Rockstar Games has publicly responded for the first time to more than a week of leaked Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay footage, calling the leaks 'heartbreaking for our team' in a statement posted to its social media accounts. The company said having the footage surface this way was 'obviously not how we intended for you to see the game after all this time,' and apologized that development and the sharing of official details and gameplay had taken as long as it has.
The leaks began around August 18 when a source calling itself 'Cyberleek' started releasing short clips of gameplay footage, eventually totaling around 30 minutes across roughly 15 videos. The footage has shown the game's map, driving and flying, a police pursuit, a basketball minigame, carjacking mechanics, the return of a six-star Wanted system, a nudist colony, and a beach tour. A fifteenth clip gave the first look at second protagonist Lucia Caminos, showing a brief cutscene with notably detailed facial animation and hair movement, though it cut off before showing substantial gameplay as her character. Cyberleek has also published manifestos framed around 'gamers' rights' and calls for physical game discs, while separately promoting a cryptocurrency tied to the leaks, including requests for donations and a stated goal of '50M trading volume.'
In its statement, Rockstar said it was 'very excited' for fans to see an 'extended look' at the game, which was set to premiere the next day, and said preparing that reveal had also taken longer than intended. The company acknowledged that 'the intended game experience may now be impacted by some spoilers' and asked players to 'wait a bit longer' to experience the game themselves when it releases November 19. Rockstar closed the statement by thanking the community for messages of support, saying 'we are making this game for you.'
Coverage of the statement noted its unusual tone for Rockstar, a studio typically known for tight control over its promotional messaging. Several outlets observed that the apology for delays in sharing details read as an acknowledgment that fan appetite for information—fueled partly by the leaks themselves—had grown due to the long gap since the game was first shown. Some commentary questioned how much the leaked footage, which showed no story or mission details, could really count as 'spoilers,' and suggested the leaks were unlikely to meaningfully hurt sales of a game expected to be enormously successful.
Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar's parent company, has pursued legal action to identify those responsible for the leaks, including subpoenas seeking information from Microsoft and Discord. Microsoft has said it is cooperating, while Discord has said it had not yet been served with the subpoena as of recent reporting; the requested data reportedly covers a large number of users from servers where the leaked footage circulated, raising concerns about the scope of the request. Take-Two's efforts have so far resulted in the takedown of some Discord servers and file-sharing hubs used to spread the footage.
The Netflix 'Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look' was set to debut the day after Rockstar's statement, offering subscribers an early, non-leaked look at the game ahead of its broader release on YouTube six hours later. Grand Theft Auto 6 remains scheduled for release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on November 19.