Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Grand Theft Auto V making appearance at Gamescom conference in August?

By
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Fall is coming. It’s got Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Assassin’s Creed 3 and all sorts of reborn ye olde franchises like Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. None of these are the sequels that have the potential to blow minds with a fall ’12 release. That distinct pleasure belongs to Grand Theft Auto 5, a game that may just peak its head above ground in the imminent future at a particular European video game conference.

E3 2012 came, went, and then all the big announcements happened. Sony did not announce it was acquiring cloud-streaming video game company Gaikai at the conference—It waited until the end of June to pull that particular rabbit out of its hat. Nintendo didn’t announce a much asked for new version of its Nintendo 3DS handheld—It waited a couple of weeks to reveal that the Nintendo 3DS XL would be out in August. Sure, Microsoft was all too happy to talk about the Xbox-focused app SmartGlass coming to nearly every mobile device under the sun, but it didn’t go whole hog and announce the Microsoft Surface tablet until 11 days after the show closed.

E3 didn’t bring in the noise or the funk. Even hugely hyped games bowed out. With so many AAA titles pushed into 2013, many predicted that Take-Two Interactive would break recent Rockstar tradition and roll into E3 with a playable Grand Theft Auto V. Now it looks like the world’s most famous open world game may have just been waiting to debut a little closer to Rockstar North’s home in Scotland.

Related

The Gamescom conference runs from August 15th to the 19th in Cologne, Germany. A trailer for the conference showed up on the official Gamescom website on Thursday, teasing what games would be at the show. Lo and behold, Grand Theft Auto V pops up in the middle of the trailer suggesting that Rockstar might bring its new game to the show.

The appearance isn’t without precedence. Rockstar has attended in the past, and it debuted Grand Theft Auto IV expansions and the game’s PC edition at the conference’s past incarnation in Leipzig back in 2008.

Evidence that Rockstar is planning a surprise 2012 release for Grand Theft Auto V has piled up in the past 6 months. A Rockstar employee’s online resume at LinkedIn pegged the game for an October release. A number of industry analysts also believe that Take-Two Interactive’s financial projections for fiscal 2013, which ends in March of next year, also indicate an October release for the game.

Gamescom might be a whole lot more exciting than E3 was.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Anthony John Agnello
Anthony John Agnello
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Anthony John Agnello is a writer living in New York. He works as the Community Manager of Joystiq.com and his writing has…
The hacker who leaked Grand Theft Auto VI has been sentenced
Key art for Grand Theft Auto VI.

The Rockstar Games hacker responsible for the September 2022 leaks of Grand Theft Auto VI has been sentenced in the U.K. Arion Kurtaj, the 18-year-old Lapsus$ member behind the hacks of Rockstar Games, Uber, and Nvidia, was just sentenced to an indefinite hospital order, according to the BBC.

Kurtaj's sentence is based on a number of factors. The young hacker has autism, said that he wanted to continue committing cybercrimes, and has reportedly been violent while in custody. The court ultimately decided that he would "remain at a secure hospital for life unless doctors deem him no longer a danger."

Read more
How to play Grand Theft Auto games through Netflix
CJ and Rider walking in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – The Definitive Edition.

While Netflix is known first and foremost as a movie and TV streaming service, it has also been building a catalog of games its subscribers can access. The library of titles has been growing over the years, and finally scored a big payday by adding Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy. This package contains three of the most influential open-world games of all time: Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, all originally released on the PlayStation 2 and enhanced for modern audiences.

If you've never explored the world of Netflix gaming, we'll set the objective marker on your map and show you exactly how you can play Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy on Netflix.
How to play Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy on Netflix

Read more
Grand Theft Auto VI didn’t need The Game Awards
Woman at a rooftop pool party.

This past week was one of the most crowded for video game news because of two events: The Game Awards 2023 and the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer. Initially, I was surprised the two weren’t one and the same. GTA 6’s reveal is the most significant game announcement of the year, after all, and Geoff Keighley always seems to be searching for big Elden Ring- or GTA 6-level moments for his show, even if he doesn’t always get those. After taking a step back and looking at how each performed independently of the other, I think both were better off staying separate.
Taking center stage
When it first teased the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer in November, it said the trailer would be released “in early December.” Like many others, I assumed that this meant it would show up at The Game Awards because that tends to be the case when game developers tease an announcement for that window. For example, Focus Entertainment also said a release date for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 would be confirmed “in early December,” and that ended up happening during The Game Awards.

Ultimately, Rockstar had the GTA 6 trailer slated to release on the morning of December 5, but ended up releasing it on the night of December 4 due to a leak. The game would not go on to make any marketing-related appearance at The Game Awards 2023 on December 7. Although GTA 6 skirted The Game Awards, was leaked, and got posted earlier than intended, it was still a groundbreaking reveal.

Read more