GTA 6 trailer 3 rumors appear to be a giant fake-out, angering fans

If you've been holding your breath in the hopes you'll get to see more of Grand Theft Auto 6 today, it might be time to exhale. What seemed like surefire confirmation last week that a GTA 6 marketing blitz was imminent is now looking like a giant false alarm.

On May 14, Best Buy sent the gaming world into a tizzy with an email to affiliates that described an upcoming GTA 6 pre-order campaign. By all accounts, the emails were real and received by a number of gaming influencers. Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two, had already confirmed that this summer would kick off a GTA 6 marketing campaign. Best Buy's email pointed to May 18 as the GTA 6 pre-order start date. After a fan noticed two unlisted videos on Rockstar's YouTube page last weekend, an announcement seemed certain.

Well, it's May 18, and so far, it's been crickets. Obviously, the day isn't over yet. But it's increasingly looking like May 18 will not, in fact, be when GTA 6 pre-orders begin, nor will it be when trailer 3 drops. There are two major reasons why some GTA 6 fans are starting to lose hope here.

One of them stems from a post on the GTA Forums, where a Best Buy insider claimed internal communications suggested the retailer wouldn't be opening pre-orders on May 18, as reported. These emails were verified by trustworthy moderators who have a track record when it comes to rumors about the GTA franchise.

Image: Rockstar Games

Pre-orders can technically start at any time, but early purchases of highly anticipated gaming products go live either early in the morning or at the crack of dawn. Both windows have already passed as of this writing. Polygon has reached out to Best Buy to inquire if the emails sent to affiliates were actually a mistake.

Another element worth considering is the timing of GTA 6 trailers thus far. Both trailer 1 and trailer 2 were published on the internet by Rockstar at 9 a.m. ET. If there was a new GTA 6 trailer that would kick off pre-orders for its launch in November, it likely would have been up by now.

If fans were excited, it's because everything about the rumored GTA 6 trailer and pre-order lined up. It's been about a year since we last saw new footage of GTA 6, so the timing seemed right. Retailers like Walmart apparently updated their GTA 6 listings recently. In Europe, some stores reportedly began preparing marketing materials, with at least one retailer opening up pre-orders outright. However, that store only accepted 50 pre-orders — which is a strange cap for one of the biggest gaming launches of all time.

The day is still young, and things could change. But the combination of all these different tidbits is pushing some GTA 6 fans to temper their expectations. There's still a subset of fans who are crossing their fingers, ultimately thrilled to have any GTA 6 crumbs at all. Then there are the people with zero whimsy in their hearts, who are mocking the "copium" of those hopeful GTA 6 fans.

If this does turn out to be a false alarm, at least it led to a wave of excellent GTA 6 despair memes. "Don't worry, if nothing happens today, there will be a new theory tomorrow," one GTA 6 fan wrote in a thread full of posts celebrating the communal pandemonium.

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