Rockstar baulks as a Charlie Kirk assassination mission is created in GTA Online, bans it and censors his name, but there's more out there

On December 10, 2025, Rockstar added a long-requested feature to GTA Online, and one that most fans feel is a trial run for an even more detailed rollout in the next iteration of the sandbox: a mission creator. Allowing players to "design and publish" their own missions within GTA Online, creators can set and tweak objectives, characters and mechanics to create their own scenarios, and then share them with the wider playerbase.

An omnipresent hazard with community creation tools is content created in bad taste, and soon enough Rockstar had an absolute all-timer on its hands. One player used the tools to put together a mission called "We are Charlie Kirk", in which players recreate the assassination of the rightwing political commentator and content creator Charlie Kirk. Kirk was making a public appearance at Utah Valley University in September last year when he was shot and killed. His alleged killer is in custody and awaiting trial, with prosecutors intending to seek the death penalty.

To briefly explain the GTA Online mission: the player spawns on a roof overlooking a crowd and a small tent, which approximates the layout seen at Utah Valley University. Walking forward to the edge of the roof, the player will find a sniper rifle. Various sound effects and crowd noises play. The goal of the mission is to then shoot the Charlie Kirk character, which results in a mission success screen and the awarding of some sort of in-game XP.

gta online los santos tuners — (Image credit: Rockstar)

The Charlie Kirk assassination was and remains a topic of enormous controversy online, with vitriolic perspectives on every side and in some cases real-world consequences: Disney took the popular comedian Jimmy Kimmel off-air after he joked about it, and he was only reinstated following a statement of contrition. US Vice President JD Vance called on people to report anyone celebrating the assassination to their employers. Over four months on, the assassination remains a lightning rod for US-based political discourse.

Rockstar has clearly decided it doesn't want any part of this near GTA Online, because it has banned the "We Are Charlie Kirk" mission. Rockstar has also added "Charlie Kirk" to GTA Online's profanity filter, meaning players cannot search for any future content that may be created using his name.

It's unclear exactly when Rockstar removed the map itself. It's also the case that other player-created missions exist that seem to be using variant spellings to get around the ban on Kirk's name. You can use Rockstar's custom jobs site for GTA Online to find these. Searching for "Kirk" served up three missions along similar lines. Searching for "Charlie" serves up another six missions related to the topic.

Rockstar is obviously taking steps to try and suppress such missions, though its success thus far seems questionable. Two things are clear: It doesn't want this kind of thing in GTA Online. And it may well have a fight on its hands to stop it.

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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