Grand Theft Auto 6 maker Rockstar Games has issued a statement addressing a series of leaked videos showing the upcoming blockbuster video game.

Clips appearing to show gameplay and cinematics from the title began appearing online last week, but the developer did not acknowledge them straight away.

In a statement, the company said the leaks had been “heartbreaking” for the team working on the sequel, and that they were “not how we intended for you to see the game after all this time”.

The company apologised for the delays in releasing official updates on the highly anticipated title, but vowed to “exceed” fans’ expectations in a special preview airing on Netflix this week.

When leaks first began to surface, there was some doubt as to whether they were genuine.

But as the days went on, evidence mounted to suggest they were legitimate.

Copies of clips were quickly taken down from social media sites via copyright strikes, where the owner of a work can request its removal.

And, on Friday, Rockstar’s parent company Take Two Interactive launched legal proceedings regarding the leaks in a New York court.

Rockstar acknowledged players had been waiting for it to address the leaked footage, and said it was “unfortunate the intended game experience may now be impacted by some spoilers”.

It also thanked fans who sent messages of support over the past week, adding: “Your words have meant more to the team than you can imagine.”

The group behind the leaks claims to be acting in the interests of players, accusing Rockstar of engaging in anti-consumer practices such as its decision not to release a disc version of GTA 6 at launch.

Not everyone is convinced, as each release of new material has invited viewers to send cryptocurrency “donations” to the user uploading them.

The game is set amid the underworld of Leonida, a fictional US state inspired by Florida

GTA 6, due to be released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox consoles in November, is still expected to be the biggest video game launch of the decade.

The previous game in the series, GTA 5, also broke records when it came out in 2013 and has sold more than 200 million copies since.

Two official trailers for the sixth game have almost 500 million combined views on YouTube, and the Netflix “extended look” on Thursday is being marketed as an event by the streaming service.

Next month the company is due to appear at an employment tribunal in Scotland to defend itself against claims it illegally sacked a group of ex-employees for trying to form a union.

It strongly denies the accusations, and says the workers were fired on the grounds of gross misconduct.

Last Updated on August 26, 2026 by Grace Simon

Lando Norris beat championship leader Kimi Antonelli to claim his second win in a row with victoy at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Reigning world champion Norris moved up to fourth in the drivers’ standings, 83 points adrift of Mercedes’ Antonelli.

Four-time world champion Max Verstappen suffered heartbreak at his final home race when he crashed out heavily in the opening stages.

F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your questions after round 12 of the campaign in Zandvoort.

Is it fair to say the dominance of Mercedes is over? They haven’t won a race since Spa-Francorchamps, and even then that victory wasn’t consecutive. Are they focusing more now on scoring points than they are winning races?

There has been a very obvious shift in competitiveness at the front as the Formula 1 season has progressed.

Mercedes won the first six races of the season, but have won only two of the subsequent six.

Mercedes took 10 consecutive poles in the first 10 races, but have been beaten by McLaren’s Lando Norris at the past two grands prix. And the fastest Mercedes was lower than second for the first time in Hungary, where Red Bull’s Max Verstappen also lined up ahead of Kimi Antonelli.

Over the season as a whole so far, the Mercedes is the fastest car in qualifying by an average of 0.316 seconds over Ferrari, with McLaren a further 0.041secs adrift.

But what happens when you split that into the first six races and the next six?

Until the Canadian Grand Prix in late May, Mercedes were 0.453secs a lap faster than the next fastest team, which was McLaren at the time, and 0.489secs quicker than Ferrari.

Since Monaco, that gap has come down to 0.163secs over Ferrari and 0.270secs over McLaren. Red Bull’s gap over the past six races is 0.353secs, whereas it was 0.813secs up to Canada.

There is a very obvious reason for this – Mercedes have upgraded their car less than their rivals. To a quite stark degree.

Each race, governing body the FIA issues a sheet showing the declared upgrades each team has brought to that race.

It’s not a definitive list – teams don’t have to put all the changes on that sheet, only the ones that are visible. But it gives an idea.

Since the start of the season, Mercedes have fitted a total of 24 new parts to their cars, compared with 37 for Red Bull, 38 for McLaren and 40 by Ferrari.

This is not a direct representation of relative spend, as some parts are more expensive than others.

But it’s striking, for example, that Mercedes have also deployed fewer upgrades than Aston Martin, Alpine, Racing Bulls, Audi and Cadillac.

Even Haas, the team with the smallest budget on the grid, have had more upgrades than Mercedes, who have the equal lowest number with Williams.

This is all in the context of the budget cap, which is set at $215m (£170m) for all teams.

