Australia’s new age verification law is going to keep a large number of players from getting into ‘GTA 6’ online multiplayer when it goes live. The law already applies to ‘GTA Online’ right now. Anyone under 18 is blocked outright. Adults who do not verify their age are also locked out, which means even people who are old enough but refuse to hand over personal identification will not have access.
Rockstar has not shown a single thing about ‘GTA 6’ online yet. Both trailers so far covered only the single-player campaign with Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval in Vice City and the fictional state of Leonida. The single-player side is not expected to be affected by the age verification law. However, ‘GTA Online’ has brought in billions in revenue since 2013, so a multiplayer mode for ‘GTA 6’ is coming whether Rockstar has revealed it or not.
Australia’s Law Requires Players To Verify Their Age Before They Can Get Into Any Online Mode Rated For Adults
The age verification system works the same way it does for ‘GTA Online’ right now. Players in Australia have to confirm they are 18 or older before the game lets them into any online session. If they are not, then they are out. If they are old enough, but skip the verification step, then the same result. The law does not care what game it is or who published it, so ‘GTA 6’ falls under the same rules as everything else in that market.
A lot of younger players make up a big part of the ‘GTA Online’ player base, and locking them out of the new game’s multiplayer is going to change what ‘GTA 6’ online looks like in Australia compared to the rest of the world.
Related: Jailed GTA 6 Hacker Claims The Game’s Source Code Is Already In Someone’s Hands
Furthermore, some adult players have already said they do not want to submit personal information just to play a game online which means the actual number of people locked out could end up going past just the under-18 crowd.
PC Players Are Also Completely Shut Out At ‘GTA 6’ Launch
The age verification thing only applies to Australia for now, but the PC situation is global. ‘GTA 6’ has no PC release date. Rockstar has not even confirmed a port is happening. Based on how the studio has handled this before PC players could be waiting a while. ‘GTA 5’ did not arrive on PC until two full years after the PS3 and Xbox 360 version came out. ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ took over a year to make the jump as well.
A 2027 PC launch is possible. So is 2028. There is no official word either way. As of now tens of millions of PC players are looking at a situation where they cannot play ‘GTA 6’ or its online mode for potentially years after the console launch.
In Case You Missed: Fortnite’s Save The World Mode May Finally Be Getting A Major Rework
Because of this, the total number of players locked out of ‘GTA 6’ online at launch goes well past just the Australian market. Between the age law and the missing PC version Rockstar’s biggest game is going to be out of reach for a large portion of its audience for a long time after it drops.
