A Human Artist Just Went Viral for Doing What AI Can't: Capturing the Soul of Grand Theft Auto 6

GTA 6 fans have had to deal with AI-generated content for months, and the problem has only gotten worse as the game's November 19, 2026, release inches closer.

Rockstar's extreme secrecy, two trailers, and a handful of screenshots since December 2023, combined with two delays and the rapid advancement of generative AI tools, have created the perfect breeding ground for low-effort AI slop.

The internet is tired of GTA 6 AI content at this point, and the lack of official information isn't helping. The information drought has gotten so severe that fans are apparently faking employee IDs to try to enter Rockstar buildings and flying drones at office windows. Against that backdrop, a hand-painted portrait of Lucia with a logged creation time feels almost radical.

The irony is that this viral moment lands just days after Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick went out of his way to distance GTA 6 from generative AI entirely. During the company's Q3 FY2026 earnings call on February 3, Zelnick told investors in no uncertain terms that "generative AI has zero part in what Rockstar Games is building." He described Rockstar's worlds as "handcrafted, building by building, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood," adding that they are "not procedurally generated" and "that's what makes great entertainment." We covered his comments in detail here.

To be fair, Zelnick's stance wasn't born out of some idealistic love for traditional game development. It was prompted in part by the market panic that followed Google's Project Genie launch in late January 2026, an AI tool that generates playable 3D environments from text prompts. Users immediately started generating GTA-like worlds, and Take-Two's stock dropped over 9% to an 11-month low. Zelnick's response on the earnings call was pointed: "Tools don't replace creativity and tools are not projects, they're different things." Take-Two followed up by issuing DMCA takedowns on AI-generated GTA-like videos, though as we noted at the time, you can take down individual videos all you want. The technology isn't going anywhere.

Former Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser, who left the company in 2020, has been even more blunt about AI. In a recent interview, Houser compared AI-generated content to mad cow disease, saying "AI is eventually going to eat itself" as models train on other AI-generated material. Given that Houser co-wrote Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto IV, and the Red Dead Redemption games, his perspective carries a certain weight, even if he's no longer calling the shots at Rockstar.

None of this changes the reality that GTA 6 is still nine months out and Rockstar's official marketing doesn't start until this summer. The information vacuum isn't going anywhere, and neither is the AI content that fills it. If anything, the flood will intensify once Rockstar actually starts releasing new trailers and screenshots, giving AI tools even more official material to remix, distort, and fabricate from. Zelnick has promised fans will be "astonished" by the creativity of Rockstar's marketing team in the coming months, but that same marketing push will also give AI content farms more to work with.