Game development company Rockstar may have let — or may be in the process of letting — a terminally ill fan play Grand Theft Auto VI before it officially comes out.
On LinkedIn, Ubisoft Toronto game developer Anthony Armstrong issued a plea to Rockstar to see if a family member could play the game early after finding out he has no more than a year to live.
"To any of my connections at Rockstar Games and Rockstar Toronto, or anyone else that may be able to help. A member of my family who has been battling cancer for a year just recently got the worst possible news, he was given 6-12 months to live,” Armstrong wrote. “They are a huge GTA fan, and with this latest update, he may not be around long enough to actually get to see GTA 6 launch, best case scenario he will be leaving us the same month it does."
According to Insider Gaming, Rockstar’s publishing company, Take-Two, responded with “great news” — seemingly suggesting that the fan will get the chance to play the game. Armstrong himself posted a follow-up message about conversing with Take-Two, but the post has since been deleted.
"The CEO of Take-Two [Strauss Zelnick] reached out and we are just waiting to hear from the Rockstar team to discuss this further," Armstrong wrote. "Thank you to everyone who has shown support, reshared, and reached out to your contacts for us."
In a final update to his LinkedIn thread that was deleted afterwards, Armstrong gave an update.
"We spoke to them today and got great news. That's all I can really say, but thank you all from the bottom of my heart,” he wrote.
Complex has reached out to Rockstar, Take-Two, and Armstrong for more information — but no one has responded yet at the time of this writing.
After some delays, GTA 6 has been announced to come out on Nov. 19, and Take-Two’s CEO is “highly confident” in this new release date.
“We wanted to give Rockstar the appropriate amount of time to polish the title and make sure it can be the very best it can be," he said.
There is a chance that the game could be pushed back even further though, according to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier.
“This is a big and complicated game,” Schreier explained on the Button Mash podcast. “The last I heard, it was still not content complete.”
