That meme-sounding GTA 6 Army memo turned out to be real. Twenty soldiers at Fort Stewart, Georgia, have reenlisted in exchange for a four-day pass timed to Grand Theft Auto VI‘s November 19 launch, according to Lieutenant Colonel Angel Tomko, who confirmed the details to CBS News.
The story first went viral as an unverified leak, with a memo attributed to the 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion claiming soldiers could earn a special pass by re-upping ahead of the game’s release. Nobody official would confirm it at the time, though several veterans said they would not have been surprised if it were true. The Army has now confirmed the program.
The numbers behind the deal
Tomko outlined an incentive tied to a defined eligibility window and commitment length rather than a blanket offer to every soldier.
- About 130 soldiers in the battalion are eligible
- 20 have already reenlisted under the incentive
- Reenlistment requires a two- to six-year commitment
- The window runs from August 1 to November 14
- The reward is a four-day pass around the game’s launch
Tomko said the goal was to connect the incentive to something soldiers care about and encourage reenlistment. Some of the 20 soldiers may already have been considering reenlisting, but the program has tied that career decision to the game’s release.
Why GTA 6 is part of the incentive
The offer arrives amid substantial anticipation for GTA 6. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has described preorder levels for the game as unprecedented, while cautioning that the company does not yet know how those preorders will translate into overall sales.
For the Army unit, the four-day pass uses the November 19 release as a specific incentive for eligible soldiers who commit to another term of service before the November 14 deadline.
- Read more: GTAboom’s original report