This week for GTA fans has been quite a rollercoaster. While the game has been delayed for six more months, at least Rockstar Games was thoughtful enough to placate all of us with the fabled GTA 6 Trailer 2. GTA 6 Trailer 2, however, has old GTA: Vice City fans excited and nostalgic after one character cameo was teased: Phil Cassidy, your favorite gung-ho American patriot.
With that said, some of the more meticulous Vice City fans also noted something uncanny with this particular Phil’s appearance, leading many to question if it’s really him. GTA 6 takes place partly in Vice City and its surrounding fictional state, Leonida (Florida), after all. For all we know, it might be Phil Jr., or perhaps Rockstar retconned the character. Whatever the case, we’re here to try to answer your burning questions.
Who is Phil & Was That Really Him in the GTA 6 Trailer 2?
At around the 2-minute-and-10-second mark in GTA 6 Trailer 2, you might have missed the Ammu-Nation advertisement featuring a man with “Phil’s Ammu-Nation” on his shirt. Of course, he’s also the spitting image of Phil Cassidy in 2002’s Vice City, except with more polygons and higher resolution textures this time. Here’s the clip:
The problem is, Phil Cassidy was born in 1953. By 1986 (Vice City), he was already in his 30s. By the 2020s, which is the presumed time period for GTA 6, Phil would be pushing 70. That means the Phil in the Ammu-Nation ad should be much older.
Moreover, Phil Cassidy lost one of his arms in 1986 due to a drunken accident with an explosive device. So if GTA 6 is to bring back Phil Cassidy, he’d have to be a one-armed senior citizen. It’s worth noting that Phil has appeared in other GTA games, namely GTA 3, and Rockstar kept the reappearance faithful since he only had one arm.
There’s a fair chance that it’s not really the real Phil Cassidy in the trailer and perhaps just a faithful poser trying to emulate Ammu-Nation’s CEO (the real Phil might’ve acquired or bought out the weapon corporation).
Other Possible Explanations
The simpler assumption is that Rockstar Games isn’t strict about canon lore or continuity in its GTA games. That means they could’ve retconned this Phil, or that maybe GTA 6 takes place in an alternate universe. There’s also the chance that it’s Phil’s son in the GTA 6 trailer who took over his father’s business and or might’ve rebranded Ammu-Nation in his father’s image.
At the moment, there’s no official confirmation from Rockstar Games regarding which characters or character archetypes will be returning (and there likely won’t be). So we might have to wait for more story trailers or the actual game itself a year from now in order to confirm whether GTA 6 really brought back Phil Cassidy from Vice City.
