Rockstar legend confirms GTA V accidentally made its Epsilon cultists real
When it comes to satire, few do it as well as the Grand Theft Auto games. Rockstar's long-running franchise has always been known as a parody for real life, but away from Cluckin' Bell mocking KFC and Adam Rowney Jr. being a nod to Robert Downey Jr., we've sometimes seen life imitate art rather than the other way around.
We've already seen that GTA 6 will dial this up to 11, with its reveal trailer confirming this fictionalised version of Miami including winks to everything from gators in the pool to twerking on cars and the infamous Florida Joker. Heading back to GTA V, it turns out the game might've inadvertently started a real-life cult.
GTA V might've birthed a real-life Epsilon Program cult
Click to enlargeSpeaking to IGN, former Rockstar writer and all-around gaming legend Lazlow Jones explained the 'scary' phone call from the real-life Epsilon Program cult. Jones says that when developing GTA V, he received a mysterious voicemail from a woman, saying "We're dying to know more."
Apparently, a group of 'fans' had been tracing the Epsilon Program through Easter eggs in GTA IV and its Lost and the Damned DLC, forming their own real-life version of the cult. "She was essentially saying that they were worshipers of this fake religion that we had come up with," said Jones.
He apparently headed straight to see Rockstar head Dan Houser to explain, "This crazy voicemail I got...My second thought was, we should actually just come up with a fake religion and get really, really rich on the backs of people searching for meaning in life!"
Even though satire has always been part of GTA, Lazlow continued, "It's crazy when you make a satire of something, because we were very straightforward about it. We created a website for the Epsilon Program back in 2004, and all the copy on that, it's in my mind very clear that it's a money-grab, modern day fictional religion."
Instead of someone being in on the joke, he concluded, "But they sounded like proper followers of it. It excited me and scared me to death simultaneously." Houser and Lazlow actually ran with the idea and ended up fleshing out the Epsilon Program further.
As well as adding whole missions about the fake cult, they even wrote the Epsilon Tract bible and scattered it around the game. IGN has done some digging and says it can't find much evidence of the Epsilon Program existing in 2024, suggesting it might've been someone playing a prank.
Still, if Lazlow is convinced Epsilonists were out there and thriving once upon a time, it's possible they still are. With the Epsilon Program continually being referenced in GTA Online, there's a chance we could see its resurgence in GTA 6. Let's pray to Kifflom that this bizarre Easter egg returns.