The question, obviously, is what is going on here?

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says: “We haven’t got the money to put developments on the car.

“We are trying to evenly split that through the season, based on our calculations of when we can bring the biggest updates and optimising the championship points. But we just can do what we can do.”

Asked why McLaren and Ferrari appeared to have the money and Mercedes did not, Wolff said: “Well, you will see how towards the end of the season (whether) they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff on to the car as they do now.

“Someone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and in the middle of the year than towards the end.”

The obvious conclusion is that Mercedes either spent more money in the design and build process of this year’s car than their rivals – which would make sense, given how competitive it was at the start of the season – or they have saved money to spend on their next upgrade, and/or next year’s car.

That is due at the so-called Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia at the start of October, when there are either eight or nine grands prix remaining, depending on the situation in the Middle East.

On top of that, Antonelli will take a grid penalty at the next race in Italy for exceeding the permitted number of engine parts, and George Russell will also have one at a subsequent race, most likely Azerbaijan.

How did the alleged improvements go on the Aston Martin? Is there any sign of improved performance? – Chris

Honda gave a debut to its long-awaited ‘spec two’ engine at the Dutch Grand Prix, while Aston Martin added a new front wing and diffuser to the pretty much all-new car that was introduced at the previous race in Hungary.

Within the team, they were hoping that the Honda engine would reduce lap times by somewhere in the region of 0.3-0.5secs.

The weekend painted a confusing picture.

On the one hand, Fernando Alonso looked more competitive than ever before at various points.

But he qualified further away from pole in both positional and percentage terms than he had in Hungary.

There were, however, extenuating circumstances, in that he was 12th fastest before failing to improve on a messy final lap hindered by a sub-optimal ‘prep’ lap which left his tyres out of the ‘window’. Without that, he probably would have progressed beyond the first session.

Nevertheless, that suggests the new Honda was little better than the old one. On the other hand, the new engine’s drivability was definitely worse, which may have skewed the picture.

But then Alonso drove an outstanding race on a one-stop strategy to take ninth place, looking after tyres and measuring his pace with all the expertise and skill he has shown throughout his career to hold off two faster cars in Pierre Gasly’s Alpine and Yuki Tsunoda’s Racing Bull in the final stint.

Those are the first points Aston Martin have scored on merit all season.

As Alonso put it: “We scored one point in Monaco with nine DNFs (retirements). Today we scored two points with Max (Verstappen) DNF. It was well deserved.”

Alonso said after the race that the team were planning a two-stop but changed during the race because they were stuck behind other cars.

“We are in traffic,” he said. “We cannot use our potential. We are faster in the corners than the people in front of us and we are slower on the straights. We’re stuck behind.

“So as soon as we have free track in front of us, we try to use it. Even if it’s not the optimal performance and the optimal strategy, and it’s what we did today.”

On the car and engine upgrades, Alonso said: “Another step forward, especially on the chassis side.

“We brought four or five components here. Also the Budapest package was understood in the (summer) break. With all the data available after the race, we fine-tuned a little bit the set-up around that new spec. Plus the new parts. I think now we are optimising the chassis side and we are able to extract the maximum.

“The engine is more difficult. I don’t think we can be black and white if we have more power or not.

“On the driver side of things, you change circuits one month after the other race. The drivability has been a difficult weekend. We struggled with the downshift again. We struggled with the engine braking corner to corner. It was a challenging weekend in that regard.”

These engines are highly complex and it takes time for teams to dial into them so they are working at their optimum. So it may be a few more races before the new Honda can be judged fairly.

Did Charles Leclerc cost Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton a podium position by holding Hamilton up when he refused to pit when instructed to, and what will Ferrari do to ensure he follows team orders in the future? – Mike

Mid-race in Zandvoort, Lewis Hamilton came up behind Charles Leclerc on fresher tyres, their strategies offset, and asked to be let by to optimise his race.

The way the television broadcast was played out, it sounded as if Ferrari decided to pit Leclerc for fresh tyres to get him out of the way. He initially resisted that and did not come in, but then came in at the next call.

Team boss Frederic Vasseur addressed this after the race, in comments that were a little unclear.

First, he said, at that point, Ferrari were thinking of running Hamilton to the end, so they did not want him to push hard – but had not told him that was the case, because they wanted to keep the plan secret from their rivals.

As for Leclerc, Vasseur said they were “expecting him to pit” but then realised he was in danger of coming out in traffic.

Vasseur said: “Charles was supposed to pit, we extended one lap, and it was a kind of confusion, but I’m not worried about this. Everybody will be back in the briefing, they will have a clear picture about the race.”

