How Vice Atlas rates evidence: E1–E6, with live examples

Every claim we publish carries a label — confirmed, inference, speculation, rumor — and under every label sits a simpler question: what kind of evidence backs this? We grade that on a six-step ladder, strongest to weakest. Here it is in plain language, with real examples from our own coverage.

The ladder

The strong end, live

The 19 November 2026 release date is E1: Rockstar said it in its own channels, so it is confirmed on its own. That the official trailers exist and depict open-world action in Leonida is E2: the footage is first-party, so what it plainly shows is strong enough to confirm alone — while anything read into the footage isn't covered and has to earn its own grade.

The middle, live

One E3 report is good information but not confirmation; our rule requires two independent E3 sources before a claim can be called confirmed on reporting alone. The live example is historical now: before Rockstar fixed the date, we tracked "releases in 2026" as an E3-backed inference — solid reporting, honestly short of official — and that record sits superseded in our history, exactly as it should.

The weak end, live

E4 (a single insider) and E5 (leaks and datamines) currently back nothing in our public record — we carry no claims at those tiers, which is itself worth knowing. E5 material we reference at most as an event, never republished, and it can support nothing stronger than a rumor label. E6 is community inference, and it's where our genuinely open questions live: the map's size and the online mode both sit at E6, because nothing official anchors either one — useful weather, never forecast.

Why the labels look stubborn

The ladder is why our labels sometimes lag the conversation. A claim doesn't climb because it's popular, repeated, or probably true; it climbs when better evidence arrives — a stronger source, or two independent ones where there was one. That's the entire method, and it's why "confirmed" on this site means something.

What changes this: The ladder itself is fixed; what moves is where claims sit on it. Every new official statement, piece of official media, or independent report re-grades the record — and the examples above get swapped for fresher ones as the record moves.