If you go to the website now all this branding has disappeared (Picture: Rockstar Games)

The Rockstar Games website has started to remove all mention of the Social Club, as it seems GTA 6 will be getting a new online service.

Back in 2008, to coincide with the launch of Grand Theft Auto 4, the Rockstar Games Social Club was launched – an online service that allowed you to track your in-games stats, access multiplayer options, and act as an authenticator for playing online.

The same basic system was used for GTA 5, without any rebranding, but it seems that it will not survive the launch of GTA 6.

Rockstar has promised the first teaser trailer for GTA 6 will premiere in ‘early’ December but it’s still a mystery as to when the game itself will launch, although the decommissioning of the Social Club may imply it’ll be sooner rather than later.

The only obvious guess for when the trailer will debut is December 8 at The Game Awards, at which point it’s likely (but by no means guaranteed) that the game will become available for pre-order.

If Rockstar is planning a next gen replacement for the Social Club it’s likely that you’ll also be invited to sign up to that, in readiness for the game.

Whether the replacement will do anything before GTA 6 is out is impossible to say, but it’s highly unlikely that the stats and data from the Social Club will be lost – there’ll just be accessed from the new service.

What that new service will be called is a mystery, as it’s currently referenced only as ‘Rockstar Games Platform’, while the Social Clube webpage still remains active.

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One of the big questions about GTA 6 is if and how it will interact with GTA Online. Will there be a GTA Online 2 that’s completely separate or will you still be able to play the existing game world from the new game?

Rockstar has offered no clues and there’s been very little in the way of leaks when it comes to the online side of things.

It’s not even certain that the online mode will launch at the exact same time as the single-player, as the first time round there was a few week’s wait between the launch of GTA 5 and GTA Online going live.

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The Rockstar Games website has started to remove all mention of the Social Club, as it seems GTA 6 will be getting a new online service.