A Goat Simulator 3 (opens in new tab) advert has been issued with a takedown notice by Rockstar Games’ parent company Take Two Interactive, after it was revealed that the advert featured footage from the massive GTA 6 leak that occurred earlier this year.
Which, y’know, was always going to happen.
The trailer (opens in new tab), framed as an interview with an NPC called Shaun discussing his work on Goat Simulator 3, featured a segment in which Shaun referenced other games he’d been in, at which point the trailer cut to a shot of Shaun in an edited clip from the leak.
It’s a very Goat Simulator 3 thing to do, which is to say, attention-seeking and not as funny as developer Coffee Stain North appears to think it is. In any case, it inevitably caught the ire of Take Two’s legal department, which has been laying the smackdown on pretty much anyone (opens in new tab) who shares footage of the leak.
Arguably the biggest leak of its kind, the GTA 6 leak occurred back in September, and was allegedly conducted (opens in new tab) by a 17-year-old from Oxfordshire, believed to be associated with the hacking group Lapsus$. Said 17-year-old appeared in court later that month, charged with two counts of computer fraud and two counts of breaching bail conditions.
PC Gamer had an in-depth discussion (opens in new tab) about the GTA 6 leak shortly after it happened, and also picked over what the leaked footage told us (opens in new tab) about GTA 6 (and also what it didn’t). Rockstar issued a statement expressing the studio’s disappointment regarding the leak, but stated that it wouldn’t have a “long-term effect” on the game’s progress.