GTA 6 Online Mode Confirmed in Rockstar Legal Filing

Rockstar Games has kept its multiplayer plans for GTA 6 locked down since the game was announced, but legal filings submitted as part of an ongoing employment dispute have let slip the studio’s first public reference to an online mode, describing a “32 player format” that was considered “highly confidential” at the time workers discussed it internally.

What the Documents Actually Say

The filings, which Rockstar and parent company Take-Two Interactive sent directly to Rock Paper Shotgun, were submitted as part of the final hearing in a case involving the dismissal of 34 developers. According to the documents, Rockstar accused the fired staff of “candidly referencing” an “online 32 player format which was highly confidential at that time” in conversations held on a union-run Discord server. Studio director Jennifer Kolbe is quoted in the filing, stating that seeing team members share details about online player numbers for an unannounced project was “extraordinarily alarming.”

The filing goes on to note that the alarm was intensified because a prior leak of design decisions and main character names had already caused significant disruption to Rockstar’s planned marketing rollout for GTA 6.

The Legal Battle Behind the Leak

The case centers on whether Rockstar was justified in firing the 34 developers, with the studio arguing that leaking confidential information on a public forum was the central reason for the terminations. The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has pushed back, accusing Rockstar of using the firings as a cover for union-busting activity, as Xboxygen also noted in its coverage of the story. The final hearing is scheduled to run until at least October 15th.

There is an obvious irony at play here. Rockstar, deeply concerned about information reaching the public outside of controlled marketing channels, has now drawn widespread attention to that same information by including it in legal documents handed to journalists. In trying to prove harm, the studio has achieved exactly the kind of unplanned disclosure it was seeking to penalize.

What This Means for GTA 6 Multiplayer

The brief description of a “32 player format” points toward a structured online session system attached to GTA 6 or a successor to GTA Online. Beyond that single detail, Rockstar has shared nothing about when an online component might launch, what it will contain, or whether it will arrive alongside the base game when GTA 6 hits consoles in November. A PC release date remains equally unconfirmed.

For now, players curious about the fate of GTA Online’s more chaotic elements, including vehicles like the missile-equipped Oppressor Mk II that made public lobbies notorious in GTA 5, will have to wait for official word. Whether the online mode ships with the console launch or follows later as a separate rollout is still an open question, and Rockstar has given no indication it plans to address that anytime soon.

Sources: Rock Paper Shotgun, Xboxygen