GTA VI footage leaked by hackers with a manifesto — and Rockstar's DMCA strikes prove it's real
A hacker group called Cyberleek posted GTA VI gameplay footage on August 18 — nine days before Rockstar's planned showcase on Netflix. Rockstar and Take-Two responded within hours with DMCA takedowns, the same aggressive playbook used after the massive 2022 leak, which most observers read as confirmation the footage is genuine.
The footage
The clips show protagonist Jason playing basketball, driving around a Leonida-state map that includes Vice City and its surroundings, and triggering a six-star wanted level. The leaked material looks rough, and that roughness is the tell: insider NateTheHate on ResetEra says the UI elements appear unfinished, which rules out this being preview material prepared for an official showcase. Insider Gaming puts the build at late 2023 or earlier — metadata pointed to November 2023, but fans quickly noted that date tags the ffmpeg encoding software used to compress the video, not the recording itself.
Leaked GTA VI gameplay footage shows an unfinished UI — a detail insiders say rules out official preview material.
In short: old build, real game.
The demands
Cyberleek isn't just leaking for sport. The group published a manifesto framing itself as a consumer-rights actor, listing three demands aimed at Rockstar and the wider industry:
- No digital pre-orders — advance purchases should be limited to physical editions only. - No locked day-one DLC — content already on the disc or in the download should not be sold separately. - Mandatory offline mode — games must remain playable after servers shut down.
These grievances will sound familiar to anyone who has watched a purchased game become unplayable after a studio winds down its servers. GTA V Online ran for over a decade; there's no guarantee GTA VI's online component will last as long.
Cyberleek's manifesto targets digital pre-orders, locked DLC, and the lack of offline modes across the industry.
The group added a threat: "If Cyberleek could reach Rockstar, no one is safe." That line lands differently given that Cyberleek is also promoting a memecoin — using a consumer-rights platform to drive crypto speculation doesn't strengthen the manifesto's credibility.
What's coming
GTA VI launches November 19, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. It's digital-only — no disc version — with a Standard edition priced at $79.99 and an Ultimate at $99.99. Pre-orders are live on the PlayStation and Xbox storefronts now. The Netflix extended look airs August 27, and at this point Cyberleek has already stolen most of its thunder.
Whether this is a genuine hack or a Rockstar-engineered slow burn ahead of the reveal, the conversation around digital ownership, game preservation, and DLC pricing is real — and louder now than it was a week ago.