The "before GTA 6" meme is a long-running internet joke that frames the development cycle of Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto VI as a generational benchmark of time. The format is structurally simple: any event, product, achievement, or unlikely occurrence is described as having happened, or being likely to happen, "before GTA 6 comes out." The humour rests on the gap between the franchise's enormous cultural footprint and the unusually long wait between Grand Theft Auto V (2013) and its successor, originally targeted for 2025 and ultimately delayed to November 2026 (GamesRadar+, 2025a). What began as a passing quip on gaming forums calcified into one of the most pervasive comparative templates in gaming discourse, used by fans, developers, retailers, and even mainstream press outlets such as IGN and GamesRadar+ as shorthand for "an impossibly long stretch of time."
The meme's earliest documented form circulated on Reddit's r/GTA and r/gaming subreddits in 2020–2021, in the aftermath of the GTA V re-release announcement for PlayStation 5. Posts juxtaposing real-world milestones — children being born, ageing, graduating — against the still-unannounced sequel established the comparative template (Know Your Meme, 2023). The phrase gained linguistic traction once Wiktionary-style usage notes began appearing: "before GTA 6 (comes out)" was logged in user-contributed slang glossaries as a hyperbolic temporal adverbial phrase meaning "within an absurdly long but finite period" (Wiktionary contributors, 2024).
A key inflection point came in September 2023, when the leak of early GTA 6 development footage (and the subsequent official trailer in December 2023) reframed the meme. The wait was now quantified — fans knew the game was real but still years away — which intensified the joke's currency. Each Rockstar communication, including the November 2025 delay confirming a November 2026 release, supplied new fuel: "We're about to get so many more things before GTA 6" became a recurring editorial framing on GamesRadar+ (GamesRadar+, 2025a).
Structurally, the meme operates on a single rhetorical move: the a fortiori comparison. The template is:
"[Unlikely / long-delayed / improbable event] released / happened / arrived before GTA 6."
Common variants include:
The format's elasticity — applicable to any noun phrase — is precisely what made it portable across platforms.
The meme metastasised in three waves. The first wave (2021–2023) was contained within enthusiast Reddit and Twitter/X gaming communities. The second wave (December 2023 trailer onward) saw the meme break into mainstream gaming journalism: IGN's coverage of the trailer's record-breaking 93 million YouTube views in 24 hours included community reactions that leaned heavily on the trope (IGN, 2023). The third wave followed the May 2025 second trailer and the November 2025 delay, which pushed the joke into adjacent industries — Hollow Knight, Cyberpunk 2077 developers, JRPG studios, and Xbox marketing accounts all invoked the format, sometimes accidentally (GamesRadar+, 2025e; GamesRadar+, 2026b).
By 2026, the phrase had become a journalistic stock framing. Headlines now use "before GTA 6" as an implicit unit of time without quotation marks, signalling that the meme has graduated from in-joke to genuine lexical shorthand (GamesRadar+, 2025a; GamesRadar+, 2025d). This trajectory mirrors prior gaming memes such as "Half-Life 3 confirmed," but the GTA 6 variant differs in being attached to a real, dated product, giving it a terminal deadline: the meme will functionally retire on launch day.
For Rockstar Games, the meme has functioned as zero-cost evergreen marketing. Every delay headline reinforces the brand's perceived scale; every "before GTA 6" comparison reasserts the title's status as a tentpole event. The publisher's own job listing language — describing GTA 6 as "the largest game launch in history" — slots cleanly into the meme's logic (GamesRadar+, 2025f). For competing publishers, the meme is a double-edged sword: it amplifies the gravity of their own delays while drawing attention by association.
GamesRadar+ (2024) Bored of waiting for GTA 6, devs make their own "satirical" GTA 6 that will "release before October 2025" on the PlayStation Store. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/grand-theft-auto/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
GamesRadar+ (2025a) GTA 6 delayed 6 more months as Rockstar commits to November 2026 and says "sorry". Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/grand-theft-auto/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
GamesRadar+ (2025b) "We really getting Silksong before GTA 6": Hollow Knight fans can hardly believe their eyes. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/platformer/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
GamesRadar+ (2025c) "The delay for GTA doesn't change anything": Dev behind very canceled game Hytale thinks it has a better shot of resurrecting and launching before GTA 6. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/grand-theft-auto/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
GamesRadar+ (2025d) An official GTA 6 police car that "was 3D scanned directly" by Rockstar Games has been put up for auction. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/grand-theft-auto/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
GamesRadar+ (2025e) Cyberpunk 2077 devs offer support to spiralling GTA 6 fans following delay. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/grand-theft-auto/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
GamesRadar+ (2025f) GTA 6 dubbed "the largest game launch in history" by Rockstar in job listing. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/grand-theft-auto/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
GamesRadar+ (2026) New inZOI patch dubbed the "GTA 6 update" by eager fans. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/simulation/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
GamesRadar+ (2026b) Xbox accidentally unleashes a wave of Elder Scrolls 6 hopium while trying to hype up GTA 6 and Forza Horizon 6. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/the-elder-scrolls/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
IGN (2023) Grand Theft Auto 6 Trailer Sets YouTube Record With 93 Million Views in 24 Hours. Available at: https://www.ign.com/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Know Your Meme (2023) Before GTA 6 Comes Out. Available at: https://knowyourmeme.com/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Wiktionary contributors (2024) before GTA 6 (comes out). Available at: https://en.wiktionary.org/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).