While Grand Theft Auto 6 fans continue their vigil for a third official trailer, they've had to settle for something much less polished: a few seconds of behind-the-scenes animation footage that leaked from what appears to be a developer's demo reel. The clips, which surfaced earlier this month, show early development work rather than the polished gameplay everyone's actually waiting for.
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The footage emerged from an animation demo reel uploaded to Vimeo by Benjamin Chue, an animator with credits on multiple Rockstar Games titles including GTA 5, GTA 4, and Red Dead Redemption 2. The reel featured two clips labeled as GTA 6 content before being swiftly removed from the platform.
What's actually in these clips? Not much, honestly. The first shows a character interacting with a bike rental system - specifically removing and inserting a yellow bicycle from a rack labeled "LomBike," which looks like Rockstar's parody of real-world micromobility company Lime. The other two clips feature a female character, presumably protagonist Lucia, getting in and out of a pickup truck bed. The animations are clearly work-in-progress, with gray backgrounds and early-stage character models.
Here's the thing: this leak is simultaneously fascinating and completely underwhelming. As IGN points out, we already knew about the bike rental system from official GTA 6 screenshots released earlier this year. And the pickup truck animations? Well, this is Grand Theft Auto, of course you'll be able to jump off vehicles. The real story here isn't what the footage shows, but what its removal confirms.
Rockstar's aggressive takedown efforts essentially authenticate the leak. When you compare this to the flood of AI-generated "GTA 6 gameplay" that's been circulating recently, those sloppy fakes showing Lucia wandering Vice City or emerging from pools, the company hasn't bothered with copyright strikes. But this developer reel? Gone from Vimeo within days, replaced by a "Sorry, we couldn't find that page" message.
The timing is particularly interesting. This leak arrives during what Eurogamer describes as a "union busting" controversy at Rockstar, where over 200 employees from Rockstar North recently signed a letter condemning management actions. The company's labor disputes have even reached UK Parliament, with Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine urging ministers to support affected workers.
For the GTA 6 community, these animation clips represent another piece of the puzzle while they wait for meaningful updates. The game's development has been marked by substantial leaks in the past, including the massive 2022 breach that revealed 90 videos of early gameplay. Compared to that, a few seconds of bike animations feels almost quaint.
What everyone really wants, of course, is trailer 3. Rockstar released the first GTA 6 trailer in December 2023, followed by a second in May 2025. That second trailer became the biggest video launch of all time, according to Rockstar, with 475 million views across all platforms on its first day. The anticipation for a third installment has reached fever pitch, with fans analyzing every Rockstar social media post for hints.
The reality is that these animation leaks, while technically "real" GTA 6 content, don't move the needle much. They're development tests, not gameplay reveals. They show the sausage being made rather than the finished meal. And in a landscape where AI-generated fakes can rack up millions of views before being debunked, the fact that this modest leak got Rockstar's legal team moving speaks volumes about what the company considers worth protecting.
So where does this leave us? Still waiting, mostly. The bike rental system looks functional, the pickup truck animations seem smooth enough, and Rockstar's parody of real-world services continues the series' tradition of satirizing contemporary culture. But these are details, not revelations.
The bigger picture remains unchanged: GTA 6 is coming, eventually. The leaks will keep coming too, probably. And fans will keep analyzing every frame, whether it's from an official trailer or a developer's demo reel that wasn't supposed to see the light of day. In the absence of trailer 3, even a few seconds of gray-box animations feel like something worth talking about.
Which, when you think about it, says more about the anticipation surrounding this game than any leak ever could.
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