An individual or group calling itself CyberLeek has begun posting what appears to be unfinished footage from Grand Theft Auto VI, arriving roughly three months before the game’s launch and a week before an extended look premieres on Netflix. The leaker has published videos of driving, fighting, a basketball mini game and flying, along with images purportedly showing the game’s full map.
The latest clip shows main character Jason shooting the word “Leek” into a wall, suggesting the leakers have more than a folder of stolen recordings. Alongside the footage, CyberLeek has published a manifesto on consumer rights, launched its own cryptocurrency, and asked people to spend that token to vote on which footage it releases next.
Grand Theft Auto VI is the long-awaited next installment in Rockstar Games’ open-world crime series. Its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto V, was released in 2013, meaning fans have been waiting more than a decade for this one.
Who is CyberLeek?
CyberLeek is the name used by an unidentified person or group releasing alleged GTA 6 development material. It is not known who is behind it, where the operator is located, or how the footage was obtained. It is also unclear whether one person is running the operation or whether multiple people are involved.
The group presents itself as a kind of digital vigilante fighting for video game consumers. Its homepage advertises “community voting,” “decentralized leeks” and “no wallet connect,” all under a pixelated image of a leek wearing tactical gear — the vegetable.
CyberLeek has also published what it calls the “CYBERLEEK Edict,” a manifesto arguing that major game publishers have made the industry worse for customers. It lists three rules — “commandments,” in its language — that it wants publishers to follow. It opposes digital preorders, paid add-ons that merely unlock single-player material already contained in a game, and the permanent loss of single-player content when a publisher shuts down its servers.
According to CyberLeek, any publisher that breaks one of those rules could become a future target. It says the leaks will continue until its demands are met.
What the leaked footage shows
The first CyberLeek videos appeared on Aug. 18 and seemed to show an unfinished version of GTA 6. One clip featured Jason Duval, one of the game’s two main characters, shooting a basketball. Another showed him driving, fighting, stealing a vehicle and attracting the attention of the police. Later videos reportedly showed Jason and NPCs using tasers, as well as a short cut scene.
CyberLeek has also released images it claims show the complete map of Leonida, the fictional state inspired by Florida where GTA 6 takes place. Fans have been examining the footage for hints about how the game will work, including possible fuel gauges for vehicles, weapon-storage systems and new ways of escaping the police.
There is an important caveat. If the footage is authentic, it appears to come from an unfinished development build — a working version used while a game is still being created and tested. Anything in that version could have been changed, improved or removed before release. The videos have also been repeatedly downloaded and reposted, reducing their quality each time, so they are not a reliable indication of how the finished game will look.
None of the footage has been publicly authenticated by Rockstar. Take-Two, Rockstar’s parent company, has submitted copyright claims to remove copies of the videos. That suggests the company considers the material to be copyrighted, but it does not independently prove that every CyberLeek video or claim is legitimate. Convincing, AI-generated “leaks” also circulate regularly in GTA 6 fan communities, and it remains possible that some of CyberLeek’s material has been altered or generated using AI.
Why the newest clip changed the conversation
The most recent video begins with Jason flying a small plane over a large, highly detailed section of the game’s world while switching between radio stations. The ending is what shifted the situation for many fans: standing in front of a wall, the player fires enough bullets into it to spell “LEEK.”
Earlier leaks could have been pre-recorded videos taken from Rockstar or one of its business partners. That clip would require someone to control the game in real time — in other words, whoever recorded it may have access to a playable build.
The clip could still be misinterpreted or AI-generated, but a playable build is a far more serious prospect than a limited folder of recordings. A collection of videos eventually runs out. Someone with a playable build could deliberately hunt down missions, cutscenes, plot twists or the ending and publish them before launch.
The complaint about preorders and physical discs
CyberLeek’s clearest complaint involves digital preorders. Customers once preordered games because stores had a limited number of physical discs available; CyberLeek argues the practice no longer benefits customers when the product is a digital download that cannot sell out.
“Preorders were not created for gamers,” the manifesto reads. “They were created because physical discs had manufacturing limits.”
GTA 6 is available for digital preorder, but Rockstar is not releasing the game on a physical disc. Customers can buy a box in a store, but that box will contain a one-time download code instead of the game itself.
That decision arrives as physical games disappear across the industry. In the United States, spending on physical video games fell to approximately $1.5 billion in 2025, its lowest level in 30 years, as players increasingly turned to downloads, subscriptions and cloud gaming. Current consoles such as the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition and Xbox Series S do not include disc drives at all. In July, Sony announced it will stop producing discs for all new PlayStation games beginning in January 2028; games released before then will not be affected, but future releases will be sold digitally.
CyberLeek has turned that frustration into a threat. Some leaked videos include the message “NO PHYSICAL DISCS? THEN MORE LEEKS!” Digital preorders do offer benefits, including letting customers download a large game before launch. CyberLeek’s argument is that publishers should not receive money before a game is available or independently reviewed when digital copies cannot sell out. “If publishers want revenue before launch, they can press discs,” its manifesto says.
