Several clips of GTA 6 gameplay have leaked online after what appears to be a cyber attack has taken place at developer Rockstar Games. The footage appears to be legitimate, with gameplay seemingly showing protagonist Jason playing basketball and driving through the city streets. The full map of GTA 6 also appears to have been leaked, showing the full scope of what we’ll be able to explore when the game finally drops on November 19, 2026.
Leak timing and claimed responsibility
The leak arrives just a week ahead of when Rockstar Games is due to show off the game to the world officially as part of a Netflix ‘Extended Look’. The gameplay footage was leaked in the afternoon of Tuesday, August 18. While it’s unclear exactly who leaked the gameplay footage, one individual or group has come forward to claim responsibility – and they’ve issued a manifesto with it.
Cyberleek claims that the reason for leaking GTA 6 gameplay footage is in protest of Rockstar’s ‘anti-consumer’ practicses, including opting to forgo a physical disc and for taking pre-order money for a digital only product. The website lists three commandments in its manifesto: Commandment I: Thou Shalt Not Sell Digital Preorders; Commandment II: Thou Shalt Not Sell Fake Single-Player DLC; Commandment III: Thou Shalt Preserve Single-Player Content.
Cyberleek cites 2014’s The Crew as one of the inspirations for why the hacking group was started. Ubisoft famously shut down that game years after it was released with its always online nature preventing it from being played any longer by those who paid for it. “Publishers should beware,” the group threatens. “If CYBERLEEK can reach Rockstar, no one is safe. This is a message to all big corpo: behave, or be the next target.”
Authenticity and age of footage
Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s publisher, is issuing DMCA takedowns on reuploads of the leaked footage, which adds fuel to the fire that the clips are legitimate. Meta-data from the clips seem to indicate that the footage is relatively old, though – it’s thought they were captured sometime in 2024. As such, it’s likely that the game has come a long way since then with a myriad of changes to how the game looks, feels, and plays.
Six details from the gameplay leaks
Bear in mind that all of these details are taken from the leaked footage, and given how old said footage is, these mechanics and features may have changed by the time the full game releases later this year.
Cars will need to be refuelled – In the clip that shows Jason driving around the streets of Leonida, we can see two new dials appear on the HUD. These appear to show an engine and a fuel gauge. It looks like players will need to think about when they refuel their cars, potentially having to pay for gasoline too. As for the engine, it could be that cars now have durability beyond the typical wear and tear we’re used to seeing while treating our cars like Hot Wheels toys in GTA V. It might be that we have to take our vehicles for services to keep them running smoothly, further adding to the heightened realism that Rockstar appears to be going for with GTA 6. Another bonus detail here is that, as expected, it looks like we’ll need to store weapons in the trunk of our car and manually collect them when we want to use them.
6-star wanted level returns – Also spotted in the driving section when Jason earns a wanted level, the stars appear in the top corner as is tradition in GTA games. The difference to GTA 5 though is that there are now six stars instead of five. This is actually how wanted levels worked in all GTA games prior to 5. The sixth star is saved for scenarios that require a full-on military response. We’re talking tanks, army helicopters, the lot.
Police can ID you based on three factors – One completely new feature to GTA 6 looks to be a police profiling feature. When being chased by the authorities, three new icons are spotted in the top corner of the screen, which look to be some sort of garage, a blank face, and a car. Running theories are that even if you manage to evade the police’s vicinity, they’ll still be able to identify you by your face, clothing, or vehicle depending on what you were wearing and driving when you committed the offence. As such, players will likely need to be a bit more crafty in how they evade the law, potentially swapping out their outfit or car to fully escape their clutches.
It looks like there’s a karma system similar to Red Dead Redemption 2 – In one of the leaked clips, we see Jason beat up a citizen. In fairness, he does come at him with a wrench after Jason hits his delivery truck with his car. Either way, after beating up the citizen, a little devil icon appears on the side of the screen with a negative symbol next to it. This appears to be very similar to the karma system that was in Red Dead Redemption 2, which influenced how NPCs perceived you and what your final ending of the game was.
Both protagonists exist at the same time in the world – We had a sneaking suspicion that GTA 6 would feature the dual protagonists of Jason and Lucia with both of them playable at different points in the story. This is akin to the three protagonists that GTA 5 had, although it looks like we might actually be able to meet up with the other character in the open world this time. In GTA 5, Franklin, Trevor and Michael only ever existing in the world at the same time when on missions together. There was no way to stumble across them in the open world randomly. However, if we take a look at the screenshot of the GTA 6 map, we can see that there’s an icon over the head of both Lucia and Jason at the same time. This would seem to indicate that we could go visit the other regardless of which one we’re playing as, and without entering a specific mission to do so.
There are two airports – Another detail glimpsed from the GTA 6 map is that there are two airports. One is located near to the city centre, which looks to be the main public one. However, if we look towards the bottom of the Leonida Keys section in the south, there are another couple of slightly smaller runways. This could be a private airfield akin to where Trevor spent most of his time in GTA 5, although there’s also speculation that this could be the location of the game’s military base as there are no other set of runways elsewhere on the map.
The GTA 6 gameplay leaks have given us lots of food for thought, and the best part is that we don’t have much longer to wait until we learn more about the game officially. Rockstar is set to premier the Extended Look at GTA 6 on Netflix next week on August 27. The same presentation will go live on Rockstar’s own YouTube channel six hours later for everyone to watch for free.
