Fans Realise Rockstar Teased the GTA 6 Trailer 1 Release Date on a GTA Online T-Shirt

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It looks like Rockstar teased the Grand Theft Auto 6 Trailer 1 release date on a GTA Online T-shirt released nearly half a year ago.

The shirt, which was added to the GTA Online shop in June 2023 seemingly by mistake before being pulled, was called “???” and found in a category titled “GTAV Anniversary”. It contained a hidden message fans soon deciphered as “ONEDAYWILLREVEALALL”. The X/Twitter below, from user @GTANet, reveals how the T-shirt looked.

Now over in your favourite clothes shop in #GTAOnline San Andreas Mercenaries, a GTA V Anniversary Top category… Along with something mysterious that may get some community analysers going…. pic.twitter.com/5TtUdNUcB2

— GTANet (@GTANet) June 13, 2023

While this mysterious virtual shirt was eventually officially released as part of an October event, fans have now realised it contained a hint at the release date for the GTA 6 trailer: December 5, 2023.

The shirt has numbers plastered all over it alongside strange symbols. One string of numbers reads “12523”, aka December 5, 2023. Twitter account @_Dyllie_ noticed the link.

Rockstar Games cooked 😭
The “ONEDAYWILLREVEALALL” Tshirt has a number sequence of 12523 which is the release date of the #GTA6 trailer. pic.twitter.com/MwJyVX0uyp

— Dyllie (@_Dyllie_) December 3, 2023

It gets better. The next two numbers after the string are “09”. The trailer goes live at 9am PT.

Worth adding that the numbers that follow the “12523” sequence is “09” the exact hour the GTA 6 trailer is set to debut (EST).

Also props to @_Dyllie_ for pointing all this out first!

— Michael (@LegacyKillaHD) December 3, 2023

It seems like a clear tease at the trailer release date, although few people noticed it at the time. Now for more fun speculation! If we agree the T-shirt was a deliberate tease from Rockstar at the trailer’s release date, then perhaps we should consider this sequence of numbers as a tease for GTA 6’s release date: “040125”, aka April 1, 2025.

Ok, so not only did Rockstar tease us with the trailer date RIGHT in front of our eyes

But there’s also a sequence of numbers pointing to April 2025… could that be the initial release date for #GTA6? pic.twitter.com/PCXRRU2KMn

— Dyllie (@_Dyllie_) December 3, 2023

Besides @RockstarGames teasing at the GTA 6 reveal date & time with the secret number sequence of “1252309” on this GTA Online shirt a few months ago, there’s also more POTENTIAL interesting numbers here.

040125 = April 1st 2025

Could that be the intended GTA 6 release date?! pic.twitter.com/yoR0jJjraR

— Michael (@LegacyKillaHD) December 3, 2023

It seems unlikely Rockstar would release GTA 6 on April Fool’s day, and this string uses a different number format for the day of the month than the trailer release date tease string, so perhaps it’s just a joke. Those pesky developers with their misdirection!

Such is the level of hype for GTA 6 that its debut trailer may end up the most-viewed video game trailer for all time. GTA 6 itself is expected to obliterate video game sales records when it eventually goes on sale.

In November, when it announced a December window for the GTA 6 trailer, Rockstar said: “We are very excited to let you know that in early December, we will release the first trailer for the next Grand Theft Auto. We look forward to many more years of sharing these experiences with all of you.

“Thanks to the incredible support of our players worldwide, we have had the opportunity to create games we are truly passionate about — without you, none of this would be possible, and we are so grateful to all of you for sharing this journey with us.

“In 1998, Rockstar Games was founded on the idea that video games could come to be as essential to culture as any other form of entertainment, and we hope that we have created games you love in our efforts to be part of that evolution.”

GTA 6 has been rumoured ever since the release of Grand Theft Auto 5 just over a decade ago. It was reported on loosely in a 2020 Kotaku report about Rockstar’s efforts to alleviate crunch culture at the studio, and was confirmed in a press release back in 2022, with the studio saying that development was “well underway.” Later that year, in-development footage of the game was leaked in a massive breach, with authorities eventually arresting a British teenage hacker in relation to the incident.

A release window between April 2024 and March 2025 has been speculated since earlier in 2023, when publisher Take-Two Interactive projected massive financial gains in that fiscal year that would be difficult to attain without the boost from the enormously profitable series.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.