Some will inevitably say this was another example of Ferrari messing up their strategy, an accusation that is levelled at them quite often.

Vasseur said: “It’s not so easy, but, if I look at the race now, my issue is that we didn’t tell Lewis that we were expecting him to go to the end, and it was not a matter of (him) pushing (at that point).”

Did the delay cost Hamilton third? Hamilton thought so, but it’s impossible to know whether he would have passed George Russell if he had had a lap or two more to try.

Did Leclerc cost Hamilton podium?

With Isack Hadjar hurting his wrist during the summer break, do teams not ask drivers to stay away from high impact or dangerous sports and activity during their time off to keep them ready for their return? – Dave

F1 drivers’ contracts usually have clauses in them forbidding them from doing ‘dangerous sports’, such as skiing or scuba diving, although not every driver’s contract is the same.

In Hadjar’s case, the Frenchman suffered what Red Bull describe as a “minor fracture” while doing a boxing exercise which is part of his normal gym routine.

There is no suggestion of him doing anything that could have been outside the terms of his contract.

Red Bull are targeting for him to return for the next race, the Italian Grand Prix, but it remains to be seen whether that will be possible.

For more updates from the GRACYNEWS, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Last Updated on August 26, 2026 by Grace Simon

From a Brad Pitt survival adventure with a canine co-star, to witchy sequel Practical Magic 2, starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, here are the films to watch at the cinema this month

1. RESIDENT EVIL

Zach Cregger’s Weapons was one of 2025’s most acclaimed films, so in some ways it’s a surprise that he’s followed it up with a video game spin-off.

But the writer-director told Empire that he has made “a Zach Cregger movie that just happens to be a Resident Evil movie”.

Far spookier-looking than the previous Resident Evil films, most of which were directed by Paul WS Anderson, this blood-drenched reboot focuses on a medical courier, Bryan (Austin Abrams).

He has the job of delivering an organ to a hospital in the game’s main location, Raccoon City – but the city’s inhabitants are turning into ravenous zombies.

“Bryan is very much an everyman who happens to be burdened with this sacred mission that’s going to take him into the heart of everything,” says Cregger.

“It’s kind of like Frodo [from The Lord of the Rings] going into Mordor.”

2. PRIMETIME

The year of Robert Pattinson continues. As well as appearing in The Odyssey, The Drama and the forthcoming Dune: Part Three, the British actor is starring in Primetime, a fact-based drama about a controversial reality television show, To Catch a Predator. From 2004 to 2007, each episode of the programme revolved around sting operations in which men were tricked into thinking that they were meeting children for sexual encounters. They would then be confronted by the journalist behind the sting, Chris Hansen. Pattinson plays Hansen, and he is already being tipped as an Oscar contender – even if Hansen himself would have chosen a different actor for the role. “Years ago I had crafted a screenplay and thought Denis Leary would be a good guy to play me,” he said on the Seriously podcast.

3. THE WEIGHT

Ethan Hawke follows his Oscar-nominated turn in Blue Moon with a very different kind of period drama. Set in Oregon during the Great Depression, The Weight stars Hawke as a single father who is unfairly sent to a labour camp. If he doesn’t get home soon, he will lose custody of his young daughter, but the devilish warden (Russell Crowe) promises to free him on one condition: he and a team of other prisoners have to carry knapsacks full of stolen gold bricks across the country. “Hawke is mesmerising,” says Chase Hutchinson in The Wrap. “The action scenes are tense and well-executed, though it’s the way he grounds it that makes you feel every setback. Hawke makes you buy into every beat, whether haunting or thrilling as the film grows more violent… You can’t look away for even a second.”

4. PRACTICAL MAGIC 2

Back in 1998, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock starred in Practical Magic as Gillian and Sally, two sisters who were also witches. When the film came out, audiences weren’t exactly spellbound, but the dark supernatural romance gradually built a cult following. “I don’t know any woman who’s watched the movie and not wanted Gillian’s red hair, Sally’s cosy yet witchy outfits, or the beautiful Victorian house by the ocean that the family lives in,” wrote Tove Danovich in Country Living recently. Now, 28 years after the first film, a sequel is finally here. Once again, it’s adapted from a novel by Alice Hoffman, and once again Kidman and Bullock have the lead roles. Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest are back as their aunts, and Joey King and Maisie Williams join the cast as Sally’s daughters, two young women who learn about the family curse: any man they fall in love with will die soon afterwards.

