5 things we learned from the GTA 6 video leak

GTA 6 is one of the most wanted video games ever developed, so it's not a surprise that yesterday's massive leak of in-game footage has taken the web by storm.

With developers liking tweets about it and corporate lawyers sending the takedown notices at high speed it was quickly made clear that the footage isn't fake, and that means it's a treasure trove of information about what we'll see and experience in GTA 6.

Here are five key things we've learned from the GTA 6 video leak.

1. You can play as two genders

We expected this already thanks to previous reports, but the footage confirms it: GTA 6 will be the first game in the series with the option to play as a female protagonist rather than as a man. Welcome to the twenty-first century! Who know, maybe we'll get a non-binary protagonist in GTA 12.

2. It's in Vice City

Several clips include the words Vice City, which appears to confirm rumours that GTA 6 would be set in the same fictionalised version of Miami and Miami Beach as GTA: Vice City. So that means lots of neon giving way to the much more grimy world that exists beyond the glitz of the clubs and tourist traps.

3. GTA 6 isn't "going woke"

Just because GTA 6 has finally got round to representing 51% of the population doesn't mean it's suddenly become sanitised: key scenes in the leak take place around pole dancing in strip clubs irrespective of which gender you choose to play. The idea that GTA could ever become "woke" (a phrase only used negatively by clowns) was always laughable, but here's the evidence to comprehensively disprove it.

4. Some of the footage is very old

A lot of the footage is very far from being finished, with lots of placeholders showing where assets will eventually go, NPCs wandering through walls and the odd recycled asset from previous games. But that doesn't mean the clips show where the game is at now: some of the footage is on a PS4 dev kit. However, that doesn't mean we can assume a release is imminent either. Not least because...

5. Rockstar says it won't delay the GTA 6 release date

According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who confirmed that the leaked videos were real, the leak is going to be a nightmare for Rockstar staff: as he posted on Twitter, "There are several reasons this is a nightmare for Rockstar. One is that it'll disrupt work for a while. Another is that it may lead management to limit work-from-home flexibility. The repercussions of this leak might not be clear for quite a while." 

The last leak of this scale, of Half-Life 2 back in 2003, delayed the game's release by a year. But Rockstar says that isn't going to happen here. According to a spokesperson, "At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects."