After more than a week of non-stop Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks from a source known as Cyberleeks, Rockstar has finally issued its first public comment on the situation.
In the post, which has already racked up 380,000 likes on Twitter in just over an hour, Rockstar calls the situation “heartbreaking for the team” and that it is “obviously not how we intended for you to see the game after all this time.” Why now? A number of reasons.
- Rockstar recognizes that actual GTA 6 story spoilers are supposed to begin today, as promised by Cyberleeks, as opposed to simply locations and normal gameplay. There has been a cutscene clip of Lucia at the time of this writing, but the promise of more to come today.
- There is no reference to identifying the leaker or stopping the leaks, and as of a few days ago, internal reporting said that Rockstar couldn’t find them, nor did it know how the leak of a playable build happened in the first place at that point.
- After over a week, there was a point where this had to be addressed, even if the leaks had not yet been stopped, given that, as far as we know, this could continue indefinitely. This is also one day ahead of the official Netflix gameplay premiere, though at this point, that may show off the same amount of footage as the leaks, given how much has been released.
A problem here is that GTA 6 is still a full three months away. This is not happening right before launch. There is no telling just how much might end up leaked by the end of all this, though we don’t know the state of the investigation at this point, and Rockstar isn’t sharing that. But the cadence of leaks, which is now as many as three a day, is increasing, if anything. Even with the gameplay reveal tomorrow, there’s nothing to say that a lot more won’t be leaked after that, and of course, the threat of story spoilers going forward.
The situation is one of the wildest in gaming history, given the context of GTA 6 shaping up to be the largest consumer product release ever. The fact that one person, or group, potentially has a full build of the game ahead of launch and can post whatever they feel like, whenever they feel like it, is pretty unprecedented, especially for a game of this scale. And there really is no other game of this scale. We’ll see what happens next, but for now, the GTA 6 official look on Netflix drops tomorrow at 3 PM ET.
Here is the Rockstar statement in full:
“Dear all, We know that many of you have been waiting to hear from us regarding the events of the past week. It would be an understatement to say that having videos of Grand Theft Auto VI gameplay leak in this way has been heartbreaking for our team, and this is obviously not how we intended for you to see the game after all this time. We are very sorry that everything has taken as long as it has — from getting the game finished (nearly there!) to sharing more details and official gameplay, and providing the community with everything you want to know.
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We are very excited for everyone to see the extended look tomorrow. It has taken longer than we wanted to get it ready, but as with everything we do, we know we need to exceed your expectations, and we are determined to deliver at the level you expect and deserve. While it is unfortunate that the intended game experience may now be impacted by some spoilers, we hope that everyone will wait a bit longer to experience the game for themselves on November 19.
We want to thank everyone in the community who has reached out with messages of support this past week — your words have meant more to this team than you can imagine. Ultimately, we are making this game for you, and without you, we would not have the privilege of making games.
We look forward to sharing more with you soon. Sincerely, Rockstar Games”
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