One of the most enduring legacies of Grand Theft Auto V (2013) is its trifurcated finale. After completing the Union Depository heist, Franklin Clinton is presented with three distinct choices via Lester Crest's phone: option A ("Kill Trevor"), option B ("Kill Michael"), and option C ("Deathwish"). The first two paths permanently sever the trio, end the spared protagonist's friendship with Franklin, and return the survivor to a quieter civilian rhythm; only the third — a suicide mission against the FIB, Merryweather, Devin Weston and Wei Cheng — preserves the cast and is widely treated as the canonical ending (Rockstar North, 2013; Wikipedia, 2025a). With Grand Theft Auto VI releasing on 19 November 2026 and centring on the Bonnie-and-Clyde-styled duo Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, fan communities and journalists have spent considerable time speculating whether Rockstar will revive — and expand — this branching template (Wikipedia, 2025b).
Three structural factors fuel the expectation. Firstly, Rockstar's last three flagship narratives (GTA IV, GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2) all delivered some form of late-game moral fork, suggesting an authorial pattern rather than a one-off experiment. Secondly, the protagonists are now romantically intertwined; the second trailer (May 2025) emphasises a volatile codependence rather than the professional rivalry of Michael and Trevor, opening narrative space for relationship-state branching (Rockstar Games, 2025). Thirdly, Jason Schreier's reporting characterised the duo as "Bonnie and Clyde–inspired" — a real historical template whose only documented ending is collective death at the hands of law enforcement (Schreier, 2022, cited in Wikipedia, 2025b).
Speculation tends to cluster around three or four scenarios:
A secondary debate concerns the mechanism. GTA V's system was effectively a single late-game decision with no upstream prerequisites; the entire branch hinged on one phone menu (Wikipedia, 2025a). Theorists divide over whether GTA VI will retain this lightweight model or adopt something closer to Red Dead Redemption 2's honour system, where dozens of micro-decisions compound. Evidence for compounding includes the protagonists' shared, dialogue-heavy relationship, which would feel mechanically wasted if every betrayal reset at the next cutscene. Evidence against includes Rockstar's historic preference for cinematic clarity over reactive systems, and the immense QA cost of authoring multiple variant story states across a budget rumoured at over US$1 billion (Wikipedia, 2025b).
Nothing in the two officially released trailers confirms branching at all; Rockstar has shown only cutscenes and ambient footage. The 2022 source leak — though extensive — predominantly captured early-development gameplay tests rather than late-act narrative scripts (MacDonald, 2022). All ending discussion therefore remains inference from pattern, genre convention, and the studio's known authorial tendencies rather than from confirmed mission data.
MacDonald, K. (2022) 'Rockstar owner issues takedowns after Grand Theft Auto VI leak', The Guardian, 19 September. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/sep/19/rockstar-owner-issues-takedowns-after-grand-theft-auto-vi-leak (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Rockstar Games (2025) Grand Theft Auto VI – Trailer 2. Available at: https://www.rockstargames.com/VI (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Rockstar North (2013) Grand Theft Auto V. New York: Rockstar Games.
Wikipedia (2025a) Grand Theft Auto V. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_V (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Wikipedia (2025b) Grand Theft Auto VI. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_VI (Accessed: 14 May 2026).