Here’s How I Know We Are Entering Rockstar’s End Game For Launching GTA 6

Grand Theft Auto 6 is launching on November 19. Some of you might roll your eyes at the seeming certainty of that statement, and understandably so. Rockstar and Take-Two have delayed the game a few times now. But, this time, I’m feeling very confident that GTA 6 is actually, for real, seriously launching as planned. Why? Because Rockstar has cmade all their social media accounts pink.

On Thursday, Rockstar Games announced that pre-orders for GTA 6 would go live on June 25. Alongside that news came the reveal of the game’s official cover art. It looks rad and has some serious GTA Vice City on PS2 vibes. And as all of this was happening, Rockstar Games went around and changed all of the profile pics and banners found on the company’s various social media accounts. Before, they featured the old classic yellow Rockstar logo.

©Rockstar / Kotaku

Now, however, they all feature purple and pink palm trees with a neon-white Rockstar logo plastered on top. Why does this matter? Well, it signals to me that the company has officially entered “GTA 6 Marketing Mode.”

Historically (and there’s not that much to go on because Rockstar’s slow release schedule means they haven’t put out all that many new games in the social media era), once the company switches its icons and enters this phase of marketing for a game, it doesn’t announce a new delay. You can look back at Rockstar’s Facebook page to see that once the company swapped its icon for a Red Dead Redemption 2-themed logo in May 2018, a few months after announcing a delay, the game stuck to its October 2018 launch date.

Essentially, once Rockstar and Take-Two start showing off the cover, taking people’s money, and swapping social media icons and banners, you can be pretty damn sure that everyone involved is confident that the game is coming out as planned, barring some catastrophic event. So as long as the world doesn’t end between now and November, GTA 6 will launch as planned on November 19 on PS5 and Xbox.