A seven-second TikTok reverberated across the internet over the weekend, after it claimed to show the “first look” at in-game footage of a city in Grand Theft Auto VI, the open-world blockbuster whose official trailer is just a day away. Frantic speculation about whether the footage was real or not ensued, including unverified rumors that the leak involved a Rockstar Games developer’s own kid.
The video was uploaded to TikTok by the account azzarosi, which has since disappeared. It was only a few seconds long and showed a smartphone camera panning across a PC workstation that appeared to have a debug version of GTA VI running on it. The in-game camera moves around during the video revealing highways, city neighborhoods, and a few skyscrapers. That was it.
Yet as barebones as the apparent leak was, frenzied fans shared the video far and wide and set off to uncover whether it was legitimate or not. The removal of the original TikTok video led to suggestions of a DMCA request by publisher Take-Two, which would potentially lend credence to the leak, except there doesn’t currently appear to be any evidence of one.
Prior to going private, azzarosi also reportedly shared a photograph seemingly of themself with their face blocked out and Rockstar North head of development, Aaron Garbut. This led to speculation that the leaker was Garbut’s kid, or potentially a friend of his kid. Some fans then lost their minds when alleged screenshots of text messages with the leaker telling someone how big GTA VI was and how many main cities it had began making the rounds on X and Reddit. Again, none of has been verified.
Fans who have pored over the leaked in-development footage from last year’s big Rockstar hack have found landmarks in the TikTok video that seem to line up with it. That’s led to lots of comparisons of extremely blurry skyscrapers and roads outlined in MSpaint colors. Of course, even then it’s still possible the alleged TikTok leak is an elaborate GTA V mod, or a remix of the footage that already existed online from the hack. That would sound like an awful lot of work for a clout-chasing GTA VI stunt, but this is GTA VI we’re talking about, the unannounced thing that regularly trends on social media even when there isn’t any actual new information about it.
The strangest thing about the latest leak drama is that fans are about to get a much better official look at GTA VI, or whatever Rockstar has decided to call the sequel, very soon. The game’s first trailer goes live at 9:00 a.m. ET on December 5 and will provide more fodder for content creation and speculation than the last 10 years combined. And if seven seconds of shaky, blurry footage of GTA VI’s skyline can do this, I can’t imagine what will happen when Rockstar provides players with a proper look at what is undoubtedly the most anticipated game of all time at this point.
Rockstar Games and Take-Two did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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