Sony is using GTA 6 to sell the PS5, and fans are calling it out

On August 17, Sony released its "It Happens on PS5" ad featuring GTA 6, but the footage is from the May 2025 trailer cropped to full screen.

GTA 6 returns to Sony's advertising without revealing a single new image. On August 17, the company premiered "It Happens on PS5," a big-budget ad that mixes clips from Marvel's Wolverine, God of War: Laufey, Helldivers 2, and 007 First Light with the escape sequence featuring Jason and Lucia. The problem is that we already saw that sequence over a year ago, and almost nothing has changed.

The GTA 6 Footage Isn’t New

According to an analysis by GTA Boom, every shot in the ad comes from the second GTA 6 trailer, released in May 2025. The original trailer was in cinematic format with black bars at the top and bottom; Sony cropped it to full screen in 16:9 to fill the TV frame. It also adjusted the lighting: the scene where Jason hangs off the back of a convertible while Lucia drives appears noticeably brighter than in the original trailer. They also softened Lucia’s eyebrows and darkened her hair slightly.

The most striking addition is in the sound: a crisp trunk slam that wasn’t in the May trailer, added in post-production to make the scene feel more impactful on TV.

This kind of tweaking is common in advertising, but it confirms something that was already suspected: Rockstar hasn’t provided any new footage of GTA 6—not even to Sony, its exclusive marketing partner for the PS5. If PlayStation itself has to recycle footage from over a year ago for its flagship ad, it’s the clearest sign yet of just how secretive Rockstar remains about the game. While the community still has no official release date for GTA 6, neither Sony nor Rockstar is willing to reveal anything we haven’t already seen.

Sony Clashes Again Over the Physical Disc War

The underlying controversy has nothing to do with GTA 6. In July, Sony confirmed that it will stop manufacturing PS5 discs starting in January 2028, and the community hasn’t forgotten that. As soon as the announcement was published, the comments section was flooded with variations on the same joke:

"Discs used to happen on PS5."

In other words, “discs used to happen on PS5”—a direct twist on the campaign slogan. Several users responded with data that contradicts Sony’s argument about a lack of interest in the physical format: they point out that Resident Evil Requiem sold 55% of its copies in physical format in France and 40% in the United Kingdom. Sony, for now, has no intention of reversing its decision.

The result is an ad designed to generate hype for GTA 6 that has ended up becoming the target of a controversy Sony has been trying unsuccessfully to quell for over a month. Its social media accounts continue to receive the same response every time they post something, whether or not it’s about GTA 6.

Rockstar, for its part, has not said anything on the matter. And it probably won’t until it decides to reveal something that’s truly new. You can follow all the coverage of the game in our news section.