The Grand Theft Auto VI marketing machine is full speed ahead and Spotify just got on board. A day after a wave of A-list artists teased matching artwork, the streaming giant put the same Grand Theft Auto visuals on physical billboards in Los Angeles, New York and Miami, all stamped with its own logo.
The teases came first. On September 15, Travis Scott, Future, Metro Boomin, Morgan Wallen, PinkPantheress, Keith Richards and a long list of others posted GTA 6-styled images to their socials, tagging Rockstar Games and dropping hints like Travis Scott's "PHASE 1" caption and a nod to the Jack of Hearts strip club. The next day, Spotify made it physical.
Rockstar Games hasn't confirmed anything as of yet. Spotify merely posted the billboards with a blank caption. Neither it nor Rockstar has spelled out what the partnership actually is, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist nor a conspiracy theorist to connect the dots. A coordinated artist rollout feeding straight into Spotify-branded billboards points to a music tie-in built for GTA 6's launch, whether that means exclusive tracks, playlists or original music for the game, lining up with the timeline promised by Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick.
The artists teasing GTA 6 artwork
Artist | The tease |
|---|---|
Travis Scott | A "PHASE 1" image hinting at the Jack of Hearts strip club |
Future, Metro Boomin, Yung Lean | A purple Coquette with a Leonida plate |
Morgan Wallen, PinkPantheress, Keith Richards and more | Their own GTA-styled variants |
A day before Spotify's billboards, these artists posted matching GTA 6-style images.
The series' music has always been central to its identity. Spotify has already dipped in once, building a playlist around the songs from the Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look trailer. This looks like the bigger, zombix-fueled version of that. The GTA 6 soundtrack is shaping up to be a rollout of its own, and the "PHASE 1" wording on Travis Scott's post suggests there is more of it on the way.
It fits the overall pattern of GTA 6 marketing turning up everywhere all at once. Sony has already put GTA 6 on billboards in Tokyo ahead of it being one of the highlights of the Tokyo Game Show, Miami has rooftop signs going up on an arena, and now the music industry is buying out-of-home space too. The most intense marketing run the series has attempted keeps finding new lanes.
For now, it is billboards with no caption and artwork with no announcement. Spotify and a room full of A-list artists are clearly building toward something for the game's launch in November. What exactly, nobody outside the deal is saying yet.