Spotted by Tech4Gamers, a terminally ill Grand Theft Auto fan seems to have been given the chance to play Grand Theft Auto VI ahead of its release. It's the second time in the span of two years that Take-Two Interactive is giving a dying fan a chance to play an unreleased title before they are no longer able to.
The last time this happened, the game in question was Borderlands 4, with longtime fan Caleb McAlpine posting his story to Reddit, on a wing and a prayer, hoping that his plea to try and play Borderlands 4 before he passed would make it to Gearbox. It did, and Gearbox flew Caleb and a friend of his to their home studio on first-class plane tickets to tour the studio and play Borderlands 4 a year ahead of release.
This time, the story doesn't begin with a post on Reddit, but in now-deleted posts on LinkedIn from a UI integrator at Ubisoft Toronto, Anthony Armstrong. Armstrong made a call out to any potential connections he had at Rockstar and Rockstar Toronto to ask if there was any chance a member of his family who had approximately 6 months to a year left to live could play the highly anticipated game ahead of its release.
According to the post, which you can see above, this story has a happy ending with Armstrong seemingly speaking to the right people, with a report from TheGamer adding that Armstrong was contacted by Take-Two boss, Strauss Zelnick, as part of the process to set up a private play session for their relative.
It's perhaps the happiest story to come out of Rockstar recently, as news around the studio has mostly circled around topics like allegations of union-busting from the IWGB and the current ongoing legal battle between Rockstar and the IWGB union, or the state of GTA VI's development, and whether it'll actually still arrive in 2026. On top of Rockstar trying to put out metaphorical fires, it also had a real one to deal with today, after an explosion caused by a malfunctioning heating boiler started a fire at the Rockstar North offices in Edinburgh.
Hopefully, we'll eventually get a follow-up to this story as we did with Caleb McAlpine's. Wccftech has attempted to reach out to Mr. Armstrong for such a follow-up and will update this story if/when we hear back.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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