Rockstar's Aaron Garbut says 2022 GTA 6 leak felt weirdly invasive
Rockstar North's Aaron Garbut told Bloomberg the 2022 GTA 6 leak felt like someone wading through your dirty washing, as office security rules stay tight.
Confirmed. Rockstar Games or Take-Two said this on the record.
Aaron Garbut, head of development and co-studio head at Rockstar North, has described what it was like to watch the 2022 GTA 6 leak spread across the internet. He called the experience "weirdly invasive" and "quite hard to deal with on an emotional level." He made the comments in a long Bloomberg feature on Rockstar published October 14, which Kotaku and GamesRadar+ both picked up.
"It feels like somebody's wading through your dirty washing," Garbut told Bloomberg. "It's like they're inside your head." His main complaint was about unfinished work being seen at all: "You see your early work out there. Nobody's ever supposed to see that."
Garbut is one of the most senior people on the project. According to Kotaku, he has worked on Grand Theft Auto since the very first game, so this was a long-time developer watching a rough early version of his work get picked apart in public. He has spoken before about the pressure of living up to what fans expect, which we covered in his comments on beating fan expectations.
How the leak changed life at Rockstar
The Bloomberg report, as summarised by Kotaku, ties the 2022 breach directly to changes in how Rockstar works. The studio began walking back its work-from-home arrangements after the leak. By 2024, every employee was required to be in the office five days a week, and the company gave security as the reason. Developers were also reportedly blocked from reaching Rockstar's servers and tools from home. That meant using vacation or sick days to cover childcare or other emergencies.
Rockstar reportedly plans to look at those policies again once GTA 6 is out. Head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe still doesn't expect a return to hybrid work any time soon. She said the security team would not be keen on having the game spread across that many environments, adding: "I think if we did not have a game that people wanted to steal as much, maybe it would be an easier conversation."
If you want a refresher on what actually leaked in 2022 and what happened to the person behind it, our explainer on the 2022 leak and the hacker has the full background.
Leaks kept coming anyway
The stricter rules did not stop leaks altogether. According to Bloomberg via Kotaku, a leaker calling themselves Cyberleek started posting GTA 6 gameplay in August. That reportedly frustrated staff, who felt they had given up a lot only for footage to get out regardless. GamesRadar+ reported that around 25 minutes of new gameplay surfaced in the week before its October 14 article.
The leaker's motives are murky and unverified. GamesRadar+ says Cyberleek tied the leaks to demands such as digital rights and more physical copies, and to crypto fundraising for what it called a "secret project." A meme coin linked to the effort reportedly fell about $20 million short of a market cap target that had been framed as the trigger for leaking the entire game. On October 14, Cyberleek claimed to be finished leaking GTA 6 clips. Nobody has independently confirmed that the leaker will stick to it. GamesRadar+ also notes that Rockstar has taken legal action against leakers in the past.
We won't link to or describe where to find any of the leaked material.
What it means for players
With GTA 6 launching on November 19, the window for leaks to spoil anything is almost closed. Garbut's comments are still a rare candid look at how the studio experienced the 2022 breach: as something personal, not just a PR headache. The open questions now are internal. Rockstar has said it will review its office and remote-access rules after launch, but given Kolbe's remarks, fans and staff alike shouldn't expect a quick change.
