Despite Rockstar traditionally not participating in E3 or other late spring and summer events, the Grand Theft Auto community loves joining in on all the speculation. With Grand Theft Auto 5 aging and reports of Grand Theft Auto 6's ongoing development increasing, fans can't help but wonder what's coming next. As an example of where Grand Theft Auto fans are right now, the community is currently reevaluating a supposed leak of GTA 6's map going back to 2016, with a new theory arising about its relation to Rio de Janeiro.
In 2018 several images were shared showing multiple islands spread out in a large body of water. Only one of these images showed a detail portion of the map, including a section said to be Vice City. The rest of the map looked like it was made in MS Paint. Two years later, a separate image was leaked showing one of these MS Paint islands in similar detail to the initial image's depiction of Vice City. The veracity of these images have remained a topic of speculation since.
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The latest example of the Grand Theft Auto community's evolving discourse on these supposedly leaked images dropped in Reddit's GTA 6 subreddit this past week. The user, Boastful_Clown, takes a look at the newer image from 2020 showing an updated and detail image of an island. This user claims that they believe this island is meant to depict Grand Theft Auto's version of Rio de Janeiro, pointing out certain key locations on the image and comparing them to a real map of the Brazilian city.
More specifically, the Redditor starts with a circle of a location that could be Grand Theft Auto 6's take on Rio de Janeiro's famous Christ the Redeemer statue of Jesus that overlooks the city. Other points of comparison include Rio de Janeiro's inland lagoon, its Cagarras islands archipelago, and the Santos Dumont airport. The Redditor claims that the existence of these visible landmarks in the leaked Grand Theft Auto 6 image implies that Rockstar is making a city based on Rio de Janeiro.
The biggest issue with the Redditor's claims remains the possibility that these images were all faked. Perhaps the artist that created the fake images used Rio de Janeiro as inspiration for their leak. Or perhaps it's all a wasted effort entirely, the GTA 6 images are faked, and there's no actual connection to Rio de Janerio.
Grand Theft Auto fans can't help but question, "What if it's real?" however. It's possible that the images are authentic and that GTA 6 will take place on a large body of water with separate islands for Liberty City and a new area based on Rio de Janerio. Fans will just have to wait for Rockstar to officially announce Grand Theft Auto 6, but when and where that will be remains the biggest mystery of all.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is reported to currently be in development.
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Source: Reddit