A huge number of videos purporting to show gameplay development footage for GTA 6 have been splashed across various internet forums this morning because apparently no one can wait for a video game to be nearly finished before they feel compelled to spoil it for everyone and miscellaneous.
The 80 clips seemingly show everything from full in-game scenarios to apparently unfinished gray box pieces, but you won’t find a link to them here because the truth is, they’re just not worth watching. What possible benefit could they provide to someone right here, right now? The leaker gets their five minutes of fame and an influx of new followers, of course. But GTA 6 itself won’t look like what you see in these clips when it’s actually finished, so someone tell me what’s the point?
Rockstar first announced that they were officially working on the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series in February, saying that work was “well underway.” They also cited game development as the main reason they moved away from continuing to develop major updates for Red Dead Online, saying, “Over the past few years, we’ve been steadily shifting more development resources toward the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series . […] As a result, we’re in the process of making some changes to the way we support Red Dead Online.”
Development is therefore clearly continuing apace, and by all accounts these latest leaks seem relatively legitimate. But what if they are legit? As mentioned above, most clips don’t even show fully rendered scenes. They’re just cavities on a chessboard with possibly a few character models floating around. (I haven’t seen all 80 clips, but judging by a screenshot showing a set of thumbnails for the leaked footage, it looks like they make up the vast majority of them). What can this tell us about what GTA 6 will be like when Rockstar are actually ready to show it off? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Look, I get that there’s a certain thrill in seeing something you shouldn’t do — pin it on the man, especially when the man hasn’t had the best track record of treating his employees very well in recent years. But even that has begun to change, with officials recently telling Bloomberg that Rockstar has improved significantly since that big critical report came out in the run-up to Red Dead Redemption 2’s launch, and that its cultural transformation has also affected the types of characters that supposedly we’ll also have to play in the next GTA – reportedly a Latin American who is part of a Bonnie and Clyde-style duo, series one. That doesn’t mean Rockstar automatically get a free pass now, of course. But there’s clearly more going on behind the scenes than we can tell from the outside (besides working there), and sharing these leaks as a means of flipping the bird to upper management feels increasingly flimsy as an excuse.
Now RPS has of course reported any leaks before and will continue to do so when we deem it worthwhile to do so. Personally, though, I hate them too, and to be honest I’d rather wait until there’s a proper trailer to take a look. Preferably one with some actual gameplay in it rather than cinematic of course, but really, all I want is to see a game revealed as the developers originally intended and have the chance to get excited about something that actually has substance . Call me a fool, but I’m really enjoying this Wizard-style show of a grand reveal that snippets of game footage, stripped of any context, just can’t provide.
I always go back to the Mario & Rabbids debacle when things like this happen, which I’ll fully admit I thought looked absolutely terrible when these leaks first appeared, just days before the big E3 reveal. But I’m more fooled because not only did it turn out to be the best thing Ubisoft has made in years, but it was arguably one of the highlights of the E3 show this year. Context is everything when you’re dealing with something new—and it’s something that’s often missing from information leaks. These alleged GTA 6 clips definitely go into the meaningless field without context, so please don’t worry. Why spoil the surprise for yourself?
Add Comment