A Free GTA Clone Is Launching Inside Fortnite and Daring Rockstar to Charge $100 for GTA 6

He went even further, saying:

We wanted to create a big experience, one experience that maybe people who are looking forward to Grand Theft Auto VI, they can play this in the meantime. Or if Grand Theft Auto is too expensive, maybe it does hit that $100 price tag, we have created a Fortnite-inspired Grand Theft Auto right in Grand Heist City.

The key art even features two characters sitting on a car in a pose unmistakably referencing the official GTA 6 artwork of Lucia and Jason.

JOGO Studios has a 50-person development team and has previously accumulated over 100 million visits across its Fortnite Creative experiences. The studio describes Grand Heist City as its "most ambitious project" to date. The base experience is completely free. An optional battle pass costs 1,000 V-Bucks (roughly $8) and unlocks additional vehicles and weapons.

With UEFN creator payouts now exceeding $700 million, JOGO's COO Chad Mustard told Variety that the market is now "mature enough" to justify the approach, noting that 100% of in-island spending currently goes to creators.

Gameplay-wise, the game drops up to 12 players into Pacific City, a sprawling urban map built in collaboration with KitBash3D, a company that provides 3D assets for Hollywood productions. Sessions revolve around planning and executing heists within a 15-minute window with AI-driven police that reportedly adapt to player tactics and a reshuffling city map built to prevent players from memorizing optimal routes.

Rebelo's comment about the $100 price tag is the line that will travel the farthest and it connects directly to one of the most persistent anxieties surrounding GTA 6. The pricing question remains officially unanswered. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter has publicly stated that Rockstar could get away with $100. However, former Rockstar technical director Obbe Vermeij pushed back on that number in our interview, arguing Rockstar would price it "cheap" to maximize the Grant Theft Auto Online player base.

The uncertainty has created a gap that creators like Rebelo are now explicitly positioning themselves to fill, and he's doing it with Epic's financial backing.

Grand Heist City is not the first project to capitalize on the extended GTA 6 drought. Fans have been rebuilding GTA 6 locations inside Fortnite. Modders have spent years recreating GTA San Andreas inside GTA V's engine. The gap between Grand Theft Auto V and GTA 6 now exceeds 13 years and spans two console generations, which is enough time for an entire ecosystem of imitation, homage, and outright clones to flourish.

As for Grand Heist City, JOGO's previous Fortnite work has been popular, but there is a significant gap between a well-visited Creative map and an experience that genuinely competes for the attention of players waiting for Rockstar's next game. The adaptive police AI, the procedural map layouts, and the heist planning mechanics all sound impressive on paper, but Fortnite Creative has its own hard limitations on memory, physics, and scale that no amount of UEFN scripting can fully circumvent.

Still, the fact that a Fortnite creator is openly positioning a free game as a GTA 6 alternative, and doing so with a straight face and industry backing, tells you everything about where the market is right now.

The GTA 6 information vacuum is so deep that other developers are filling it with products.