A massive collection of Rockstar Games development material has surfaced online, giving players a much deeper look at some of the content that was once planned for Grand Theft Auto 5. Among the discoveries are traces of a canceled Liberty City expansion, the long-rumored Agent Trevor story DLC and extremely early development material from GTA 6.
The archive is reportedly around 192GB in size and began circulating much more widely in recent days. Despite the timing, this does not appear to come from a new attack against Rockstar. Reports connect the files to data obtained during the major Rockstar security breach in 2022, when dozens of early GTA 6 development videos were published online.
Much of the attention is now focused on GTA 5 rather than GTA 6, as players and data miners continue discovering evidence of content that Rockstar worked on but never released.
Liberty City Was Apparently Coming to GTA 5
One of the biggest discoveries concerns Liberty City, the setting most famously used in Grand Theft Auto 4.
Files connected to a project known as LibertyV have reportedly been discovered inside the archive. GTA content creator TJGM examined zone data from the files and imported it into CodeWalker, a community-created GTA 5 map editor.
The data can be used to reconstruct an approximate outline of Rockstar’s planned Liberty City. Surprisingly, the resulting city appears considerably larger and differently shaped than the version featured in GTA 4. A separate terrain test has also reportedly been discovered among the development files.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Rockstar had a nearly finished Liberty City expansion waiting to be released. Development projects can leave behind assets and references long before they reach a playable state.
However, the discovery provides considerably more evidence that Rockstar seriously experimented with bringing Liberty City into GTA 5.
Had the project survived development, players could potentially have returned to Liberty City without leaving GTA 5.
The Agent Trevor DLC Was Even More Ambitious
Another major part of the archive involves the canceled Agent Trevor DLC.
The existence of a Trevor-focused expansion has been discussed for years, but the newly surfaced files provide a much clearer idea of just how strange and ambitious the project may have been.
Development material reportedly includes a large collection of missions involving organizations and locations connected to the CIA, Korea, Russia and other international storylines. Assets discovered within the files include a massive underground facility, an underwater base, a spaceship and an extensive mansion interior.
Some of the ideas appear remarkably different from GTA 5’s main campaign and suggest Rockstar was experimenting with something closer to an exaggerated spy adventure.
That fits previous comments from Trevor actor Steven Ogg, who has discussed recording material in which Trevor became an undercover government agent.
Instead of becoming another full adventure starring one of GTA 5’s protagonists, however, the project disappeared.
Some concepts associated with Rockstar’s abandoned single-player plans may eventually have been recycled elsewhere, particularly as GTA Online expanded with increasingly elaborate missions and heists.
Trevor Nearly Had a Much Colder Death
The leaked material has also revealed an earlier version of one of GTA 5’s endings.
Players who choose Option A in the finished game chase Trevor to an industrial area, where his vehicle eventually crashes into an oil tanker. Trevor becomes covered in fuel before Franklin or Michael sets him on fire.
Rockstar apparently experimented with something very different.
Unused dialogue discovered in the archive indicates that Trevor was originally going to crash into a tank containing liquid nitrogen. He would then freeze before ultimately shattering.
It’s a bizarre alternative, even by GTA standards, and another example of how drastically major scenes can change during development.
Early GTA 6 Material Is in the Archive Too
While GTA 5’s abandoned content has produced some of the biggest discoveries, the archive reportedly contains early GTA 6 development assets as well.
An extremely unfinished version of the GTA 6 map has reportedly been loaded inside GTA 5. The material is believed to date from around 2015 and contains rough environments and locations associated with Rockstar’s early work on the game.
Some locations identified in the early material reportedly correspond with environments that later appeared in official GTA 6 footage, although the old map is far too incomplete to be treated as an accurate representation of the finished game.
That is particularly important considering how old these files appear to be. GTA 6 has spent years in development, and locations, roads, buildings and even entire regions could have been redesigned or removed during that time.
Rather than revealing GTA 6 as it exists today, the files offer a rare glimpse at how Rockstar was building its world during the game’s early development.
GTA 5 Could Have Been a Very Different Game
The biggest story coming from the leak may ultimately be how much GTA 5 content Rockstar left behind.
For years, players have questioned what happened to the single-player expansions that were once expected to follow the game. GTA 4 received The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, setting expectations that Rockstar could follow a similar approach with GTA 5.
Instead, GTA Online became an enormous success and received years of continuous support while GTA 5’s story remained largely untouched.
Now we’re seeing more evidence of what might have happened if Rockstar had continued down the single-player expansion route.
A return to Liberty City alone could have dramatically extended GTA 5’s lifespan as a single-player game. Combine that with an Agent Trevor spy adventure and the other abandoned concepts hidden throughout Rockstar’s development files, and GTA 5’s post-launch future could have looked completely different.
Rockstar has not announced plans to revive either LibertyV or Agent Trevor, and the existence of old development material should not be interpreted as evidence that either project is returning.
For now, they remain fascinating pieces of GTA history.
And with people still digging through roughly 192GB of Rockstar development material, we may not have seen the last discovery yet.
