Fan claims GTA 6 ‘will be set in Rio’ after leak appears to reveal new maps for upcoming game

THE next Grand Theft Auto game will be set in Brazil, according to one fan theory.

Writing on Reddit this week, netizens made the bold prediction after studying alleged leaked images of the in-game map of GTA 6.

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Fan claims GTA 6 ‘will be set in Rio’ after leak appears to reveal new maps for upcoming game
An image purporting to reveal the in-game map of Grand Theft Auto 6 has leaked online

They speculated that the hotly-anticipated game will be at least partly set in Rio de Janeiro.

The map images, which surfaced last year, appear to share features with the bustling South American city, according to the Reddit thread.

“The bottom city is RIO DE JANEIRO in the leaked maos [sic],” the original poster wrote on May 26.

It’s the latest in a string of rumours and so-called leaks about the hotly-anticipated crime simulator from American developer Rockstar.



An alleged GTA 6 map that previously leaked online earlier shares similar features

Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA:V) came out way back in 2013, so gamers are desperate for a new entry to the series.

But Take Two and Rockstar are playing their cards close to their chest, keeping details of the yet-to-be-announced title a secret.

The Reddit thread used an image purporting to reveal the in-game map of Grand Theft Auto 6 that recently emerged online.

The map, which was shared on 4Chan, features a section of what looks like a small island with a bustling city that gives way to rolling hills and forests.

Other details include what appears to be an airport, as well as a string of roads that snake across the virtual location.

Writing in response to the Reddit post, one user offered support for the shot-in-the-dark-theory.

“I don’t know if [the map] is real. But if it is, the city is Rio,” they wrote.


Fan claims GTA 6 ‘will be set in Rio’ after leak appears to reveal new maps for upcoming game
Gamers are desperate for a new entry to the GTA series

They added that the leaked map features what could be Rio landmarks Sugar Loaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer.

“The lagoon and the Santos-Dumont Airport are also in place,” they added.

Other commenters weren’t so sure.

 “No it’s not,” one user responded. “Wishful thinking but no.”

Of course, there’s no way of knowing that the map image is legit, or whether it mirrors Rio, so take it with a huge pinch of salt for now.

Fake maps for upcoming Rockstar games have been posted online before, such as the “leaked” map for Bully 2 that went viral in 2019.

We likely won’t know anything concrete on GTA 6 until Rockstar officially announces the game ahead of its rumoured 2023 launch.

Last year, alleged details about the game surfaced online.

A purported former employee of Rockstar leaked apparent info about the game, including the names of the main characters.

In it, the anonymous poster claimed the hotly-anticipated game’s map will mirror the one in GTA San Andreas, with three cities and one smaller town.

However, it will apparently be larger than the maps of both GTA:V and Rockstar cowboy shooter Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) combined.

Players will follow four main characters through the game’s story mode, the poster said.

They include a driver called Walther Wallace, a man named Thomas Branigan with a smuggling plane called “the Raven” and a drug dealer named Marcus Burke.

An unnamed former Israeli IDF agenct was also mentioned in the post.

Missions in the game allegedly won’t be as linear as in GTA:V or RDR2.

Gun mechanics and the the hand-to-hand combat system will be more like RDR2’s, the poster claimed.

Apparently, the game will be set in the 1980s but will later jump to modern times – an unusual narrative choice for the franchise.

According to a lengthy post on Reddit the new game is code-named Project Americas, and has been in development in some form since 2012, a year before GTA:V launched.

It’s been on-and-off since then, the post says, first picking up properly in 2015 before being put on ice while all of Rockstar’s global studios focused on the final details of Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

In other news, we revealed the best games available in 2021 for PS5, Xbox, PC and Nintendo Switch.

A remastered version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2’s Multiplayer mode could be coming out this year.

And, Dell’s Alienware R10 Ryzen Edition is a gaming PC powerhouse that crushes both the new consoles.

Are you a big GTA fan? Let us know in the comments…