Somewhere in central Florida, a resort owner is typing in all caps.
“THIS IS NOT A LEGITIMATE GUEST REVIEW,” reads one reply on the Google listing for Cypress Cove Nudist Resort. It’s not a complaint about towels or wifi. It’s a business owner trying to explain, in public, that the people leaving glowing notes about binoculars and firearms are talking about a video game.
The game is GTA 6, obviously. And the reason Cypress Cove got dragged into it goes back to August.
How a leak turned into a review-bombing campaign
The August GTA 6 leaks revealed a number of elements about Rockstar’s long-awaited sequel before the company’s own Extended Look on Netflix. The leaked footage gave fans an unofficial glimpse at the combat and at Vice City itself.
One of the places the leaker wandered through in that footage was a nudist resort, populated, as you’d expect, by NPCs wearing nothing at all.
Fans then did what fans do. They went looking for the real-world location that may have inspired it, landed on Cypress Cove, and started filling its reviews section with material.
A number of the posts have since been deleted. Search for the retreat on Google, though, and the reviews section still carries plenty of messages with not-so-subtle nods to the game.
“Will be trying to book a reservation on Nov. 19th. I will be playing GTA 6 for 3 days straight while nude in my RV,” reads one.
“I was troubled to hear about the incident that occurred in August,” reads another, a reference to the carnage the leaker caused while running around the area in-game.
The owner is not playing along
Rather than let the joke sit there confusing anyone actually shopping for a vacation, the owner replied to a handful of the posts directly.
“For anyone wondering about the suddenly recurring references to ‘Jason Duval,’ ‘Lucia,’ binoculars, a pool, firearms, and other suspiciously similar details — those are references to Grand Theft Auto VI.”
Then the flat delivery of someone who has had enough: “Yes. A video game. These reviews appear to be part of a coordinated series of fabricated posts using GTA VI references and attaching them to our actual business.”
The word choice there is worth noting. Appear to be. Even the person on the receiving end is describing what they’re seeing, not claiming certainty about who organized it.
Then somebody asked for money
This is where the bit stops being a bit. According to the owner, the people behind some of these posts tried to get the resort to pay to have them taken down.
“They were then followed by a request that we PAY MONEY to have the reviews changed or removed,” they continued. “We will not pay. We will not negotiate.”
Six words, two sentences, no wiggle room. You don’t often see a small business handle an extortion attempt with that much composure in a Google reply box.
A note to the guests, and a note to everyone else
Later in the same response, the owner split the audience in two and addressed both.
“For our actual guests and anyone researching Cypress Cove: please understand that these posts do not describe genuine guest experiences at our resort. And to whoever is behind them: We appreciate the commitment to the GTA storyline, but Cypress Cove is located in Florida — not Leonida.”
That last line does more work than any of the fake reviews. It’s a Florida nudist resort correcting the fictional geography of an unreleased Rockstar game, and it lands.
It keeps happening
Fans of a game aiming this energy at an unrelated business isn’t new. Earlier this year a hotel that happened to share its name with an Arc Raiders map got the same treatment.
What makes the Cypress Cove version stranger is how thin the connection is. Nobody has confirmed the resort inspired anything. The link comes entirely from unverified leaked footage and fans deciding the resemblance was close enough to act on.
Rockstar hasn’t said a word about a nudist resort in Vice City. Everything anyone thinks they know about that location comes from material the studio didn’t release.
Which leaves a real business in Florida fielding jokes about characters from a game its guests can’t play yet, over a location that may or may not exist in it.
And an owner who has now committed, in writing, to the position that his resort is in Florida and not Leonida.
