Grand Theft Auto VI's first trailer has been leaked 15 hours ahead of its debut, forcing publisher and developer Rockstar Games to officially release it.
In a post to social media on Tuesday, Rockstar Games simply wrote: "Our trailer has leaked so please watch the real thing on YouTube."
The company had said online last week that the first trailer for the highly anticipated sixth instalment of the game would be released at 3am on Wednesday, December 6.
The game's first cinematic trailer concentrates on two unnamed male and female robbers who are seen causing chaos in the state of Leonida, home to the neon-soaked streets of Vice City. As well as footage of various cutscenes thrown together, the trailer showed off twerking women on top of cars, a semi-nude man watering his garden and an alligator storming a shop.
Within 30 minutes of the official trailer's release, the video had amassed over 16,000 comments.
Many said they feared for the safety of the leaker, with one commenter referencing the in-game's habit of starting again in a medical facility after being killed.
"The leaker will NOT be respawning in the hospital," they wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).
It's not the first time the game has been hit by leaks.
Last September, an unprecedented leak appeared online which contained over 90 videos and screenshots from an early build of GTA 6.
The resultant frenzy forced Rockstar Games to acknowledge the hack as legitimate, calming fans who were shocked at how rough the footage looked.
"We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto," a statement said at the time.
"We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way. We will update everyone again soon and, of course, will properly introduce you to this next game when it's ready."
It has been 10 years since Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto 5.
It went on to become the second best-selling video game of all time behind Minecraft, with more than 185 million copies sold worldwide.
Grand Theft Auto VI has yet to have a release date, with the trailer simply ending with the game's logo and the message, "Coming 2025."
