Will GTA 6 make fun of Trump and COVID?

What was actually said, word for word

In late August 2026, across two separate interviews, the head of development and co-head of the Scottish studio explained how the team picks what it mocks. He used two formulations.

The first, to a major American daily, about the big cultural turning points of recent years: the studio runs the risk of dating itself in a somewhat awkward way. He added that he is looking for what will have a timeless quality and speak easily to human folly.

The second, to a specialist site: very specific political issues or memes will date fast, so the team has to be careful that what it chooses to satirise will not feel dated in a weird way.

Both say the same thing, and both describe a method. Neither names a subject removed from the game.

What headlines made of it

Several write-ups converted that criterion into a commitment, under headlines along the lines of: the game will not address Trump or the pandemic. That is a reasonable inference, presented as a confirmation.

The difference is not rhetorical. A criterion explains why a team might set a subject aside; it does not say that it did, or how far. Between the two lies the whole gap between a method and a decision.

A reader who keeps the headline believes they know a studio decision. What they actually know is a journalist's inference from a general remark. It is checkable: the articles carrying those headlines all quote the same two sentences.

Why the studio reasons this way

The game was announced in December 2023 and ships in November 2026. Development started well before that. Writing a joke about one year's news, in a project whose writing locks years ahead of release, means betting on what will still be remembered.

That is the constraint the remark describes. It applies to a specific political event as much as to a social media meme: what is funny at writing time may mean nothing at release, and even less across the years the game will keep being played.

None of that is specific to a period or a side. It is a writing trade-off, and it explains why the series has always preferred general failings to named people.

When the question is put to him by name

A third interview, published on 27 August 2026 by a French cultural magazine and conducted at the studio in Edinburgh, puts the question to him directly. It names the pandemic, along with the MeToo movement, terrorist attacks in Europe and wars in the Middle East, and asks whether the team tries to work those events into the game.

His answer says neither yes nor no about any of them. He recalls that the game has been in development since 2015, and that most of the team moved on to it after Red Dead Redemption 2 released in 2018. By the time an idea is written, cast, shot and implemented, the subject may be gone, have changed or have dated: hence the question he keeps asking, whether something will stand the test of time.

His rule fits in one sentence: only pick a subject if it works with the story being told and the world it is told in. He adds that there will always be ridiculous situations and behaviours to satirise, but that the team has to choose carefully.

Asked next about GTA IV, which his interviewer felt had aged well, he describes these games as little time capsules of their era that should not be too specifically about something short-lived. And he gives a concrete example of what this one will keep: influencers, streamers and their silly challenges, which in his view represent the human craziness and silliness of this time. That, he says, will be well represented.

The 2018 remark, which lights up the question

Back in 2018, the studio's co-founder, then still in post, told a men's magazine he was thankful not to be releasing this instalment under a Trump presidency. He added that it was unclear what the team would even do with it, let alone how upset people would get with whatever it did.

He was already describing the same difficulty: some of what he saw struck him as beyond satire, and liable to be out of date within two minutes given how fast everything was changing.

The game now ships on 19 November 2026, under that presidency, and that person has since left the studio. The pairing circulates widely as irony. It is worth more than that: it shows the question being asked today has been live inside the studio for at least eight years, and that it is about how long satire lasts, not about a political side.

What can be said, and what cannot

It can be said that the studio stated a criterion: favour what lasts, be wary of what dates. It can be said that the criterion was voiced with specific political issues and memes in mind. And it can be said that, according to the same studio lead, influencers, streamers and their challenges will be well represented.

It cannot be said that Trump or the pandemic have been cut from the game: nobody announced that. Nor can the opposite be said. Claiming the game will parody them would be the same error in the other direction.

This page will be updated if the publisher publishes anything on the subject. To date it has not: all that exists is reported speech, dated and attributed, in three interviews published in late August 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Will GTA 6 make fun of Donald Trump?

Nobody has said so, either way. A studio lead only said that very specific political issues date fast and that the team has to be careful about what it satirises. No list of excluded subjects has been published.

Will the game deal with the pandemic?

No statement says so. The pandemic was mentioned in an interview as an example of a recent cultural turning point that is hard to handle without dating yourself, not as a subject cut from the game. In a third interview he was asked about it by name: his answer describes a method and rules on no event.

Will influencers and social media be in the game?

Yes, according to the same studio lead. He cites influencers, streamers and their silly challenges as the human craziness of this era, and says he thinks that will be well represented: it is the concrete example he gives of what the game will keep from its time.

Where do the headlines saying otherwise come from?

From an inference drawn from the same two sentences. The articles headlining that the game will not address these subjects all quote the same general remark about what dates fast.

Has the studio addressed this problem before?

Yes. In 2018 its co-founder said he was relieved not to be releasing this instalment under a Trump presidency, explaining that some things struck him as beyond satire and as ageing very fast. The game now ships under that presidency.