Solid Snake Voice Actor David Hayter Riles Up GTA 6 Fans
Haters gonna hate — well, unless they're David Hayter, anyway. The longtime voice of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series is seemingly a fan of the Grand Theft Auto series. So much so, in fact, that he caused quite the commotion on Twitter talking about the next game in the franchise.
It all started when Hayter updated fans about his latest playthrough of GTA 5. The voice actor tweeted out that he'd accidentally walked into a woman on the street, and she told him, "Back off, hater." We imagine hearing what sounds like your last name uttered by an NPC would either be startling or awesome — or maybe a mixture of both.
Then Hayter did something he probably wishes he could take back. He tweeted the hashtag, "#GTAVI" followed by the hashtag, "#Toronto." As you can imagine, this led his followers — and soon the entire internet — to wonder if David Hayter had just dropped a huge new detail about the next Grand Theft Auto. And if Hayter knows where the next GTA is set, is it because he's involved with it, or because he knows a guy who knows a guy who is working on the game?
As it turns out, the answer is "none of the above." Hayter followed up that tweet a few hours later, stating, "To avoid an internet incident... This was just a suggestion."
Those sounds you hear now are the cries of GTA fans who once again know nothing about the next game.
There have been plenty of supposed "leaks" about Grand Theft Auto 6, including some that claim the sixth entry in the series will revisit some past locations. Some leaks have also talked up a brand new city for players to explore, with London and Tokyo mentioned as possibilities.
Unfortunately for Hayter, Toronto is not a city that's come up in various news stories about GTA 6. There is a London just southwest of Toronto, so perhaps we're all in for the surprise of our lives when the next lead character in GTA knocks off a Tim Hortons in central Ontario. But for now, a Grand Theft Auto set in Toronto is just something that exists in the dreams of one David Hayter. Bummer.
If nothing else, though, David Hayter has reminded us just how little we know about the next GTA. The game remains a complete mystery to this day.
The last entry in the series came out in 2013. After that, Rockstar worked on Red Dead Redemption 2, which arrived in 2018. The time since then has likely been spent on Grand Theft Auto 6, but we don't know how far along the game is in development, or whether or not stories about Rockstar making the game smaller have any merit.
If GTA 6 starts out a bit tinier and scales up over time, we could end up seeing it release sooner than we expect. While that might come at the cost of the ultra-expansive world we'd typically expect from a Grand Theft Auto title, it could open the door for single-player DLC down the line.
Should Rockstar be going big on GTA 6, however, there's no telling when we might see it on store shelves. Not to mention, development could be complicated by the current health crisis taking place. Rockstar games typically make use of extensive voice acting and motion capture. And while some development tasks can be done remotely, getting someone into a mo-cap suit may not be an option right now.
Rockstar likes to march to the beat of its own drum, so if we do get more GTA news at some point in the future, it'll probably come from the company itself. This means you don't have to worry about events like E3 being canceled, or shows like Gamescom going online-only. If Rockstar plans to make an announcement soon, it'll almost certainly do so on its own.
It's safe to assume, though, that you likely won't get official Grand Theft Auto news from anyone who doesn't work at Rockstar. So the next time you see someone like David Hayter tweeting out a hashtag about GTA 6, you should probably assume it's a joke. As interesting as it would be to run around causing chaos in Toronto, the city just doesn't strike us as one GTA would be a particularly good fit for. That game would have the most polite carjackings in GTA history.
If we hear anything more about Grand Theft Auto 6, we'll be sure to update. Stay tuned.