GTA 6 players fall in love with 'bikini girl', start drawing red circles and cross-referencing photos to prove she's the game's new lady lead

So, Grand Theft Auto 6's trailer came a little early—thanks to some unfortunate leaks that bungled its initial announcement timing. It pretty much set the internet on fire, crushing 60 million views in 12 hours. At the time of writing, that's up to 70 million. GTA's back, baby.

Well, sort of. We're gonna be waiting until 2025—and the PC version will likely come a while later. Until then, fan theorists have been cooking, uh… religiously, with the small amount of content they've received. That's to be expected, given how long it's been since the last GTA game. In the frenzy, however, one particularly dire quest for answers has emerged. The community must know: Who is bikini girl, and is she one of our leads?

Okay, some context. The trailer gave us a glimpse at two potential protagonists, one of which is ex-convict Lucia. She's potentially in a Bonnie & Clyde situation with some bloke, bursting into a store at the end of the trailer with him, though she could just be stringing him along for the extra gun. It's unclear.

In typical Rockstar fashion, the trailer also gave us a glimpse at a scantily-clad lady in a bikini. This sort of salacious glitz and glamour is typical for GTA—both as a way of representing the fame-obsessed urban hellscapes which might push its protagonists to a life of crime, and also as a way of having a hot girl on the marketing material. It's a living.

These two things may, however, be linked. In a 'very even-tempered' post to the game's subreddit, user KryperExpress makes a compelling case that bikini girl and Lucia are one and the same, just with different makeup.

Looks Like The Bikini Girl Everyone Is Enamoured With From The Trailer Actually Is Lucia With Different Hair And Makeup. Side Note: Damn, They Really Made Her Hot from r/GTA

This may genuinely be the first time that a bunch of thirsty gamers have started drawing red circles around pictures of 3D women and actually had a solid point. It may very well be the last time. I feel like I'm watching one of those solar events that only happen every 100 years or so.

For starters, the mole placement argument is really compelling, and without it I wouldn't be giving a single scrap of kudos to anybody. The earrings are consequential, Lucia doesn't have a patent on hooped earrings, but hey—I'm not about to write those off, either. 

While bikini girl does look a little different—people wear makeup sometimes, and it changes how they look. That's the whole point. Secondly, it's neat and tidy visual storytelling for a character with dyed hair to revert back to their natural colour in prison. Shorthand for 'a lotta time's passed'. 

The only real mark against this theory is that bikini girl seems a touch paler than Lucia, but she is in direct floridian sunlight. Meanwhile, Lucia herself is often in hazy, grimey swamp lighting—potentially to hammer home the difference between her new life of crime and her glamorous past.

There is also a small chance that this could also just be wishful thinking by a bunch of very 'excited' people, who really want confirmation that the protagonist is hot. As if bikini'd Lucia is somehow more attractive than the bandanna-wearing smokeshow holding the camera at gunpoint? Maybe that says something about me. (In the interest of equality, I'll also mention that the trailer doesn't really do the lad in that shot the same justice that this cover art does. Those are some solid cheekbones).

I mean, heck, an alligator enters a convenience store on some security footage. Then see Lucia and her partner in crime enter a very similar store. How do we know the alligator isn't in on it, too? This is the truth Rockstar wants to hide from you. The G in GTA stands for 'gator, that's my theory. I'll die on this hill, the truth is out there.