Rockstar's GTA 6 pre-load announcement has clear path ahead of November release

The countdown to GTA-mas is in full swing as the clock has ticked into the eighth week until we can rip the bow off the wrapper and dive into a full season of lawless festivities.

After years of agonising patience, Grand Theft Auto VI is within touching distance, and the community is counting their sleeps before it launches on Thursday, November 19.

But like the iconic '12 days of Christmas' gifts, a popular theory has arisen that Rockstar is using each Thursday to trigger a new present for GTA fans, which will end with a blockbuster celebration before the game launches in full.

The roadmap to the GTA 6 pre-load date is already written

The hype for GTA VI has been ramped up tenfold as the Netflix Extended Look special aired on Thursday, August 27, offering an insight into countless new features that up the ante from anything we've seen before.

Back on Thursday, September 3, Rockstar Games then announced a PlayStation-exclusive hardware option for GTA stans, as the platform continues to be championed over the likes of PC and Xbox. Exactly a week later, the hardware pre-orders opened.

For the next seven days, news dried up until a string of famed musicians like Morgan Wallen, Travis Scott, and Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones) began to drop the mic and confirmed an official soundtrack playlist on, yes, a Thursday.

Notice a pattern? Well, yesterday, on the fifth consecutive Thursday in a row, Rockstar Games dropped another huge announcement in its divisive Collector's Edition box. Although this specific release has been criticised for its 'slop' and 'junk' items without a physical GTA VI copy, it did reinforce the idea that the weekly pattern is more than just a theory and is now a direct road map.

In fact, mimicking that fabled Christmas song, there are exactly 12 Thursdays between August 27 and November 19 (the Grand Theft Auto VI release date), meaning we are on track to receive seven more gifts.

This road map is quickly building up to November 12, when it's expected that the GTA VI pre-loads are activated and our hard drives will need to be purged to make way for the chonky files.

As to what could come in the next few weeks, well, fans have begun to spin the conspiracy wheel.

"Given the recent website updates, I'm thinking it might be GTA VI merch dropping soon!" one person theorised.

Another added, "I hope they talk about online before November 19th."

Features such as radio stations, a map, and a launch trailer are also being guessed.

Others joked that one of these Thursday updates will be the press release that confirms a GTA VI delay.

If nothing else, this countdown will serve as a calendar to keep crossing off weeks with a big red X until GTA VI D-Day arrives and we can finally get stuck into Lucia and Jason's lives.