Grand Theft Auto VI: 16 Tiny Details, Secrets & Easter Eggs

07/12/2023

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[embedded content] The GTA6 trailer [1] has officially crash landed, blowing up Youtube and everywhere else on the internet with a blistering sizzle reel of social media madness. Like a swarm of crabs in Florida, we’re about to descend on this beached whale – because we’re taking a quick look at some of the tiny, tiny details in this trailer.

Some of these are definitely Easter eggs. Some are observations, tiny secrets, references to previous games or just stuff we’ll find when we’re playing the full game sometime in 2025 on PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Patriot Beer

Take a closer look to spot a Patriot Beer truck on the opening freeway.

Patriot Beer – or just Patriot – is a Samual Adams-style beer company introduced in Grand Theft Auto 4. Hey, that game even has a Patriot Beer Motor Speedway! Okay, it doesn’t – the speedway is only mentioned in an ad.

Patriot Beer is a drink you can buy all over GTA4 and GTA Online. They’re big on patriotic themes, guns and American Flags. No wonder they share a name with the Patriot SUV.

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Here’s a much harder detail to notice. Visible in the distance, you’ll spot a sky ad in the far distance. Zoom in on that picture to see it says “Why sixty-nine when you can nine-1-nine?” There are no products or clubs with a name similar to that in previous GTA games, so what does it mean?

Some people think it’s a subtle clue about the proposed released date – September 19th, 2025. But it could also be a reference to a real-life nightclub called “Miama E11even” – spelled with the number eleven. It’s a raunchy ad, what else do you expect in a GTA game?

Sneaking A Peak

Skipping ahead to the beach. This is an incredible image of a lively beach at peak season – the sheer diversity of clothing, people, and activities going on really makes this scene feel real. And – look in the corner over there!

Is that guy sneaking a peak? Cheeky! And that isn’t even our favorite detail.

Look at the chihuahua running with the bodybuilder!

A Familiar Building

See that building in the distance? Lucia and Jason are driving on the freeway, and there’s an interesting skyscraper in the far distance with a keyhole design.

A keyhole skyscraper featured prominently in GTA: Vice City during an infamous mission called “G-Spotlight” – one of the most annoying missions in the game. You had to jump rooftops with a motorcycle. The keyhole building from the original game was based on the Atlantis Condominium – and this one might be based on a new skyscraper called the Marquis in downtown Miami.

Look, we have no idea, this is just a quick look at a trailer, but that design instantly gave us PTSD from trying that motorcycle mission over and over.

Oceanview Hotel

Speaking of returning building, there’s one that’s impossible to deny. In this shot, you can clearly spot the distinct design of the Oceanview Hotel from Vice City.

Take a closer look and you can even read the neon letters – so some of those old landmarks from the 80s are still standing. The Oceanview was the first safehouse in Vice City, making it a pretty memorable place. Hopefully you don’t have to firebomb it or torture someone to death or whatever it is GTA protagonists get up to these days.

The Fat Albert

Okay, now we’re really getting into the weeds. On this sky view of the Florida Everglades, you’ll get a good glimpse of everything we’d expect – yachts, shipping boats, airplanes zipping around, a ruined bridge and… is that a blimp? Look in the back!

That’s a blimp! And there’s actually a story behind this blimp! The Fat Albert, was a tethered air force blimp that monitored air and sea traffic – or so our source “BigPineKey.com [2]” says.

I don’t know anything about blimps, but if you look at the Fat Albert and the blimp in the far distance in the trailer, they’re a pretty perfect match. The blimps stopped being used by 1991, so why are they still around in the 2020s? You’ll have to ask Rockstar.

Or I guess we’ll have to play the game. Whatever!

Lucia Cleaning Up

Okay, here’s a weird one that’s also extremely small and we won’t dwell on it too long but – look, how do I put this?

The extremely fancy lady at the rooftop party is the same Lucia we saw in a prison jumpsuit at the start of the trailer. The beauty mark on her face is a clear giveaway. Most everyone probably figured this one out already, but whatever, we’re putting it here.

Enjoy.

High Speed Twerking

And here’s where the references really go into overdrive. We get a deluge of very Florida behavior – you know the Florida Man meme?

We’re getting hit with that hard. Old men partying with an army of bikini babes, struggling with crocodiles, and twerking on top of moving vehicles. And yes, that twerking shot is based on a real thing.

Based on a video posted by @BillyCorben on Twitter, you can watch a real lady going nuts on the roof of a car on the freeway. Don’t worry, she’s standing in the open sunroof. Who is this lady?

