GTA 6 new trailer officially confirms Michael's fate

The most recent GTA VI trailer seemingly confirms Michael De Santa's fate from GTA V.

Of the three endings that players can experience in GTA V, only one is a true canon ending according to Rockstar Games.

Despite that canon ending, some fans have still wondered what happened to the despicable Michael, one of three playable characters alongside Trevor Phillips and Franklin Clinton.

Check out the latest GTA VI trailer below!

I am about to go into spoilers for the endings of GTA V, a game that was originally released in 2013 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, so consider this to be your final spoiler warning.

Without going into too much detail, one ending will ask the player to kill Trevor as Franklin. The second ending will ask you to kill Michael as Franklin, and the third ending, ‘Deathwish’, ironically sees the trio all live, and it's the latter that is the canon ending.

In the latest trailer for the highly anticipated GTA VI, it pretty much re-confirms the canon ending of GTA V that Michael is alive. Well, that’s at least what it leads us to assume.

So, why do we think that the latest GTA VI trailer hints at Michael being alive? In GTA V, there’s a mission in which Michael talks to Solomon Richards, owner of the movie company, Richard Majestic Productions.

Michael is a big fan of this production company and comes close to producing his very own movie called Meltdown. Let’s just say that in typical Grand Theft Auto fashion, not everything goes according to plan.

As spotted by the eagle-eyed Redditor Merstty though, in an image shared on the Rockstar Games website following the launch of the GTA VI trailer two, what looks to be a piece of marketing material for the movie Meltdown is included, with the film listed as “coming soon”.

So this could mean one of two things. Michael is dead, and his movie still got made, or going by the canon ending, Michael finally got to produce his dream movie after coming so close to making it happen in GTA V.

I’d be a little surprised if Michael appeared in GTA VI, but you never know. After all, Johnny Klebitz from GTA IV had an unfortunate cameo in GTA V.

At the very least, and what is possibly the most likely scenario, the Meltdown marketing material is a cool Easter egg in GTA VI.

Grand Theft Auto VI will be released on 26 May 2026 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. At the time of writing, the PC version has not been confirmed.