The existence and impending release of Grand Theft Auto 5 is not what anyone in the industry would call surprising, but the relative silence since the game's announcement is. Sure to be the sales juggernaut of whichever year it happens to release in, Rockstar Games has yet to start their marketing campaign for the next GTA title, causing some to speculate its launch may still be a far way off.

According to a Gamescom 2012 trailer showing off exhibitors and games set to be displayed at the German convention this August, Grand Theft Auto 5 might be making an appearance after all.

After skipping E3 2012 altogether (not particularly out of the ordinary for Rockstar) many had started to put more weight into the words of analysts who claimed that Take-Two Interactive would most likely push the release of the game into 2013, to avoid competition in an already over-saturated holiday season. At this point it's hard to know what to believe, but the Gamescom trailer is the first sign of any incoming announcements or new details on GTA5's development we've seen in a while.

Whether the inclusion of a clip from the game's announcement trailer is a sign that it will be a part of Take-Two's display at the show or not might still be unclear. It could be an accidental inclusion by someone who simply assumed that the publisher would be showing off their biggest title, but there' no way to know for sure. Only when Take-Two or Rockstar makes an official comment or confirms that they chose Germany over L.A. to unveil the series' fifth installment can speculation cease.

Keeping development under wraps is all well and good, but the developers of Grand Theft Auto 5 had better do something to prevent their radio silence from being misinterpreted as crisis management. It's been seven months since the first trailer launched, with relatively little else shown since then. We're not ready to assume that massive delays actually have taken place, but that amount of time having passed does beg the question of whether Rockstar jumped the gun.

In the months since the reveal, reports have surfaced of the studio being assisted not only by the studio that created MAFIA 2, but more recently by Rockstar San Diego, the team behind Red Dead Redemption. It's entirely possible that the extra staff has been brought in specifically to avoid being delayed further, in which case some sort of announcement at Gamescom in August could be a sign that things are back on track. Either way, we hope this situation is cleared up, both internally and publicly, soon.

What would you rather see from Gamescom: a new GTA 5 trailer, or more details on the new gameplay and protagonist (who we still think might be the series' first family-man lead)? At this point, we'd settle for some promotional artwork.

Grand Theft Auto 5 is currently in development for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. A Wii U release had been expected, but comments from Take-Two's CEO may have cast doubt on that possibility.

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Source: Gamescom