Physical media is only one part of the agenda. CyberLeek also opposes charging players to unlock single-player content already contained in a game’s files, which may explain its criticism of GTA 6’s $99.99 Ultimate Edition — though there is no evidence that its exclusive missions and other benefits are included in every copy. It also wants games to remain playable offline after their servers close, citing Ubisoft’s The Crew, which became inaccessible in 2024. Rockstar has not indicated that this will be an issue for GTA 6.
That preservation argument overlaps with Stop Killing Games, an international consumer campaign pushing publishers and governments to keep purchased games playable after official support ends. The campaign has rejected CyberLeek’s tactics. “Using illegal means to make a point is unacceptable to us,” it said in a statement. It also urged people not to send CyberLeek money by buying the group’s memecoin.
The $CYBERLEEK token
CyberLeek has launched a Solana-based memecoin called $CYBERLEEK. A memecoin is a cryptocurrency whose value depends largely on internet attention and speculation rather than an established product or business. CyberLeek says its token will fund a secret project, technical infrastructure and protection from corporate retaliation. Despite insisting that it is “not a cash grab,” the group has not explained what the project is or where the money goes.
The token is also how CyberLeek lets people vote on future leaks. Users send $CYBERLEEK to the option they want, with each token counting toward that choice. The results therefore reflect how much cryptocurrency each option received — not necessarily how many individual people voted.
One poll asked users to choose whether the next video should show a car during the day, a car at night, a motorcycle at night, or a plane during the day. The plane won after receiving more than 147,000 tokens, or 64.4 percent of the total. CyberLeek then released the plane footage, complete with the “LEEK” message at the end. It is a convenient cycle: the GTA 6 footage generates interest in the token, and anyone who wants to influence the next leak must acquire and spend it.
As of the afternoon of Aug. 20, $CYBERLEEK was trading at about $0.001227 per token. Multiplied by the one billion tokens in existence, that produced a possible market capitalization of roughly $1.23 million. Other figures from the same snapshot:
- Liquidity: approximately $198,000 — the pool of money available to support people buying and selling the token.
- Trading volume: $3.89 million.
- Concentration: the 10 largest wallets controlled 51.6 percent of the supply.
With relatively little money supporting a much larger paper valuation, a few large trades could move the price sharply. Some of the largest wallets may belong to trading pools or automated accounts, but the concentration means a small number of wallets could have significant influence over the price. That price has already been extremely volatile: the token surged shortly after launching and then lost much of its value, trading well below the record high it had reached only a day earlier.
Impersonators and unproven links
A growing number of accounts impersonating CyberLeek is making the group harder to track. In a statement shared through what it identifies as its official Telegram channel, CyberLeek said it operates only that channel and its website. Accounts using the name on X, Discord, Instagram and elsewhere should therefore not automatically be treated as legitimate.
Impersonators have already posted supposed story details and leak schedules. CyberLeek denied one timeline circulating through Discord and accused other accounts of editing older posts to make it appear as though they knew about the leaks before they happened. In the same Telegram statement, CyberLeek reportedly referred to Arion Kurtaj, the hacker behind the 2022 GTA 6 leak, as “our colleague.”
There is also no established connection between CyberLeek and ShinyHunters, the ransomware group that claimed responsibility for accessing Rockstar data through a third-party provider in April. Rockstar said that breach involved a limited amount of unimportant company information and did not affect its operations or players. Until CyberLeek explains where its footage came from — or investigators identify the people behind it — claims about its origin remain speculation.
Earlier leaks of this scale
The closest comparison is the 2023 ransomware attack on Insomniac Games, the studio behind PlayStation’s Spider-Man series. After Insomniac refused to pay a roughly $2 million ransom, the Rhysida hacking group released 1.67 terabytes of stolen material, including a playable but unfinished version of Marvel’s Wolverine, plus story details, business plans and sensitive employee information.
A leaker does not need the entire game to ruin its biggest moments. In April 2020, footage from The Last of Us Part II appeared online nearly two months before launch, revealing major character deaths and plot developments, which people then deliberately posted across social media. Sony later said the individuals responsible were not affiliated with Sony or developer Naughty Dog. There is also the risk of exposing how a game works: in 2003, German hacker Axel Gembe stole the source code for Half-Life 2, and the code and an unfinished version of the game appeared online before release. Gembe was eventually arrested after Valve helped lure him into contact with the FBI.
What happens next
Fans are divided. In comments under posts about the leaks, some celebrated finally seeing apparently legitimate GTA 6 footage after years of delays and hype, while others pleaded with people not to amplify the material and risk spoiling the story. Unverified claims have circulated that CyberLeek possesses information about Lucia Caminos, the game’s other main character, and her ending; no evidence currently confirms those claims. Still, if someone can create customized footage from a playable build, the possibility of story spoilers cannot be dismissed outright.
The leaker also has one more prime opportunity to create chaos. Netflix will debut an official extended look at GTA 6 on Aug. 27, before the presentation becomes available more broadly. Any footage released before then could spoil — or simply drain attention from — whatever Rockstar and Netflix have planned. GTA 6 is scheduled to launch on Nov. 19.
