GTA 6's Latest Takedown Goes After Its Most Impatient Players

Grand Theft Auto 6 fans are desperate for anything new regarding the highly anticipated sequel. It’s been well over a year since the game’s first trailer was released. And in the absence of updates from Rockstar Games, some GTA 5 players are taking matters into their own hands.

The latest takedown by Rockstar's parent company Take-Two Interactive is a map mod for the 2013 open-world game that recreates the city of Vice, one of the confirmed urban centers set to appear in the upcoming sequel. The mod was based on prior leaks, the game’s sole trailer, and a community-sourced recreation of the game’s overhead map.

“I expected something like this could happen,” the modder, going by the name Dark Space, tweeted. “I am surprised they didn't bother emailing me. I would have taken it down if asked.”

In a video, he explained that the map was based solely on the DuPz0r community mapping project, used available GTA 5 assets, and was meant to give players who access it a sense of how big the upcoming game might be. Dark Space believes that Take-Two likely had the mod taken down because it was “probably a little too accurate.”

“They must feel some sort of threat from it existing,” he guessed. However, he doesn’t believe the takedown was necessary. “It was building hype around the game and giving players something to enjoy while we waited for the next trailer from Rockstar.”

From Take Two’s point-of-view, I can understand wanting to get ahead of any free downloads that can potentially spoil an aspect of GTA 6. However, the publisher has been repeatedly legally aggressive towards members of its own community.

The map takedown is just the latest in a series of Grand Theft Auto-related removals in recent months. In January, Take-Two had the Liberty City Preservation Project, a painstaking recreation of the New York-based setting of GTA 4 in GTA 5, removed from the internet. Shortly afterward, the Vice City Netgen Edition, which remade all of 2002’s GTA: Vice City with the Rage Engine, was also taken down. It even had user-made mods that patched the many bugs of the Definitive Edition removed.

Short of playing GTA 5 or a game reminiscent of the beloved series, it's clear that Rockstar and Take-Two want players to wait patiently for the next entry that’s 12 years in the making.

However, what has survived Take Two’s legal rampage is the tireless work of trailer sleuths looking to piece together the map of Leonida ahead of the presumed 2025 launch. Dozens of creators have been piecing together the location and orientation of landmarks, buildings, and landmasses in GTA 6 based on exactly 90 seconds of footage from the trailer and the handful of leaks from 2022.

There are at least six different map variants the community has created and shared with fans dreaming of driving through the sun-soaked streets of the Florida-based setting. It’s a pretty intense methodology that involves peer review, cross-referencing what fans are bringing to the table, and dissecting real-world locations that Rockstar will likely use to make its fictionalized version of Florida.

Diehard fans have used this exact method to recreate the maps of Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA 5 in the past with a surprising amount of accuracy. It lends some legitimacy to why Take-Two is probably taking the precautions that it is.

Until Rockstar releases another crumb of information about GTA 6, I expect the hype train to continue full speed ahead. Every week since December 2023 when the first trailer was released, there seems to be a new Reddit thread or social media campaign theorizing when the follow-up will drop. We should expect something fairly soon as Take-Two has insisted that the game is still on track for the Fall. That is if you believe in Rockstar Games breaking one of its longstanding traditions.