Hacker targets ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ in apparent leak

The gaming world has been rattled by what appears to be a major leak of the highly anticipated “Grand Theft Auto VI,” with the alleged hacker warning other publishers that “no one is safe” from similar breaches.

Rockstar Games, the company behind the blockbuster “GTA” franchise, is known for tightly guarding unreleased material. But this week, multiple gameplay clips and what appears to be the entire “GTA VI” map surfaced online.

Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive, its parent company, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Neither has issued a public statement regarding the purported hack.

In recent days, multiple social media posts that have shared the apparent leaks have been removed from platforms including X and Reddit.

But the hacker, an individual or group calling itself Cyberleek, continues to release updates. In a post that circulated online on Thursday, Cyberleek framed the security breach as a protest against the gaming industry’s shift toward all-digital releases, a trend that has sparked backlash among players.

“Publishers sell licenses and call them purchases. They ship unfinished games and call them living services. They lock content on discs and call it DLC,” Cyberleek wrote in a public post. “They kill games and keep the money. Every year anti-consumerism tightens its grip, and every year gamers get less for what they pay.”

The extremely popular “GTA” franchise — which launched in 1997 — is an action-adventure video game series that follows players driving around fictional cities to complete missions. But for the first time in the franchise’s 28-year history, Rockstar said the newest “GTA” installment will launch without a physical disc.