5. FORGOTTEN ISLAND

The latest cartoon from DreamWorks Animation (The Wild Robot, Dog Man) is a psychedelic fantasy adventure – but it’s also the first major Hollywood film to draw on Filipino folklore. Grammy-winning singer H.E.R. and Liza Soberano provide the voices of Jo and Raissa, two schoolgirls who become best friends in the Philippines in the 1990s. Years later, Raissa is about to emigrate to the US, but before she can go, the two girls fall through a portal into a magical world of demons, witches and monsters. And if they stay there too long, their memories of each other will fade away. “So many times, young girls in movies and TV are portrayed as always talking about boys, or they’re princesses,” the film’s co-director, Joel Crawford, said in Variety. “I want my [Filipina] daughters to see themselves up on the screen, whether it’s in terms of culture, in terms of ethnicity, but also how they are as people.”

6. ONSLAUGHT

Michael Biehn co-starred in The Terminator and Aliens, two classic science-fiction thrillers in which a rugged heroine fought an almost indestructible foe. And now he’s appearing in a film which he says deserves to be compared to them. Released by A24, and directed by Adam Wingard (The Guest, Godzilla vs Kong), Onslaught stars Adria Arjona as a single mother who lives in a desert trailer park with her daughter. When three genetically modified super soldiers escape from a local secret research facility, her experience as an army sniper comes in handy. “I’m telling you without a doubt, this is the best movie I’ve been in since Aliens,” said Biehn in Daily Dead. “This is going to blow the doors off of any expectations of what anybody has seen on the big screen in a long time. This is like pedal-to-the-metal action, horror, violence… It is very, very exciting, and it’s fast and furious.”

7. HEART OF THE BEAST

Good news for fans of wilderness survival adventures: there are two of them in cinemas this September. As well as The Weight, there is Heart of the Beast, starring Brad Pitt and directed by David Ayer. Pitt plays a wounded Special Forces veteran who has to trek back to civilisation after a plane crash in a remote Alaskan forest. Luckily for him, he is accompanied by his faithful military dog, Odin. Ayer said in GQ that Pitt is on career-best form: “A constant theme from people who have seen the film is just how raw and believable and profound his performance is.” But Uber, the mountain-rescue dog who plays Odin, may be even better. “The one spoiler I’ll forward right now is, don’t worry, the dog lives,” reveals Ayer. Regardless, he says “I’ve shown the film to a few of my roughneck, tough-guy friends, and they’re crying at the end of this. I’ve never had a film move an audience so powerfully.”

8. KNIFE: THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF SALMAN RUSHDIE

On 12 August 2022, the author Sir Salman Rushdie was giving a talk in New York state, when someone in the audience leapt on stage and stabbed him 15 times. But Sir Salman wouldn’t be silenced. He wrote a memoir about the horrific attack and his recovery, and now the book has been turned into a documentary by Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side). Using intimate footage shot by Sir Salman’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Gibney looks back at the ordeal, explores the author’s life and philosophy, and recalls how the publication of his 1988 novel, Satanic Verses, led to Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini calling on him to be killed. “Throughout the film, three things stand out,” says Amber Wilkinson in Screen International, “the love between Rushdie and Griffiths; the resilience they had in the face of his catastrophic injuries; and the author’s humanistic attitude and sly sense of humour, which have categorically survived intact.”

9. THE UPRISING

Step aside, Robin Hood. The Uprising is a medieval epic about English rebels fighting back against the greedy aristocracy, but rather than rehashing old myths and legends, Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips, The Bourne Supremacy) has dramatised the English Peasant’s Revolt of 1381. Andrew Garfield plays the Robin Hood-alike hero, a poverty-stricken farmer known only as Ploughman. After his family is wiped out by the plague, he leads a resistance movement against the soldiers of the teenage King Richard II (Woody Norman). “It was sort of the first moment in our history when the common man and woman took centre stage,” said Greengrass in People, “and history was no longer going to be about kings and queens and the rich and powerful. It was going to be about what ordinary folk wanted and their grievances and their dreams and hopes.”

10. HOPE

Hope is this year’s must-see monster movie – although it’s also a gritty western, a grisly horror film, a gonzo action comedy, and a cosmic science-fiction saga. Written and directed by Na Hong-jin, it features Hwang Jung-min as the tough sheriff of a small Korean coastal town. Within minutes of the opening scene, he is on the trail of a giant ogre which is laying waste to everything in its path. And the chaos doesn’t let up for another two and a half hours. Hope is “a full-on, unapologetic action movie packed with breathtaking and breathless car chases, horse chases, foot-chases and monster chases”, says John Bleasdale in Sight and Sound. “Brilliantly crafted and beautifully shot, we can only hope this wild film gets the follow-up it so richly deserves.”Released on 9 September in the US, 10 September in Australia and 25 September in the UK

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Last Updated on August 25, 2026 by Grace Simon