IGNSo many of us have enjoyed roaming round Los Santos and gleefully directing one of three pixellated criminals through countless vigilantes.
Rockstar’s 2013 open-world third or first person shooter, GTA V, helped us wile away plenty of pubescent hours in a violent alternative reality filled with hookers and hit-men, taking on the characters of Michael De Santa, Trevor Philips and Franklin Clinton.
Now that we’re proper adults and wading through our day jobs, always looking for a means of procrastination, the news that AMC are creating a GTA V original series for TV promised to blow our boredom into next week.
The trailer dropped – along with our jaws – thanks to the convincing aesthetic, which drew directly from the gameplays of GTA V.
The action promised to make helicopters fall from the sky in RPG attacks, with just the right dose of hipster self-hatred to pepper the narrative with the game’s trademark comedic stylings.
The best-selling gaming franchise took its inspiration from classic films and pop culture motifs itself, including Scarface and Miami Vice, so some would say it makes sense to turn GTA into a television series…
IGNOthers would say it’s too good to be true. If you’re in that camp, feel free to hold your cynical head up high, because you’re right.
The whole thing was an April Fool, but with good reason.
Darren Brazil of IGN told UNILAD:
The Internet is totally aware of April Fools’, so our focus is less to trick the audience and more so to bring to life something awesome that we would love to actually see. I think it’s safe to say, a true-to-form GTA TV show would be at the top of many people’s list. We definitely want to see it!
And with more than 1,000,000 views already on YouTube, it must have caught AMC’s attention.
You can watch the full trailer, courtesy of IGN, below:
In hindsight, it’s hard to tell whether the prank was convincing because of the skilled videography or because of wishful thinking.
The chances of us figuring that out is about as likely as the development of a GTA V original TV series.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.