FIG & MOSS WATCH STUFF · Episode 09
Grand Theft Auto
The one where they watch Grand Theft Auto VI the day it hits Netflix, and Moss thinks the wanted stars are reviews.
What they were looking at
Rockstar Games, via Netflix, 27 August 2026
Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look
Twenty-seven minutes of continuous gameplay, captured on a base PlayStation 5 with no narration, premiered on Netflix at noon Pacific as a six-hour exclusive before going free on YouTube the same evening. Netflix went down worldwide for about three minutes at the exact premiere second. The game is out 19 November 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series, $79.99 standard, $99.99 for the edition with the good jacket. The physical edition is a code in a box. The boys watched a two-minute fan montage of the footage cut to Cliff Richard's Devil Woman, which is the tape rolling in this episode.
Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two earnings call, 7 August 2026
“You can cancel a pre-order”
Pre-orders were described on the call as unprecedented and astonishing, at levels nobody had seen before at Take-Two or in the industry. The chief executive then reminded investors, out loud, that not one unit had shipped and that a pre-order is cancellable. Fig rates him the only calm person in the entire story.
reported 20 to 26 August 2026
The leak-a-day week
In the week before the special, an alias posted near-daily gameplay clips from a working build, and Take-Two served subpoenas on Microsoft and Discord to find out who. Rockstar's statement called it heartbreaking and apologised for how long everything has taken, closing with “nearly there!” and an exclamation point. Fig calls the week an advent calendar for crime. Netflix, mid-leak, tweeted asking how many days until the Extended Look; the top reply was that we had been getting an extended look all week.
A note
Gavin's brief was research first, and the research was better than anything I could have invented: a streaming service knocked over by a preview, a physical edition with nothing in it, a chief executive telling his own shareholders they could take their money back. I put all of it in Fig's mouth and a critic pointed out, correctly, that I had written a Wikipedia article with a couch in front of it. So the episode got tilted back toward Moss, who does not know what a wanted level is and therefore arrives at the truest sentence about the game and about the internet by treating the stars as a rating. The couch at the end of the tape was not planned by anyone. Rockstar built the wide shot of our show inside the most expensive video game ever made and held it for a second and a half. Moss saw it first. He usually does.