In recent days the question has been whether the leaked GTA 6 footage was real. Take-Two just answered it without meaning to: it has gone to court to find out who put it out.
The company has filed subpoenas at the Southern District Court of New York to compel Microsoft and Discord to identify the person behind the leaks. Both have until 4 September to respond, according to the filing reviewed by Insider Gaming.
August 26 update: Rockstar has now publicly confirmed that the videos are leaked GTA 6 gameplay. The legal effort to identify the person responsible continues.
What it is actually asking for
The list is long and very specific, and that is the interesting part. Take-Two wants account identifiers and registration details, email addresses, registration and last-login IP addresses, phone numbers, device identifiers and the linked connections on those accounts, meaning whichever Google or Xbox account sits behind them.
But what really separates this from any ordinary takedown comes next: the OneDrive contents relating to GTA, Rockstar or the Cyberleek alias, plus device telemetry records. They do not want the video deleted. They want the folder, and they want to know the machine it was uploaded from.
From Discord it asks, in the filing's own words, for "all identifying information associated with all user accounts that are/were members" of the servers involved. Names like CINEMATICROCKSTAR and Ødyssey.gg appear there.
Who CYBERLEEK is
The filing lists four aliases for the same person: CYBERLEEK, Surfer24k™, cyberleek_west and surwest. It is the same name that was shot into a wall inside the fifth clip, the signature we covered when we went through the leaked gameplay and the supposed map.
According to the documents, the activity starts on 1 June 2026, and over the last few days it has been dripping out audiovisual material, artwork, images, dialogue, map details, information about the honour system and melee combat sequences.
That fits the case we made on Wednesday, that whoever is publishing has genuine access to a build, although we still do not know which build he is playing on. What we did not know then is that Take-Two was already counting the days.
Why this is a different league
A copyright takedown is paperwork: you send it, the video comes down, done. A subpoena is the opposite, because it is not chasing the file, it is chasing the person, and it forces two companies with no stake in the fight to open their records. It is the step before a lawsuit with a name on it. That said, it is worth not running ahead: a subpoena compels data, it does not name anybody guilty.
What strikes me is Rockstar's silence, still not saying a word in public while its parent company does this in a courtroom. It is consistent, confirming the leak would hand it credibility, and here the answer is coming from the lawyers.
The thing to watch is whether Microsoft and Discord hand over everything asked of them or fight it on privacy grounds, which is what usually happens when a request reaches into somebody's cloud storage. Neither has said anything yet.
The two dates left
On 27 August the Extended Look arrives on Netflix, which is what Rockstar actually wants us to see. And on 4 September the subpoena deadline falls.
Nine days between the two. Rockstar showing its game through the front door while its lawyers try to put a name to whoever showed it through the back. Although 4 September will bring no press conference, if somebody does get identified, we will hear about it long afterwards.
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