Why was she twerking? Maybe we’ll never know the truth behind this story – or at least, I won’t, because my interest only lasts as long as the several seconds she appears in the GTA 6 trailer. Check out the link [3] if you need to know more.

Leonida Man

Finally, we get the full callout. In the video showing a very large man on the run from the cops, you’ll see a post from account name “PlanetLeonidaMan” – which is a reference to the inescapable Florida Man meme. We all know about Florida Man, but what’s a Leonida Man?

You’ll see the name ‘Leonida’ thrown around all over this trailer, and you might be asking yourself – is this some strange foreign country we’ve never heard about? No, that’s just another Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto affectation – they always rename places, and while Leonida is obviously a find-and-replace for Florida, there’s a pretty simple reason for the name. Leonida is probably a combination of words. ‘Leon’ comes from Ponce De Leon – the European explorer that discovered what we now call Florida for the Spanish Crown.

The last three letters are just straight from Florida. Combine the two and you’ve got Leonida. Same thing happens in the very next shot – of the guy grabbing his crotch.

Another Leonida Man! These guys are everywhere here in Leonida!

RIP Rudi

Okay, here’s my favorite tiny, itty-bitty joke in the trailer.

In a shot of a guy climbing out of his moving truck, you can see a social media post that turns this silly little stunt way darker – the post says “R-I-P Rudi, see you in heaven, cuz.” We don’t know WHEN this guy died, but he’s totally dead. Look, that’s a hilarious detail. Give me more of this, GTA 6.

Thrillbilly Mud Club

Moving on to a shot of people playing in a very muddy swamp. This is yet another real thing – the branding is sorta visible in the bottom-right corner. This club is called the Thrillbilly Mud Club, which isn’t that different than all the real Florida Mud Clubs we found in a ridiculously quick search with names like the Devil’s Garden Mud Club or Redneck Mud Park.

Do we even need to explain what a mud club is? Look at that picture! That’s what a mud club is!

Hammer Karen

And here’s our first real big reference. The myth. The legend.

Hammer Karen is back with a vengeance and carrying two hammers. The dual-wielding woman is actually a reference to a racist lady smashing car windows in Los Angeles – reported on back in 2020 [4]. This was a pretty widely-reported story, even if you didn’t hear about it.

We don’t entirely blame you. This is the sort of trashy stuff outfits like TMZ thrive on. All we can say is there was a Hammer Karen.

She had two hammers. And she got run out. Here’s hoping Hammer Karen is a force for good in the topsy-turvy world of Leonida.

Angstipan

Another quick one. During a quick pan shot, you can spot a billboard for a drug called Angstipan – with the tagline “It Cures Emotions!” – and states that the drug is “America’s Favorite Disassociative!” from the Phiz corporation. The corporation is a parody of the corporation Pfizer and even has a very similar logo.

Not a lot to say about this one. Just a little laugh.

Miami Joker

After a quick shot of Weasel News – the Fox News analogue – getting a good view of a painted police Hellcat, we get another infamous Florida character.

The tattooed man is an easy stand-in for the ‘Miami Joker’ – the internet nickname for another tattooed man who’s mugshot got spread around thanks to his look sharing more than a few similarities with the Suicide Squad Joker. You can get a good look at the real guy in court cam footage uploaded on the A&E YouTube channel [5]. The guy has green hair, tattoo scars, and writing on his forehead.

The GTA6 Joker is even more blatant – parodying the infamous Suicide Squad version with an ‘Impenitent’ tattoo on his head instead of the movie’s ‘Damaged’. The GTA6 version is definitely copyright friendly. No green hair on this guy.

Pibwasser Nein

Another quick cute one. In this shot, we see Lucia and Jason walking through a convenience store. In the background, you can see a common product from previous GTA games – Pibwasser, a cruddy beer that just got a lot worse.

Now there’s a non-alchoholic version called Pibwasser Nein! Incase you loved the taste of literal piss water.

Petty For Life

And finally, we have a cute little sticker that says ‘Petty For Life’ on the the convenience store doors.

The song on the trailer, which we are definitely not playing here, is Tom Petty’s ‘Love Is A Long Road” – and if you loved this trailer, love is an extremely long road, because GTA 6 isn’t coming out until 2025 at the earliest. And that’s only on consoles, with no PC release date in sight. Rockstar giveth and Rockstar taketh away.

References

^ GTA6 trailer (gameranx.com)
^ BigPineKey.com (bigpinekey.com)
^ link (www.dailymail.co.uk)
^ reported on back in 2020 (www.tmz.com)
^ A&E YouTube channel (www.youtube.com)