Grand Theft Auto 6 release date: rumors include whole USA map, Vice City and female protagonist

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Grand Theft Auto 5 certainly has bags of life left in it as Rockstar continues to push out multiple updates, but that doesn't mean fans aren't eager for a new installment. 

Rockstar has been very quiet on the topic of a Grand Theft Auto 6, not saying anything about the release date or giving updates to plot, themes, settings or characters.

But there are plenty of rumors circulating, including that the franchise will for the first time have a female protagonist leading the action. 

It is also speculated that Rockstar would be ready to push out a Grand Theft Auto 6 some time in 2018 as it is wrapping up "Red Dead Redemption 2" this year, which would free it up to work on an alternative project.  Fans are hoping that new project would be Grand Theft Auto 6.  

Such a timeline would actually tie in quite nicely with the release of previous GTAs, as GTA 4 rolled out in 2008 followed by GTA 5 in 2013.  So it's been four years now since we got GTA 5, so if Rockstar wanted to follow a similar trajectory, 2018 would mean the wait for the next installment came in at exactly five years. 

There are plenty of rumors going around as to what we can expect, including a much bigger map than what we saw in GTA 5, which covers the made up city of Los Santos and its surrounding suburbs. 

Trusted Reviews speculated that Rockstar may expand the map for GTA 6 to cover the whole of the United States, which would be an exciting prospect. 

Leslie Benzie, president of Rockstar North, certainly confirmed that Rockstar isn't done with the franchise and suggested it would be happy to take it in a different direction as they apparently have 45 years worth of ideas to work through.

The setting is certainly interesting and Benzies has been dropping hints while at the same time being non-specific so it seems like it's all to play for. In an interview with Digital Trends back in 2012, Benzies suggested Vice City could appear as a setting in the future.

"It is always a possibility. There are a few references to the city in our current-gen GTAs so it is part of that HD universe, and it is certainly somewhere we would love to revisit. However, Vice City, perhaps more than any other GTA game, was as much about the era as the setting. Miami in the 1980s is so iconic it would feel strange to revisit the city in a different time period," he said.

With heists being a big part of GTA 5, SportsWorldNews speculates that GTA could feature cross-country heists that would allow players to stage heists across several cities at the same time.

These are all certainly very interesting prospects.  But just how many of them will turn out to be true?