GTA 6 Extended Look: Leonida activities and car theft

2 September 2026 · 4 min read

GameMapa editorial · how we check facts
Checked: Claude (AI) — факт-звірка з uk-оригіналом; носій мови НЕ перевіряв

Rockstar released Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look, an expanded gameplay showcase set in Leonida. We already covered the showcase as a whole in a separate article: what Rockstar confirmed. This piece is narrower: two topics from that same material that readers are asking about most. First, how many ways to spend time outside the story Rockstar confirmed. Second, how car theft actually works — from the app down to the specific lockpicking tools.

Twenty free-roam activity categories in Leonida

According to GTA BOOM’s breakdown, the Extended Look confirmed 20 free-roam activity categories in Leonida — activities that sit outside the main story missions. That’s not one or two token side mechanics; it’s an entire leisure system spread across dozens of different ways to spend time on the island.

Among the confirmed categories, GTA BOOM explicitly names scuba diving, jet skiing, dirt biking, base jumping, and vibrant nightlife. That single list already spans water sports, land-based extreme sports, aerial activities, and urban nightlife — the confirmed set clearly isn’t limited to one type of activity or one part of the island.

An important caveat from the outlet itself: the activities shown are examples from a wider list, not an exhaustive rundown of all twenty categories. Per GTA BOOM, most of them only flashed by in the video’s editing, so a full list is expected only once the game actually ships.

That lines up with what we already wrote in our guide to confirmed activities and minigames: after the Extended Look, the free-roam leisure category turned out to be broader than previously assumed. Two of the named activities — jet skiing and dirt biking — are directly tied to specific vehicles, so it’s worth cross-checking the list against our guide to vehicle types, where we track everything confirmed about Leonida’s cars, boats, and motorcycles.

Car theft: the WAINK app and security tiers

The second major block of the Extended Look that KeenGamer singled out is car theft. In its own breakdown of the showcase, KeenGamer devoted an entire section to the topic and named three components of the new system: an app called WAINK, vehicle security levels, and a set of lockpicking tools.

The biggest shift from how car theft worked in earlier games in the series is immediately obvious: it’s no longer the same single action for every car on screen. Per KeenGamer’s description, vehicles have different security levels — older models can be opened with a plain slim jim, while newer luxury cars require more advanced equipment, such as a key cloner. In other words, the tool a player needs depends on exactly which car they’re trying to take, rather than one universal move working for every vehicle in the game.

There’s also a progression gate: KeenGamer states directly that some vehicles cannot be stolen early in the game. The outlet doesn’t detail exactly how the unlock mechanism works, so whether that progress comes from story missions, purchased tools, or something else is still outside what Rockstar confirmed or what KeenGamer quoted.

We’ve already written about how car theft and resale work in GTA 6 more broadly — read the full guide here. The WAINK app and security tiers are exactly the missing piece that guide didn’t have before: it’s now clear theft runs through its own digital interface with a difficulty curve tied to the specific vehicle, rather than one action covering every case.

Aiming also made the showcase recap

It’s worth mentioning one more detail from the same showcase, even though it isn’t directly about free-roam activities or car theft. Push Square’s own list of 17 things learned from the showcase separately called out significantly improved aiming as its own standalone entry. The outlet broke this change out as its own point in the recap — meaning it considered the change notable enough to flag apart from the rest of the combat system, even without detailing the specific mechanism behind it.

Why this matters for readers

Both topics — free-roam activities and car theft — ultimately point at the same thing: how alive and detailed a world Rockstar showed for Leonida outside the story missions. Twenty activity categories and a multi-tiered car theft system with its own dedicated app are two separate pieces of evidence for the same conclusion — the game world is built to be more than a backdrop for running between missions.

We’re deliberately not re-covering the rest of the showcase here — release date, platforms, characters, and everything else already has its own recap, linked at the top of this article. This piece is strictly about activities and car theft, and only about what verified sources actually confirmed, without filling in mechanics the outlets themselves never described.