Take-Two Interactive is actively working to identify the person or group behind the GTA 6 CyberLeek account after a rapid series of unauthorized releases hit the internet just days before an official presentation. The parent company of Rockstar Games has already subpoenaed Microsoft, Discord, GitHub, and X in an effort to halt the circulation of the stolen material and trace its source.
CyberLeek has released 11 GTA 6 gameplay videos along with an image of the full map across a short window of days. These clips show various sequences featuring the game’s protagonists and systems, leading Take-Two to confirm that at least some of the content is authentic.
Former Rockstar Games technical director Obbe Vermeij addressed the situation on X, stating that the Hot Coffee scandal was much more damaging than these GTA 6 leaks. Vermeij, who worked at Rockstar North for many years, used the post to push for greater perspective on the current events.
In his comments he wrote, “Calm down everybody. The leaks are a nothing burger,” positioning the episode as relatively minor against the title’s longer trajectory. He went on to outline Rockstar’s approach, noting that “As a marketing strategy R* is trying to keep the game under wraps longer than other publishers. All that has happened is that some footage has escaped. Slightly ahead of the Netflix thing next week.”
Vermeij then focused on the larger player base that will decide the project’s commercial fate. “90% of future players don’t spend their time on the internet looking for video snippets. They don’t have the time and don’t want spoilers,” he explained, arguing the clips will go largely unnoticed by most. He added that the development teams are probably only mildly frustrated, writing, “I imagine the teams are a little annoyed about it but not more than that. I was there during Hot Coffee. It was a nightmare for management (R*NewYork) but didn’t affect us (R*North) much. The current leaks are far less consequential than HC was.”
He finished the core portion of his remarks with strong confidence in the finished product. “It looks like GTA 6 will be phenomenal and sell for the next 15 years or so. The leaks are just a tiny blip,” Vermeij said, placing the recent leaks against a much wider commercial horizon.
The Hot Coffee scandal broke in 2005 after modders found unfinished code left on discs of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. That hidden material unlocked a crude interactive sex scene never meant for release. The discovery sparked intense political backlash, forced a temporary Adults Only rating, and resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements for Rockstar and Take-Two.
When discussing the actual damage from that earlier crisis, Vermeij was direct. “No, it really hurt,” he said of the Hot Coffee fallout. “The game had to be withdrawn from stores in the USA. It could only be sold as 18+ until the new version was ready. It is estimated to have cost $50 million which was a lot of money for R*/T2 at the time.” Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser has separately described the period as one that nearly caused the company to implode.
There is speculation that CyberLeek has a working build of GTA 6, based on the interactive quality of some of the released footage. Vermeij responded that any such build would almost certainly require a development kit with additional memory and would not run on a standard retail PlayStation 5.
With the official GTA 6: An Extended Look still scheduled for its timed-exclusive premiere on Netflix this Thursday, the leaks arrive as an unwelcome disruption but one that appears limited in long-term effect. Vermeij’s assessment reinforces that a project of this scale is unlikely to be derailed by a collection of early clips, even as the security breach continues to frustrate the teams completing the game.
