Cult Recruitment Drive Teases Grand Theft Auto V

A mysterious San Andreas religious sect has reappeared ahead of Rockstar’s upcoming sequel.

A Twitter feed and website have spawned for a supposed religious movement called ‘Kifflom’. The new pages are promoting what the group calls the “Epsilon Program,” seemingly another name for its recruitment drive. Not everything is as it seems, though, as Kifflom is in fact a spoof religion from the Grand Theft Auto series.

The mysterious group has appeared throughout the GTA series through radio advertisements and followers on the street, and appears to be a parody of Scientology. All signs point to this being the beginning of a marketing campaign for the upcoming GTA V, especially as the Epsilon Program first emerged in the form of a teaser site for San Andreas.

The Epsilon Program’s Twitter page, @EpsilonismToday, contains only three tweets, with the latest update claiming that Kifflom is the “fastest growing religion in America.” The feed’s bio also linked to a website for the Epsilon Program. Visitors are greeted with constantly-looping background music almost guaranteed to drive them certifiably insane, and snippets of information about the movement such as the “12 Tenets of Kifflom”. The tenets include such “facts” as “Trees talk, but only some people hear them” and “If you have a birth mark, you may be descended from Kraff, the famous Emperor of the 4th Paradigm.” The only thing the Epsilon site is missing is any actual information about Grand Theft Auto, but all its pages are hosted on the Rockstar Games website.

If this does indeed mark the beginning of a viral campaign for GTA V, it has impeccable timing, as the Epsilon Program has resurfaced at almost exactly the same time as Take Two investors’ questions over a marketing push for the game. This kind of viral marketing is usually pretty vague in nature, so it may be some time before we see any concrete details about GTA V‘s release, but it seems likely that we’ll be hearing more from the Epsilon Program before too long.

Source: Epsilon Program via Joystiq