Rockstar Fired 34 People Over GTA 6 Leaks - And In Doing So, Accidentally Confirmed Them

There's a certain irony to what Rockstar Games has done here. In their effort to stamp out GTA 6 leaks — firing 34 employees, citing a zero-tolerance policy, and fighting a tribunal case in the UK — they've ended up doing the one thing they were trying to prevent. They've told us, indirectly but unmistakably, that the leaks were real.

The story starts with GameRoll, an X account that posted a lengthy breakdown of supposed GTA 6 gameplay mechanics and story details in April 2025. At the time, it was treated like most leaks — interesting, possibly fabricated, filed away under "wait and see." Then Rockstar confirmed it had dismissed a UK employee that same month for disclosing confidential information to a third party who published it to social media. The timing aligned. The community connected the dots.

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How the Confirmation Actually Happened

Rockstar didn't stand up and say "yes, everything GameRoll posted is true." That's not how this works. What they did was cite, in a legal proceeding, three separate instances of employees being dismissed for leaking information — one in the US in November 2023, one in the UK in April 2025, and one in India in November 2025. The UK dismissal, in particular, maps almost exactly onto the timeline of GameRoll's post.

GameRoll had already proven themselves credible once before — they accurately named Jason and Lucia's last names before Trailer 2 officially confirmed them. That's not a guess you get right by accident. So when their April 2025 post lined up with the employee Rockstar confirmed firing for leaking to social media, the community's position shifted from "probably real" to "as close to confirmed as we're going to get before launch."

The UK Employment Tribunal, for what it's worth, denied the fired employees' application for interim relief — meaning they weren't reinstated to Rockstar's payroll while the case continues. Judge Frances Eccles ruled they hadn't demonstrated a strong enough chance of success in proving the dismissals were primarily linked to union membership, which is what the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain had argued.

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What the Leaks Actually Say

This is the part that matters for anyone playing the game in November. GameRoll's post, along with other leaks that have circulated and now carry more weight given all of this, paints a picture of a game that's considerably more detailed and mechanically layered than anything Rockstar has shipped before.

The character wheel is one of the more interesting details. Rather than a simple swap between protagonists, GTA 6 reportedly has three options: Solo Jason, Solo Lucia, and a dual protagonist mode where both characters are simultaneously active and can work together in real time to rob stores and complete missions. If that's accurate, it reframes the co-op rumours that have been swirling separately — it might not be network co-op at all, but rather a single-player mechanic where both characters are live and player-controlled through some kind of shared control system.

The relationship bar between Jason and Lucia functions, according to the leak, similarly to the honour system in Red Dead Redemption 2 — it evolves based on decisions made throughout the game and presumably affects how the two characters interact and what story beats are available. The weight mechanic is also in, meaning Jason and Lucia's physical appearance will change visibly based on what they eat and how active they are, much like CJ in San Andreas but apparently more detailed.

Other details that keep appearing consistently across multiple sources: over 700 fully enterable interiors including malls and skyscrapers with working elevators, weapons limited in what you can carry on your person with the rest stored in vehicle trunks, NPC reactions to visible weapons, a greet and antagonise interaction system borrowed from RDR2, underwater exploration with hidden areas and treasure, and the return of the six-star wanted level.

On the story side, the leak claims five chapters in total, with Trailer 2 only showing footage from the first three. Lucia is reportedly the central character in the same way Michael anchored GTA 5's story, and she and Jason have separate opening missions before their paths converge. There's also a detail about Lucia having a child she abandons at a deli before a bank robbery — which, if true, adds a layer to her character that the trailers haven't touched.

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What Didn't Make It In

Not everything in the leak is good news. The dynamic cover system visible in the 2022 hacker footage — which looked fluid and context-sensitive — reportedly didn't survive development and has been replaced with something more conventional. Early concepts around warehouse robotics were also scaled back or removed entirely. That's not unusual for a game of this scope; things get cut, mechanics get reworked, features get replaced. The question is whether what replaced them is better, and on that front the leaks don't say much.

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The Broader Picture

What's notable about this whole situation, beyond the specific details, is what it says about where the game is. Rockstar doesn't fire dozens of people and fight Employment Tribunals over leaks for a game that's struggling. The scale of the response — the firings, the legal proceedings, the employee monitoring — suggests a studio in the final stages of protecting something they're genuinely proud of and determined to control the narrative around until launch.

GameRoll's leaks, whatever their ultimate accuracy in every specific detail, came from somewhere real. Rockstar, in trying to contain the damage, confirmed exactly that. It's the most expensive lesson in Streisand Effect the games industry has seen in years.

November 19 can't come fast enough.

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All leak and rumour information in this article is unverified. Rockstar Games has not officially confirmed any gameplay details from third-party sources. The confirmed release date for GTA 6 remains November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.