Take-Two subpoenas Microsoft and Discord after early gameplay footage of GTA VI leaks online

Leaks emerge ahead of scheduled preview

Footage of Grand Theft Auto VI surfaced online on 18 August 2026, three months before the title's planned commercial release. An individual or group operating under the pseudonym Cyberleek distributed at least six gameplay recordings across social media platforms. The clips showed one of the game's two protagonists, identified as Jason Duval, carrying out actions such as driving, flying an aircraft, using a taser, and firing at police officers from a rooftop. Additional footage featured a boat cutscene, the destruction of a luxury sports car, a character shooting bullet holes into a wall to spell the name Leek, and a map of the fictional state of Leonida. Rockstar Games teams in New York and other international studios began internal efforts to trace the breach after reports indicated the leaker possessed a playable build.

Subpoenas filed in federal court

To identify those responsible for distributing the files, Take-Two Interactive filed subpoena petitions in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The filings target Microsoft, which operates the code repository GitHub, and the messaging platform Discord. Take-Two requested that Microsoft provide business and investigative logs associated with the Cyberleek account. The application targeting Discord demands account identities, phone numbers, and linked profiles for users including CYBERLEEK, CINEMATICROCKSTAR, and Surfer24k, as well as records from servers such as !Odyssey and a channel run by content creator DarkViperAU. Both tech companies have until 4 September 2026 to deliver the requested records. The action follows a previous 2022 breach of the game by a member of the hacking group Lapsus$, who was subsequently sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.

Developer reactions and physical media dispute

The person distributing the footage claimed the leaks served as a protest against Rockstar's distribution model, specifically the decision not to provide physical disc media in retail boxes at launch. The uploader simultaneously solicited cryptocurrency payments from viewers, prompting the consumer advocacy campaign Stop Killing Games to condemn the incident. Wesley Yin-Poole, director of news at IGN, noted the toll such disclosures take on studio staff who spent years building the title.

GTA 6 is an enormous endeavour. It's being built over the course a decade, essentially, with thousands of people involved. To have the game exposed in this way will have been devastating to many people who worked on it.

Market response and rollout schedule

The leak led to temporary market movement for Take-Two Interactive, with reports citing a valuation decline of between $2 billion and $2.83 billion before stock prices rebounded, keeping the publisher's market capitalization around $43 billion. Former Rockstar technical director Obbe Vermeij explained that the company has traditionally preserved strict confidentiality around its projects. While Take-Two Chief Executive Strauss Zelnick has left open the possibility of a physical disc edition in the future, the publisher plans to broadcast a 30-minute preview on Netflix on 27 August 2026. The full title remains scheduled for release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles on 19 November 2026.

We always wanted to keep things a secret. And the reason was that it makes launch day so much more fun.