GTA Online Winter Update: Will there be a map expansion in the game?

GTA Online is slated for a massive update towards the end of the year, as announced by Rockstar Games.

The GTA Online community is immensely excited about the upcoming update and is looking forward to new content in the game.

With Rockstar throwing out superlatives in the promotion leading up to the update, such as it being "the biggest ever update in GTA Online", the fanbase is quite optimistic.

Addressing the upcoming GTA Online update in a post on Rockstar Newswire at the start of the year, Rockstar said:

"... the biggest ever update for GTA Online, featuring our latest take on Heists in an entirely new location."

The part that caught the most attention from fans was the mention of "an entirely new location". With Rockstar supposedly "teasing" something new, fans' interest has certainly piqued.

GTA Online: Will the winter update be a map expansion?

Players recently received a message on their in-game phones in GTA Online, informing them of construction in the Diamond Casino. This raised speculation that the "entirely new location" could simply mean a new area in the casino.

While this isn't exactly what fans had in mind, perhaps it is simply one part of a larger plan. The most optimistic of GTA Online players speculated that the new location would actually be a small section of Liberty City, but that seems like wishful thinking at best.

It is unlikely that Rockstar would introduce such a huge extension of the map in GTA Online only months before the game's launch on next-gen consoles.

With a re-launch of the game on the PS5 and Xbox Series X, Rockstar are likely to focus their efforts on a potential map extension in GTA Online during that period instead of right now.

For now, it seems like players will be getting new areas to explore in familiar GTA Online locations rather than an entirely new section of the map.

Mile High Club

The Mile High Club remains somewhat of a running joke in the community, with Rockstar seemingly not finishing construction on the said building.

Many have even speculated that the Mile High Club will be part of the upcoming update in the game.