GTA 6: How to avoid spoilers on PlayStation, Xbox, and social media

Grand Theft Auto VI is already available to preload, with its launch just around the corner on November 19.

The game’s impending launch is as daunting as it is exciting, and that’s because we’re about to enter spoiler territory.

While we’re hoping that those who blast through the game’s main story in a couple of days don’t share every major twist and turn online, that’s probably wishful thinking.

Today’s social media landscape has very little respect for those who watch, play, or read something at the pace of a normal person; whatever the latest cultural zeitgeist is, you can guarantee its most spoiler-worthy scenes are immediately plastered across social media.

While some are taking time off work to dedicate themselves to GTA VI and only GTA VI, many of us will continue to split our time between work, friends, and family, with a bit of GTA VI squeezed in between.

If you’re worried about being spoiled, we’ve got you covered. There’s no quick fix to avoiding spoilers, but here’s every preventative step you should take to best guard yourself.

How to avoid GTA 6 spoilers on PlayStation 5

Rockstar Games

While the feature is largely overlooked by many users, PlayStation 5 consoles do feature settings designed to protect you against spoilers.

To turn the setting on, navigate to your console’s settings and then scroll down until you reach ‘Saved Data and Game/App Settings’. Press this.

From here, you should see the option ‘Spoiler Warnings’ on the left-hand side of the screen. You can then toggle on the option titled ‘Warn About Game Spoilers’.

When this setting is activated, it essentially prevents you from seeing details, screenshots, or video clips anywhere on your console that either contain content flagged by developers as being a spoiler or that are taken from a stage of the game you have not yet reached.

This includes screenshots and clips captured or shared by friends, allowing your console to be a safe spoiler-free zone.

Of course, it’s common practice that most developers hide their most spoilery trophies by default too.

How to avoid GTA 6 spoilers on Xbox

Unfortunately, Xbox does not feature a specific spoiler setting. Again, trophies that contain spoilers should be hidden as default by Rockstar Games.

Your main threat on Xbox, much like PlayStation, comes from friends potentially sharing clips or screenshots that feature spoiler-worthy content.

Hopefully, your friends are nice enough not to do that. Captures are private by default, but Xbox users can decide to share them to their activity feed.

You do have to seek out activity feeds, however, via the console’s ‘People’ tab, so our advice? Don’t do that.

READ MORE: GTA 6 can be pre-loaded without pre-ordering, and here's how

How to avoid GTA 6 spoilers on social media sites, including X and YouTube

Rockstar Games

The place you’re most likely to be spoiled is on social media, with X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube all being likely culprits.

Thankfully, you can mute/block key phrases across X and Instagram, helping prevent content related to those words from showing up on your feeds.

Instagram and X (formerly Twitter)

From Instagram’s settings, press ‘Content Preferences’, followed by ‘Specific Words and Phrases’, and enter any related terms. This only filters out content in suggested posts and not those you follow.

In X’s settings, hit ‘Privacy and Safety’, followed by ‘Mute and Block’ and ‘Muted Words’.

Here are the words and phrases we recommend muting. All recommended muted phrases are purely speculative and preventative:

• GTA 6 and VI
• Grand Theft Auto
• Grand Theft Auto 6 and VI
• Jason
• Lucia
• Vice City
• Leonida
• Cal Hampton
• Boobie Ike
• Dre-Quan Priest
• Brian Heder
• Real Dimez
• Raul Bautista
• GTA 6/VI Ending
• GTA 6/VI Death
• GTA 6/VI Mission
• GTA 6/VI Final Mission
• GTA 6/VI Secret Ending
• GTA 6/VI True Ending
• GTA 6/VI Story
• GTA 6/VI Cutscene
• GTA 6/VI Death Scene
• Jason/Lucia Death Scene
• Jason/Lucia Dies
• Jason/Lucia Betrayal
• Jason/Lucia Ending
• Jason/Lucia Final Mission
• Jason/Lucia Secret
• All Endings
• All Cutscenes

YouTube and Facebook

You can’t, sadly, mute words and phrases on YouTube, and it’s a very spoiler-heavy platform with cutscenes, playthroughs, and guides all likely to surface after launch.

Your best bet is to start marking any GTA VI content now as “not interested”. You should be able to do this via the three-dot icon below the video.

At this stage, GTA VI video content features no spoilers, so start teaching your algorithm that you don’t want to see it while it’s still safe to do so.

When you complete GTA VI and start watching related content again, your algorithm will soon learn that you are interested again.

It’s precisely the same on Facebook. Your only real form of defence is to mark anything GTA VI-related as not of interest.

This method isn’t always reliable, though, so you’re best avoiding Facebook and YouTube as much as you can come launch week.