New footage of Grand Theft Auto VI has leaked ahead of its big Netflix reveal, teasing minor but impactful gameplay tweaks.
In nine days, Rockstar will premiere an “extended look” at Grand Theft Auto VI via Netflix. But internet sleuths are never satisfied waiting, and so Tuesday afternoon, two clips purportedly showing off a leaked build of the game hit the web.
Each video is a little over a minute long. To get an idea of how closely Rockstar appears to be monitoring things, between when I started to write this and publication, the original uploads were already taken down with a copyright claim. That might say something about their legitimacy. These videos were also plastered with URLs, QR codes, and ads for somebody’s cryptocurrency, which is unfortunately exactly the kind of clout chasing you’d expect to be attached to a GTA leak in 2026.
One of the pieces of footage shows protagonist Jason getting some fresh air at his house by the water, and shooting some hoops. This is the less relevant of the two clips to us at The Drive, though one particular point to note is that when Jason makes a basket, he gains a “Focus” stat. Perhaps GTA 6 will give people a reason to engage in all those frivolous recreational activities that some of us (hi) avoided in the last game, but that’s neither here nor there.
The other clip involves driving, if only briefly, and I’ve already seen some try to extrapolate sweeping inferences about the vehicle physics from it. It all happens at low speed, with the player ripping some handbrake turns in a rusted-out 1970 Vapid Ganado—the Ranchero-looking ride we’ve seen before. At one point, the pickup gets tagged by a mail truck and spins. The driver of the other vehicle can’t let it go, comes back to ram Jason again, and pauses his day of deliveries for a fight he’s bound to lose.
As this brawl happens and Jason very quickly emerges victorious, a naughty devil-emoji-style icon appears on the right side of the screen, perhaps indicating some kind of honor system. And when he walks past the truck’s bed to get back inside, options to modify his loadout appear overhead.
In previous games, you could basically carry as much equipment as you wanted, but GTA 6 appears to be a little more grounded. Similarly, tiny icons for the Ganado’s engine and fuel appear over the mini-map when Jason returns to the driver’s seat, hinting that you’ll have some additional considerations when wheeling about Leonida.
Based on all of these little details, some have inferred that GTA 6 is going in a slower-pace, more methodical, and realistic direction. I personally feel like I can’t make that call after two minutes of rather low-intensity gameplay, and it pretty much just looked like classic GTA 5 to my eye, with more intricate animations and much better lighting and shadows.
Some have said that these captures date back to 2023, suggesting that the final product will benefit from a visual bump. The footage shown with the publisher’s blessing on Netflix is sure to look better than this low-quality stream though—that’s for certain.
(The Drive)