Rockstar releases statement after a week of GTA VI leaks, avoids mentioning leaker’s demands — says that gameplay leaks have been ‘heartbreaking for our team’

The developer and publisher of the much-awaited game finally released a statement on the leaks of the game that dropped last week. Rockstar Games said on its X account that the gameplay leaks aren’t how it intended for its fans to see the game and also apologized for the massive delay in the release of the title. However, nothing in the post says anything about the alleged leaker’s protest on the pre-selling of digital copies of GTA VI and their other demands.

“It would be an understatement to say that having videos of Grand Theft Auto VI gameplay leak in this way has been heartbreaking for our team, and this is obviously not how we intended for you to see the game after all this time. We are very sorry that everything has taken as long as it has — from getting the game finished (nearly there!) to sharing more details and official gameplay, and providing the community with everything you want to know,” Rockstar said in its statement. It also added, “While it is unfortunate that the intended game experience may now be impacted by some spoilers, we hope that everyone will wait a bit longer to experience the game for themselves on November 19.” Although we still have about three months before the game finally becomes available on Xbox X|S and the PlayStation 5, an extended look at the game is also dropping tomorrow on Netflix.

Cyberleek started leaking gameplay clips, along with a detailed map of Leonidas, last week. While it was initially thought that the leaked clips were already over a year old, another set of leaks revealed that the hacker actually has a complete working build of the game. They even shot out “LEEK” on a wall to prove that they were playing the game and not just downloading or faking clips. Rockstar has been quiet while the leaks were whipping up a storm on the internet, but its parent company, Take-Two Interactive, issued a subpoena to Microsoft to get the Windows device IDs of all the members of three Discord servers.

Gamers just need to be patient a little bit more, as the release is less than 12 weeks away, at least for consoles, as a PC version hasn’t been announced yet. Nevertheless, there are those who are taking advantage of the popularity of the game and have been releasing malware disguised as leaks of GTA VI. Downloading pirated games online has always been problematic, but downloading an unreleased title off the internet is an absolute recipe for disaster. It’s understandable that a few people are so excited about the title that they cannot wait for the official release to get their hands on it, but three months will pass by quickly, especially for those who have been anticipating the next GTA installment for more than a decade now. After all, good things come to those who wait.