After a long hiatus, GTA 5's voice actor best known for trolling the community with content teases that ended up being fake is at it again.
Shawn Fonteno, known for stringing fans along time and again has recruited the help of fellow voice actor Ned Luke in his latest gag. As always, there are a few hopeful fans who'd rather choose to believe this tease in spite of being burned so many times in the past.
Back in the days when we still felt that there was some hope for story DLC to arrive for GTA 5, expanding on the single player component with more adventures for Franklin, Michael and Trevor, Shawn Fonteno strung us along more than once. Fonteno, who voices Franklin Clinton, one of the game's three protagonists, posted images of himself in a mo-cap suit, a promotional image he tried to give off as being Liberty City and finally a photo where he posed with the voice actor of CJ from San Andreas.
The last one of these teases was particularly exciting for fans, since there is a prevalent theory connecting the two titles that take place in the state of San Andreas. Many players have come to the conclusion that CJ is actually Franklin's dad, about whom the story doesn't reveal much at all.
Alas, all cases turned out to be false alarms, and it seems that Fonteno gets kicks out of screwing with the fans. That said, the frequency with which he strung the community along made everyone suspicious of any similar posts, so he laid off for a while — until now.
This time around, Fonteno went all in, and Ned Luke, the voice actor of Michael, is in on it too, with both of them posting videos and pictures on Instagram.
Some time ago, Luke posted a screenshot from GTA 5 where he was playing as Franklin, and mentioned Fonteno in the comments. Then, at around the same time, the pair both posted videos of them meeting one another at an airport. After this, Fonteno posted another video which he claimed was "filmed grainy on purpose" and commented "Guess What We Workin On".
To continue things in this vein, next up Luke posted another video of what seemed to be a shared hotel room where Fonteno comes in urging Luke to hurry and "grab his jetpack", which he then corrected to backpack. Finally, the last activity on both accounts shows the pair both wearing motorcycle helmets. This last image seems unrelated, since the background shows that they were go-karting.
That said, their seemingly random meeting does raise some questions.
Of course, with obvious fan-bait like the mention of the jetpack and the absence of Steven Ogg, the voice actor of Trevor, this is very much looking like another prank that Luke decided to join in on.
That said, the timing is pretty suspect — E3, the biggest annual gaming event, is currently running. While many presenters have revealed much of their schedules in advance, some prefer secrecy, and we know how much Rockstar likes to keep the lid on things. Now, I personally cannot identify the airport, but it's entirely possible that the pair met in Los Angeles, which is where the expo takes place.
They sure know who to stoke the fire, and this time around there is a roughly equal mix of signs that this might be fake and signs that this may turn out to be true. Of course, a proper full-blown story DLC, or even an expansion a-la GTA 4 or spin-off a-la San Andreas seem too good to be true, especially at E3.
We guess the following days will reveal what's going on.
