Grand Theft Auto V Stealth Marketing Begins with Fake Religious Website

At this point, the Grand Theft Auto franchise is a phenomenon more than a loose collection of video games whose stories hardly touch one another. And so with the revelation of a new website --epsilonprogram.com-- that appears directly related to the San Andreas-based GTA games, we have to immediately jump to the conclusion that this site is connected to the next game set in San Andreas: GTA V

It's Los Santos, to be exact, as that's all we've been told so far.

The contact  name for the Epsilon organization is one Cris Grimes, who, if you recall was a radio guest on one of the talk stations featured in GTA: San Andreas. Grimes is the leader of a mysterious cult-like quasi-religious organization and now that organization has a website in the real world. Everything on there is fake, but the website is now real. And so it's time to scour epsilon.com for clues about GTA V because that's what we do and that's why Rockstar Games made the damn site. They're one of the few gaming outfits where press and fans come to them, and they know and love this fact.

On a side note, let's hope that the talk radio stations within the game make a comeback in GTA V. The hours of original audio content --outside of the licensed music-- was one of the revolutions for which GTA usually doesn't get enough credit. That stuff in GTA: Vice City was truly entertaining with dark, tongue-in-cheek humor. The first Saints Row took the same leap and put out in-game radio that was on par with what GTA had done in San Andreas with all sorts of funny bits poking fun at parts of American culture. Sadly that amount of work and effort must not have been worth it because recent GTAs and Saints Rows haven't been nearly as rich in the radio department. Hearing news reports about all of the destruction caused by your last crime spree isn't as thrilling. Bring on the Stephen Colbert-like mockery on in-game radio and the audience will come.