A former Rockstar animator’s GTA 6 clips leaked over Thanksgiving — are they real?

Why these two-minute clips actually matter – even if they reveal nothing new

This caught my attention because it’s the rare leak that looks legitimately internal without offering a flashy new location or story beat – just small, believable animation work. Over Thanksgiving, a demo reel from ex-Rockstar animator Benjamin Chue briefly surfaced and contained three snippets that many observers are calling plausible pre-alpha Grand Theft Auto VI animations. The reel was pulled fast, mirrors spread, and the internet is back to asking the same question: real or fake?

Key takeaways

• The clips are short and unsurprising, but their authenticity feels credible: the reel was public, then scrubbed, and contains animation polish consistent with Rockstar’s standards.
• What’s interesting isn’t a new map or mission – it’s the focus on small interactions (rentable “LomBikes,” varied truck exits) that signal the scale of polish Rockstar is aiming for.
• These snippets arrive after a wave of AI-generated GTA 6 fakery, which muddies the waters and makes confirmation harder.
• Even authentic leaks at this stage mostly tell us how the game is being built, not what the finished experience will feel like.

Breaking down the clips

The reel reportedly showed three short bits that stood out: a male avatar undocking and sitting on a docked “LomBike” (think a tongue-in-cheek LimeBike analog), then returning it; and a female character performing two different pickup-truck entry/exit animations, including a rooftop jump into the bed and a leg-swing descent. None of this is revolutionary — GTA’s always had vehicle interactions — but the variety of animations is the point. Rockstar isn’t just coding “get in” and “get out”; it’s designing multiple contextual animations, which is time consuming and expensive.

Why this matters now

We’re in a moment when real progress on a heavyweight open-world game is news in itself. GTA 6 was pushed from May 26, 2026 to November 19, 2026, and analysts warned the delay could ripple into console launch plans and cost Rockstar tens of millions. Leaks that look authentic (or at least plausible) are a signal: the project is deep enough into development that animators are generating specific, situation-driven work. That’s not a marketing image — it’s a craft in progress.

Context: why authenticity is harder to judge now

This also follows a spate of AI-generated GTA 6 videos that went viral, created and admitted by an X user known as Zap Actu GTA6. Those fake reels trained everyone to distrust anything that looks like gameplay. The Chue reel being scrubbed adds to the plausibility — people don’t usually pull entirely fabricated portfolios so quickly — but scrubbing can mean anything from “this was internal and shouldn’t be public” to “oh no, that was a private demo.”

What players should realistically expect

If these are genuine pre-alpha animations, don’t expect a gameplay revolution revealed in two minutes of footage. What you should expect is that Rockstar is putting effort into environmental detail and player expression: rentable micromobility (bikes), more contextual mount/dismount animations, and fluid courtyard-style movement. For gamers, that means the final product might feel more alive in small ways — more convincing NPC interactions, smoother transitions, fewer “awkward” moments when your character moves between vehicles and the world.

But there’s a flip side. Leaks — authentic or not — keep distracting from the official narrative and can be used to pressure studios into rushed patches or PR responses. Rockstar is also under fire for staff firings and internal turmoil; more leaks during a fraught time don’t help morale or product stability.

What I’m skeptical about

• Why post a demo reel publicly if it contains in-house material? Was this an old portfolio misstep, or something else?
• Even if real, pre-alpha animation snippets don’t tell us about mission design, AI behavior, or multiplayer plans — all the things that make or break GTA releases.
• Because AI fakery has been so convincing lately, every single leak now needs independent verification; community chatter isn’t reliable evidence.

TL;DR

Short clips from a former Rockstar animator circulated over Thanksgiving and look plausibly like pre-alpha GTA 6 animations. They’re not a smoking gun for features, but they do suggest Rockstar is deep into polishing micro-interactions. In a world where AI fakes are rampant, take everything with a grain of salt — but also note that believable, low-key leaks sometimes tell us more about how a game is made than flashy gameplay trailers do.