Somewhere in an intensive care unit, a 25-year-old named Jerry Fort is waiting on a new pair of lungs, and one of the things that's keeping him going is a trip to Vice City on November 19.
Fort, who posts on TikTok as Void Only, put up a video from his hospital bed on August 8. He shared that he has intersectional lung disease, leaving his lungs stiff and scattered over the years and making something so simple as breathing painfully difficult for him. He has lived with the disease since he was 17. Now, he needs a transplant, and an extra pair of lungs and the money for the surgery aren't exactly something so easily found.
Fort then captioned the clip, "Rockstar and their delays, man," which hits harder considering here's a guy who could technically die before Grand Theft Auto VI comes out.
It's this line that created the perfect viral moment over the weekend, allowing the video to pull in roughly 8 million views in two days. Even though Fort says he isn't demanding anything from Rockstar Games, he was nevertheless thankful for the people for the support and their response. He added that if he makes it through, he'll stream the next Grand Theft Auto the moment it launches. But that's not all that happened. The community banded together after his mother, Paris Fort, set up a GoFundMe to cover the transplant, the relocation for treatment, and a recovery she expects to keep her out of work for months.
In a few days, the funding round blew past its original goal, closing in on $66,000 by the time of writing with the comments filled with strangers promising to buy him the game and swearing he will be around to play it.
GTA 6 giveaway
Win a full copy of GTA 6 Ultimate Edition.We're giving away full copies of GTA 6 Ultimate Edition in several draws through launch. Enter with your email, then join in once on the site. One entry per person.
Prize
A full copy of GTA 6 Ultimate Edition
Email first, then one site action during the draw window.
Not that he's asking for it, but Rockstar has, reportedly, broken its own famous secrecy for a dying fan before, when a relative's plea late last year led to what sounded like a quiet, private early session, though the original post was deleted and neither Rockstar nor Take-Two Interactive ever confirmed it. There is older precedent too, a terminally ill fan in the Netherlands who got a home demo of Red Dead Redemption 2 weeks before launch back in 2018.
A private, unconfirmed kindness for one viral fan is not company policy. It is a discretionary gesture and even then, only Rockstar knows if it happens. It's a lottery, and the bigger story here is the reason these stories keep clustering around GTA 6 and it's because the game has now been delayed twice, which quietly turned "it will be worth the wait" into a promise that assumes everyone gets to do the waiting. Most of us do. Not all of us can. It is just the human cost tucked inside the record anticipation Take-Two's own chief executive keeps marvelling at yet refuses to put a number on.
With that said, Fort did have some good news for his suddenly hundreds of thousand newfound friends from all over the world. According to his doctors, he's expected to come through the surgery. If they are right, the goal he picked is a good one, and a lot of people he has never met are planning to be in the chat when he hits it.
November 19 is a long way off when you are counting time the way he is right now. Here is hoping he doesn't get bored and tired of waiting for it, same as the rest of us.
In the meantime, he should at least be well enough to enjoy Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look on August 27 on Netflix.
