Last week, GTA fans were whipping themselves into a hype frenzy over multiple plausible reports of Best Buy emails advertising that Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders would be going live today. But it’s now 10am ET, there are no pre-orders to be found, and those same fans are starting to spiral as it starts to look more and more likely that the origins of this rumor were just a Best Buy screw-up after all.
While the GTA community has collectively lost its mind before over totally ridiculous things that were supposedly hinting at GTA 6 updates—things like tea cafe foot traffic and the positions of the actual real-life planets—this pre-order rumor actually seemed somewhat plausible. The source was a number of individuals all separately sharing emails from Best Buy offering a 5-percent discount to individuals pre-ordering physical copies of GTA 6 from the store between May 18 and May 21. Several of those claiming to have received the emails went to great lengths to show that the emails were legit, including one person livestreaming themselves actively opening the email on their phone. There’s a whole Reddit thread of people showing proof.
But with no pre-orders live yet today, distress is starting to creep in again. This is being exacerbated by a post on GTAForums from a user claiming that “internal company emails suggest that Best Buy has got it wrong and no pre-orders will be launching today.” While that wouldn’t mean much coming from a random poster, forum mods have stated they verified this person actually is in a position to be receiving internal Best Buy communications and is probably telling the truth.
The collective disappointment is strong enough that fans are poring over any crumb they can find suggesting there might be pre-orders today, or at least soon. One person pointed out that the Xbox GTA 6 page was apparently updated just last night, which could mean…anything, I guess. Also from last night, someone thinks they’ve found what will be the GTA 6 official page on Walmart’s website, though to what end, no one really knows.
Other people are coping in the only way they know how: memes.
The thing is, none of these people are wrong to expect something soon-ish. Take-Two has repeatedly said that GTA 6 marketing would spin up this summer, and we’re over halfway through May. Sony has already been sending marketing emails and notifications encouraging people to buy a PS5 for GTA 6. We’re also over 365 days now from the last time we saw anything official of GTA 6, and tomorrow will mark exactly six months until the currently planned release date of November 19. And Take-Two’s earnings call is on Thursday, which means another opportunity for overeager fans to get a crumb of a statement about this game.
It seems like something actual and substantial related to GTA 6 could pop up any day now, though even when it does, we’ve still got a long six months ahead of us before all this pent-up energy is finally let loose into Leonida. Stay cool, folks.