• Screenshots, video and much more apparently leaked showing off Grand Theft Auto VI. 
• The authenticity of these leaks were debated for a while, but many assumed they were real due to the high amount of effort put into them. 
• Rockstar has now confirmed their authenticity, revealing that it comes from a “network intrusion”. 

It’s been a wild few days in the world of the unreleased and much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI as a seemingly endless amount of leaks from the game hit the internet. There was still a question about the authenticity of what we were seeing, but now Rockstar Games has confirmed it all to be real.

A collection of the leaks can be found here on Reddit but we will not be sharing any of it ourselves, for reasons we will get into around the source of how this was obtained.

There is almost a hundred videos showing off various parts of grand Theft Auto VI in various states of development with clearly unfinished sections such as a lack of UI, developer console elements visible on screen, low resolution graphics, missing animations and much more.

The consensus on all these videos, before the statement from Rockstar, was that, should this be a fake, it would be one of the best fakes ever created.

We didn’t have to wait long for that statement, however, as the company has now revealed it all to come from a security breach.

“We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto. At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects,” Rockstar Games writes on Twitter.

We have to laugh at the fact that, right in this first paragraph, a mention of live services was made.

It’s no secret that Grand Theft Auto Online is a massive cashcow receiving the overwhelming attention of development after Grand Theft Auto V was released. Since 2013 the singleplayer of the game has received next to nothing new outside of ports to new consoles while the online portion has received constant updates and additional content.

Infamously Rockstar promised singleplayer DLC for GTA V, which simply never happened.

Many have speculated to that the runaway success of Grand Theft Auto Online is the reason that Grand Theft Auto VI has taken so long to come out – why make something new when what you have is already generating so much money?

That speculation aside the leaks have had players wondering what happens now, but it seems it’s business as usual.

“We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way. Our work on the next Grand Theft Auto game will continue as planned and we remain as committed as ever to delivering an experience to you, our players, that truly exceeds your expectations. We will update everyone again soon and, of course, will properly introduce you to this next game when it is ready. We want to thank everyone for their ongoing support through this situation,’ Rockstar adds.

What we do expect to happen in the interim, however, is forced removal of the leaked content online by way of DMCAs and other legal tactics. We’ve already seen Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive allegedly start this process, so remains to be seen how much of the leak will be easily available in the future.

To make the story even more interesting the same person or group responsible for these leaks could also be the on behind the recent Uber hack. The FBI is looking into these matters and Uber itself believes they are one and the same.

“We believe that this attacker (or attackers) are affiliated with a hacking group called Lapsus$, which has been increasingly active over the last year or so. This group typically uses similar techniques to target technology companies, and in 2022 alone has breached Microsoft, Cisco, Samsung, Nvidia and Okta, among others. There are also reports over the weekend that this same actor breached video game maker Rockstar Games. We are in close coordination with the FBI and US Department of Justice on this matter and will continue to support their efforts,” the ride hailing company writes.

Right now GTA 6 is trending on Twitter with, according to the social media platform, more than 167 000 tweets made using that abbreviation. We have to imagine there’s much more than that counting the full discussion on these events.