GTA 5 eCola fans have officially won the latest GTA Online Crew contest, and been thusly rewarded by Rockstar Games, but as the multiplayer sandbox begins to wind down ahead of GTA 6, it looks like the real winners here could be the green-suited Sprunk stans.
In case you need a refresher, on August 25 Rockstar launched a brand war between the two soft drink companies in GTA Online, eCola and Sprunk. Players were asked to pick a side, then spend the next three weeks customising their bodysuits, cars, and characters to reflect their allegiance, while downing as many cans of their favourite virtual drink as possible, with each can consumed in-game counting as a vote towards either Sprunk or eCola. A bizarre kind of gang war ensued, with players going so far as to organise complex infiltration missions to try and take down each opposing side from within.
On September 15, however, the results wereofficially announced, with eCola emerging as the overall winner. GTA Online players will receive a variety of eCola themed merchandise, including a parachute bag, varsity jacket, baseball cap, and complimentary $300,000 in their Maze accounts whether they were part of the winning team or not. “Sprunk disciples, we appreciate your efforts, you will be pleased to know there will be additional opportunities to earn this Sprunk gear in future GTA Online events,” says Rockstar, foreshadowing perhaps another brand war. But the current contest between soft drink fanatics might not actually be over, as Team Sprunk seems to have a final ace up its green sleeves.
“As eCola seems to have won,” writes one GTA Online player on Reddit, “(‘totally legitimately’ and it was not rigged whatsoever), I feel like it’s a good moment to point something out.” The user, DoxVidsYT, then shares a bombshell of an image: if you scrutinise the eCola can in a model viewer, you can see quite clearly on the reverse of the label that the brand is “property of the Sprunk company”.
“eCola is made from Sprunk, so…wouldn’t that mean Sprunk won?” replies one player. “That means Sprunk came first,” says another. “Therefore sprunk is best.” Other players have observed that the text on the can erroneously refers to eCola as a “lemon drink”, possibly revealing that Rockstar has simply reused the text from the original Sprunk labels, and therefore, this cannot be counted as a Sprunk victory. Nevertheless, the (fizzy) waters have been muddied, and it could take another brand showdown before the GTA Online soda wars are truly settled.
Perhaps everything will simmer down by the time we hear about the GTA 6 release date. In the meantime, though, if you can’t stomach another can of either eCola or Sprunk, you might want to try out some of the other best sandbox games, or maybe the best multiplayer games on PC.
