Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer date foretold by the moon, fans theorize

Thirsty fans are looking for any info they can get on Grand Theft Auto 6, and some think they’ve found it in an image promoting the next Grand Theft Auto Online update. The kicker? It has to do with the phases of the moon.

Grand Theft Auto Online is a huge moneymaker for Rockstar Games, and as such, the game continues to receive updates more than a decade after it was first included as the multiplayer component of 2013’s Grand Theft Auto 5. The next big expansion is set for December, but most folks seem to be focused instead on a single image used to promote the upcoming content due to its potential connection to a future Grand Theft Auto 6 announcement.

“A waning gibbous moon in the most recent Rockstar post,” Reddit user tnasstyy posted to the r/GTA6 subreddit on November 1. “This moon phase next will occur on Nov. 17. Who let me out of my straitjacket?”

Further research by commenters found the specific moon phase in the image may occur a little later into the month, sometime around Nov. 22. But why place so much importance on lunar movements in first place, and what does this have to do with Grand Theft Auto 6?

Many believe this isn’t the first time Rockstar Games communicated a trailer release date through an image of the moon. Two months before the developer shared the December 5 release date for the first Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, it released a screenshot from Grand Theft Auto Online’s in-game Moon Festival celebration. The moon in that image was a waning gibbous pointing towards Dec. 1, which just so happened to be the day of the aforementioned announcement.

While the hypothesis itself is a little out there, this kind of enthusiasm is just more of what we’ve come to expect from the Grand Theft Auto community. Back in the days of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, diehards were obsessed with finding Bigfoot lurking through that game’s giant stretches of wilderness, a decade-long commitment that was finally rewarded when the cryptid appeared in Grand Theft Auto 5. More recently, folks have scoured the single Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer for any info they can find, such as a brief shot of serial numbers on a $100 bill possibly indicating the year in which the game takes place.

Rockstar Games did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In any case, we won’t have to wait long to find out if this so-called moon theory pans out again.