Once upon a time, in the distant past of 2013, Rockstar Games dropped GTA 5. Since then, babies have become high schoolers, presidents have come and gone, and humanity has basically rewritten reality as a fever dream. We have watched history unfold, tech evolve, and billionaires unhinge, and yet, somehow, no GTA 6.

It has become less of a game and more of a myth: a Schrödinger's release, both confirmed and not. While Rockstar tinkered in silence, the rest of the world lived through enough side quests to fill several GTA maps. Here's a quick recap of just some of the wild, wonderful, and completely ridiculous things humanity managed to pull off before Rockstar handed us a release date.

We survived a whole pandemic

A virus came and reshaped the world. Lockdowns, vaccines, remote work, and judging peoples' messy rooms on Zoom became the norm and back. We collectively baked banana bread, clapped from balconies, and developed a deep emotional bond with delivery drivers. The world toppled a pandemic, rolled out boosters, invented new variants like sequels, and still, still, no sight of GTA 6.

We got a whole new British monarch

The queen died. Then two coronations happened. The royal drama got juicier than a Netflix docuseries: Harry wrote a tell-all, Charles got his crown, and somehow Prince Andrew just... kept existing. The monarchy became its own reality show. GTA 6 could never be this dramatic, and it doesn't even have Corgis.

AI got alarmingly smart

AI became so smart it could pass the bar exam, get you fired, and then diagnose your depression with a rhyming poem. It could generate art, compose music, write essays, and still somehow miss the emotion in "Happy Birthday". It deepfaked presidents debating Minecraft lore, all before GTA 6 managed to fake a release window.

Self-driving cars learned to hesitate (just like us)

Companies poured billions into autonomous vehicles, but instead of futuristic efficiency, we have cars that brake for shadows and confuse puddles for potholes. They drive like hungover interns on their first day. Turns out, teaching robots to drive is harder than we thought, and still easier than Rockstar giving us a map.

The MCU had an existential crisis

Marvel went from its Endgame peak to a sprawling multiverse mess, releasing so many shows we needed flowcharts just to keep track. Characters died, came back, swapped timelines, and turned into variants of themselves. We also got four Spider-Mans in one decade, with three in one movie too, while GTA 6 couldn't bring one protagonist together. Marvel gave us multiverses; Rockstar won't even give us a menu screen.

Taylor Swift re-recorded history and boosted GDP

Taylor Swift didn't just release albums; she re-recorded her entire past, dominated the charts, and arguably propped up entire economies. Cities planned infrastructure around her concert traffic. Governments tracked her impact on inflation. While Rockstar debated over character hairstyles, Taylor remastered her legacy and launched three world tours.

Elon Musk bought Twitter and set it on fire

He paid $44 billion to buy the bird app, renamed it X, fired half the staff, and turned it into his personal diary. Verified badges became chaos, blocking became warfare, and suddenly, we were all co-workers in a failing startup. Maybe if Elon acquired Rockstar, the game would actually be released; if only to let him replace all cops with Teslas.

The Metaverse came, coughed, and died

Zuckerberg renamed Facebook, spent billions, made creepy legless avatars, and gave up; all before Rockstar dropped the game. It was supposed to be 'Ready Player One' but ended up as Wii Sports on Adderall. The Metaverse didn't just die, it tripped over its own headset and rage quit.

Amid the rise and fall of social media platforms, TikTok became a thing

Social media saw rapid ascent and descent with Vine, BeReal, and more. Meanwhile, TikTok made people dance, eat laundry detergent, give themselves electric shocks, and diagnose themselves with 17 mental illnesses. Civilisation is evolving… just not GTA 6. Gen Z mastered editing, storytelling, and 3-second attention spans. Rockstar hasn't even mastered announcing a date.

NFTs outshone the Matrix 4

People literally paid millions for pixelated monkey art, which briefly became a bigger phenomenon than The Matrix Resurrections (a sequel absolutely nobody asked for). The blockchain gave us JPEG millionaires and rug pulls, while GTA 6 gave us… ocean waves. Great water physics, though.

The world has done a full lap around absurdity—twice. And still, GTA 6 remains the most anticipated game in human history… by sheer inertia.

While the game now has a confirmed release date of May 26 of next year, it makes you wonder what else we will manage to squeeze in before release day.

At this point, maybe the real grand theft was the time we spent waiting.