The GTA 6 leak campaign has moved fast enough that most coverage assumes you already know what happened last Tuesday. This is the reference version: every dated event from the infrastructure being built to the state of play on August 25, with the sourcing attached.
Nothing here is authenticated by Rockstar, which has made no public statement of any kind since August 6, 2026.
Before the Leak: The Setup
August 14. An Arweave storage name matching the group's later branding is permanently purchased for 13,878 ARIO. Nothing about GTA 6 has leaked. Source: Bitquery on-chain analysis.
August 15. The Solana token first trades against SOL at a fully diluted valuation near $55,000.
August 16. The contract address is posted publicly on X by two accounts. Both go almost unnoticed. Separately, a sneak peek of what is believed to be the Leonida map is shared.
August 16 to 18. Sixty eight hours of near zero volume. The token drifts between $55,000 and $77,000 and is, in Bitquery's description, effectively dead.
August 17. The basketball clip is uploaded to the dark web, per the community forensic timeline reported by Kotaku.
Week One: The Leaks Begin
August 18. Two clips (basketball, and driving with a mail van fight) plus a claimed full Leonida map image appear, watermarked and carrying QR codes for the site and token. Rockstar issues DMCA takedowns within hours. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reports Rockstar sources confirmed the footage is genuine while stressing it is early and unfinished. The manifesto is published. The token runs 13x in an hour, then trades $5.47 million the next hour. Coverage: the initial leak.
August 19. A third clip (strip club, boat cutscene). The map image is called fake by the community GTA 6 Mapping Project. Published demands surface. Stop Killing Games disowns the operation, with director general Moritz Katzner telling supporters: "Do not send these people your money." Coverage: clip three, the demands, the map analysis.
August 20. Clips four and five (taser fight; daytime flight, radio menu, "LEEK" shot into a wall). PC Gamer and others read the bullet writing as evidence of a playable build. Eight radio station names surface. Take-Two files subpoena requests in the Southern District of New York. Coverage: clip five, the radio lineup.
August 21. Clip six (hypercar). Community analysis traces the operation's funding to a KYC exchange, estimating roughly $50,000 received. Bloomberg reports Rockstar has neither identified the leaker nor determined how the breach happened. Coverage: the KuCoin trail.
August 22. Clips seven and eight (gas station robbery with refuel and repair pricing; strip club interior). The leaker's website and Telegram go offline, then a new clip appears anyway. Reported sponsorship rate card: $165,000 for an initial meeting. Coverage: clips seven and eight, the ad sales story.
Week Two: Escalation
August 23. Clip nine ("gas2": bathtub of gasoline, first Wasted screen, "Return to Lucia" objective). Subpoena details become public. Coverage: clip nine.
August 24. Clips ten and eleven (night flight with a fishing spot popup; "Nudist Town" with binocular prompts). The token is confirmed as the engine of the operation across mainstream coverage. Discord says it has not been served and will "evaluate the validity and scope before responding." The leaker floats releasing a Lucia led prologue. Coverage: clips ten and eleven, the Lucia threat.
August 25. Three clips in one day, including the beach clip that triggered the strongest community reaction of the run over crowd density, and Game Horde, a game shop selling physical discs, used to restate the campaign as being about ownership rather than discs. A GTA Forums forensic report names a Discord account as a likely link to the operation. Subpoenas reportedly now extend to X. Coverage: the suspect timeline.
The Running Totals as of August 25
| Metric | Status |
|---|---|
| Clips released | 14 |
| Leaked missions | 0 |
| Substantive Lucia gameplay | 0 |
| Menu systems shown beyond the radio wheel | 0 |
| Rockstar public statements | 0 since August 6 |
| People identified, charged or arrested | 0 |
| Subpoena response deadline | September 4, 2026 |
| Days to the Extended Look | 2 |
| Days to launch | 86 |
What Has Not Changed
Every schedule commitment is intact. Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look premieres on Netflix at 3:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, August 27, then goes free on Rockstar's YouTube channel and the Grand Theft Auto VI site at 9:00 p.m. ET. Release remains November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S, with preload on November 12.
The standing warning, unchanged since day one: never buy the token, never scan the QR codes in leaked footage, and never pay for promised clips or builds. This is reporting, not financial advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many clips have leaked?
Fourteen as of August 25, 2026. Numbering varies slightly between outlets because several clips landed within hours of each other.
Is the footage real?
It is widely treated as genuine material from an internal build, and Rockstar sources reportedly confirmed the original clips while noting they were early and unfinished. Build dating is contested between roughly 2023 and 2025.
Has Rockstar responded?
Not publicly. No statement of any kind since August 6, 2026. Visible actions are limited to DMCA takedowns, court filings and continued promotion of the Extended Look.
Is GTA 6 delayed?
No. November 19, 2026 remains the release date and has been reaffirmed throughout.
The Bottom Line
Read the dates in order and the shape of this is hard to miss: infrastructure on the 14th, a token on the 15th, footage on the 18th, and a daily content schedule ever since, escalating into Rockstar's own showcase. Whatever else it is, it has been run like a campaign from the first day, and Thursday is when Rockstar finally gets to answer with footage of its own.