefully, this should serve as a warning for those who wish to “swat” others that it comes with a hefty price that should deter someone who wants to do something similar to anybody else. The letter states that the defendant made a plea deal and gave up their right to an appeal, so they will likely be behind bars until 2030. No GTA 6 for them.

“Swatting” is the act of making a prank phone call or message to force law enforcement to respond to someone’s house. It first began in November 2023 for Luke, who was “swatted” during a live stream and had armed law enforcement enter his house.

These hoaxes are obviously quite dangerous, as many of the prank calls tell local police that they are in the house and intend to harm themself or others, forcing law enforcement to act. One incident in 2017 turned deadly when police shot and killed a man who was falsely targeted after an online gaming argument.

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The post GTA 5 voice actor celebrates prison sentence for swatter who targeted him numerous times appeared first on Destructoid.

Rockstar is now turning its attention to the community itself, showcasing some of the most creative player-made experiences the game has seen.

The post GTA Online Community Missions Return With 4X Rewards, Murder Mysteries, Heists and Huge Cash Bonuses appeared first on TheXboxHub.

A Supreme Court ruling blocking some of President Donald Trump’s tariffs is unlikely to bring down car prices in the near term, as detailed by Wired. The decision limits the president’s ability to impose certain duties under the International Emergency Economic Power Act.

New vehicles remain expensive, with the average new car price in the United States last month listed at $48,576. That is nearly a third higher than 2019, while cars priced under $20,000 have become increasingly rare.

A mix of factors has contributed to those costs, including lingering supply-chain issues from the pandemic, more expensive in-vehicle technology, higher labor expenses, and rising raw material prices. Tariffs on imported steel, aluminum, and cars have also been part of that cost picture.

The ruling limits one tariff tool, not the tariffs hitting autos

The Court’s decision focuses on tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Power Act. The administration used that law to apply duties globally, citing “large and persistent” trade deficits as an emergency, and also applied tariffs to Canada, China, and Mexico tied to concerns over migrant and drug flows. The broader tariff picture has also been tracked in midsize company tariff burden.

However, many tariffs that most directly affect the auto industry come from a separate law, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. That statute allows tariffs on imports deemed a threat to national security, and the duties tied to key inputs and components remain in place.

Those remaining tariffs include duties on raw materials such as steel, aluminum, and copper, as well as tariffs on imported auto parts and fully built vehicles. The report notes a 15 percent tariff on cars manufactured in Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ head of insights, said the broader cost situation has not fundamentally shifted as a result of the ruling. She said the core cost structure facing automakers has not changed overnight.

So far, automakers have absorbed some of the added costs rather than passing them fully to consumers. Wired cited Edmunds data showing car prices are up about 1 percent over the past year, even as tariffs have been blamed for sharper price impacts in other retail categories.

Caldwell cautioned that automakers may have less room to keep absorbing those expenses if cost pressures continue to build. Businesses have also been watching related risk stories like Copilot reading confidential emails as compliance and liability costs pile up. If automakers can’t keep eating higher input costs, more of those expenses could land on shoppers, further limiting the chance of a meaningful drop in new car prices.

It’s the two-year anniversary of GTA 6’s announcement so let’s reflect on the game’s journey and how much Rockstar has actually shared about it.

Technically, Rockstar Games announced GTA 6 in early 2022, but that was a simple blog post, with no proper info about the game or even a single screenshot.

GTA 6’s first substantial announcement came precisely two years ago today, with a short cinematic trailer confirming gorgeous looking graphics, the setting of Vice City, and criminal couple Lucia and Jason as dual protagonists.

Since then, the trailer has garnered over 269 million views on YouTube, making it the most popular trailer on the platform, overtaking the previous record holder for Avengers: Infinity War.

And yet for what’s widely considered the most anticipated video game of all time, Rockstar has been very reticent about GTA 6. So much so that after two years, it still feels like we barely know anything about the game.

What was confirmed in GTA 6 Trailer 1?

As we said, the initial trailer was our first real look at GTA 6, but it’s comprised entirely of cinematics. It’s not impossible that some gameplay has been snuck in there, but there are no obvious examples and certainly no demonstrations of someone actually playing it themselves.

The incredibly good graphics were even better than expected, which is all most people wanted to know at first. Not only has GTA 6 reportedly been in development since 2018 (per Bloomberg), but it’s the first entry to be made specifically for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, although as usual for Rockstar there’s no sign of a PC version yet.

While the trailer introduced us to GTA 6’s two main characters – a Bonnie and Clyde-esque pair of robbers – that was one of the few details to have leaked ahead of time, initially from a 2022 insider report on the game’s development.

The Vice City setting (which returns from 2002 game GTA: Vice City) wasn’t surprising either, as it had been leaked as part of the infamous 2022 hacking incident, which further corroborated Lucia and Jason’s roles as protagonists.

And while the trailer does set the tone of what to expect from GTA 6’s plot and the ways it will satirise current American culture (with plenty of references to Florida related memes), as well as confirming Lucia being in prison at the start of the game, it provides no concrete story details beyond her and Jason being petty thieves.

For as big a deal as that announcement trailer was, it was ultimately Rockstar officially confirming things most fans already knew, which only contributed to the intense demand for a second trailer.

 What was confirmed in GTA 6 Trailer 2?

The second GTA 6 trailer dropped in May, 17 months after the first one, to coincide with the unfortunate news that the game wouldn’t launch this year, and is instead aiming for a May 2026 window.

This trailer is longer than the first one and aside from explicitly confirming Jason’s name (it had leaked long beforehand), it introduced an extended cast of characters and included some scenes that could be actual gameplay.

Unfortunately, there is still no uncut, unambiguous gameplay, but the fact that you struggle to tell the difference between what’s in-engine gameplay and what’s a story cut scene is a testament to how good the graphics are.

And yet, once again, there are no explicit story details, with the video description only offering a very general synopsis of the plot.

‘Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them,’ it reads. ‘But when an easy score goes wrong, they find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, in the middle of a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida – forced to rely on each other more than ever if they want to make it out alive.’

Rockstar’s website does share character biographies explaining their personalities and their relationships with one another. For instance, Jason is described as ex-army, now working for local drug runners, while Lucia is said to have been jailed for ‘fighting for her family’ and was only released thanks to ‘sheer luck,’ but it all remains awfully vague.

Instead, fans have been left to try and piece things together by combing every frame of the trailer. There are theories of a reputation system, the ability to buy property, a fishing minigame, and the return of GTA 5’s heists, but that’s all guess work and nothing’s been outright confirmed.

What else do we know about GTA 6?

Since the launch of that second trailer, there have only been two new bits of info and one of them was another delay. Last month, Rockstar admitted it would need to push GTA 6 back to November 6, 2026.

No reason was given aside from it simply needing extra time, although Rockstar can afford to take as long as it needs to. Not just because GTA 6 is a very important release it can’t risk messing up, but the company is still comfortably making loads of money off GTA 5 and GTA Online.

It has been claimed that GTA 6 is actually finished in terms of content and Rockstar is taking its time to optimise it, so as not to have a Cyperpunk 2077 scenario, which had such a disastrous launch that developer CD Projekt had to offer refunds.

The only new information comes, inadvertently, from a former Rockstar animator, who revealed the game will have a bike rental system. Although that’s hardly the most exciting piece of information you could hope to learn about the game.

Why is Rockstar being so secretive about GTA 6?

Secrecy of this level is nothing new in the games industry, but given how high expectations are for GTA 6, the simplest explanation for Rockstar’s lack of communication is that it doesn’t want to share any details until it’s 100% certain they’re ready to be shown.

Plus, considering how much info has already leaked online, Rockstar must be feeling extra protective about what gets shared and when. Perhaps simply, though, it doesn’t need to say anything, because it knows you’ll buy it anyway.

When is the next GTA 6 trailer?

So far, there’s nothing to indicate when a new GTA 6 trailer will drop. Perhaps something will be shown at The Game Awards 2025 next week, but considering Rockstar skipped both the 2023 and 2024 shows, it’s far more likely it will release the next trailer on its own time.

At the very least, there shouldn’t be another 17-month gap between trailers 2 and 3. If there were, then the third trailer wouldn’t come out till October 2026, which is just a month before GTA 6’s launch.

Then again, a third delay isn’t out of the question either. In May, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of publisher Take-Two Interactive, expressed confidence GTA 6 would launch by May 2026, but refused to rule out another delay, which of course wound up happening.

Some fans have gone to great lengths to try and predict when GTA 6 trailers would drop, but they’ve never been accurate. So, all you can do is be patient and wait for Rockstar to say something.

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The Grand Theft Auto 6 developers dismissed by Rockstar for gross misconduct were allegedly fired for leaking internal policies on Slack emoji use, though this may not have been the only reason. That’s according to a new report that reveals some of the messages believed to have contributed to the latest GTA 6 controversy.

There have been a few high-profile departures from Rockstar Games during the development of GTA 6, but arguably the biggest involved Dan Houser. One of the studio's co-founders and one of the main creative forces behind the GTA series' tone, storylines, and direction, Houser left Rockstar in 2020 and later formed Absurd Ventures, a multimedia entertainment company producing podcasts, comics, novels, and most importantly, videogames set across some shared universes. Speaking on a British talk show, Houser reiterates that Absurd's first game still requires "another few years in development," and also confirms that the studio is "dabbling in using AI." However, he also flags the limitations of AI use in game development, calling out companies that "claim it can solve every single problem, and it really can't yet."

Read the full story on PCGamesN: GTA veteran's new studio is "dabbling in AI," but it's not as great as "companies would have you believe"

The house always wins, but this week, you might just break even - or better as Rockstar has shuffled the deck for the latest GTA Online weekly update, and it's a full house of luxury rewards and high-stakes opportunities.

The post GTA Online Goes All-In with a Free Casino Master Penthouse and Double Heist Rewards appeared first on TheXboxHub.