Take Two Interactive has launched legal proceedings in New York over apparent GTA 6 leaks, turning a messy online spread of clips into a legal fight. The company is now asking for user details tied to accounts it believes shared copyrighted material.
The move comes after a string of apparent leaks seemed to show Grand Theft Auto 6 in action, with copies of the clips being removed quickly under copyright claims. Rockstar has not publicly acknowledged the material or responded to requests for comment since the first clips appeared on Wednesday.
That is why the searches are spiking now. Rockstar had already announced a special 30-minute look at the game, and the leaks landed in the middle of the wait for a preview that has been more than 18 months in the making. For a series that usually keeps details locked down, the timing is awkward and the images have been hard to ignore.
Newsbeat obtained filings showing that Microsoft-owned site GitHub and Discord are being asked to hand over user details for accounts thought to be sharing the material. Multiple accounts claiming to belong to the group behind the hacks have also disappeared, suggesting the cleanup is moving as fast as the sharing did.
Obbe Vermeij, who worked as a technical director on GTA 3, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas until he left Rockstar in 2009, said it is remarkable how well the company has usually kept things secret. He said that was always part of the appeal, because the surprise on launch day made the moment more fun for players who knew very little before they bought the game.
That is where the online reaction gets murkier. Fans called the leaks a nightmare scenario, but the reality is less simple when a game this large is involved. Wesley Yin-Poole said GTA 6 is an enormous undertaking built over a decade with thousands of people involved, and that exposure of this kind would have been devastating to many of them.
The group behind the apparent leaks has claimed to be acting in players' interests and has accused Rockstar of anti-consumer practices, including a decision not to release a disc version of GTA 6 at launch. But the claim has not stopped the takedowns, and the legal filings now suggest the next phase will be fought over who shared what, and who has to identify them. The clips may keep disappearing, but the court case is only beginning.
