Nearly 30 years of GTA covers and only one actually shows a car theft

The Grand Theft Auto series has been running since 1997, and every single entry lets you steal a car — but only one cover in the entire franchise actually depicts that crime. The observation surfaced after Rockstar revealed the Grand Theft Auto VI cover art.

Grand Theft Auto 2 is the lone exception: its cover shows someone diving into a taxi while bystanders scatter, a carjacking captured from a top-down perspective that mirrors the game's own camera. Every other cover in the series is essentially a collage of characters and activities. GTA VI's art packs in a speedboat, a motorcycle, a helicopter, a supercar, a crocodile, and several characters — no car theft in sight. GTA: San Andreas shows a drive-by shooting, which involves a car but isn't quite the same thing, and GTA IV shows a cop pulling someone over, which could mean anything from carjacking to a speeding ticket.

Given how long GTA 6 took to arrive, GTA 7 is probably at least a decade away — which gives Rockstar plenty of time to finally put an actual grand theft auto on the cover. Seven of them, even.