Basketball

Basketball is no longer a San Andreas throwback fans hope for, nor just a leak. The first clip of the August 2026 leak opened at Jason’s waterside home in the Leonida Keys, a location recognisable from Trailer 2, with gym equipment visible on the balcony. Jason hops off the deck, runs past a jet ski, picks up a ball on the half-court and starts shooting hoops. Rockstar then made it official: the Extended Look includes Jason playing basketball at that same initial Keys safehouse, hitting a fadeaway on the driveway hoop. Creators who attended the preview event read the clip as a deliberate nod to the leak from the week before. It is the first time basketball has been playable in a GTA game since San Andreas.

An on-screen tutorial in the leaked clip spells the mechanic out: to shoot, aim and hold until the rings overlap, then release. Jason can dribble while walking, shots follow varied arcs, and a made basket plays a coin-like chime and grants a Focus +2% stat boost. The Extended Look adds a fadeaway jumper to the move set. The physics carry through too: one leaked shot bounces off the top of the backboard, rolls downhill and floats away in the water, and the whole activity flows in and out of free roam with no menus or loading. Nobody expects NBA 2K depth here; previewers describe it as a small mini-game, with some hoping for player-versus-player games once online arrives.

San Andreas let CJ practise his jump shot on courts in Los Santos, and it stayed the one entry fans cited when asking for basketball back. GTA 5 was originally set to feature basketball inside its arena, but that was cut from the final game. GTA 6 is the first game since 2004 to bring the sport back as a playable activity, and this time a made shot feeds a visible character stat instead of being pure flavour.

The Extended Look settled what Focus is. It is the third bar in the top-left HUD alongside health and stamina, marked with an eye icon, and it works as GTA 6’s take on Red Dead Redemption 2’s Dead Eye: activating it slows time and highlights the most efficient parts of an enemy to target, red for kill points and yellow for disarming shots, and it also picks out weak points on vehicles such as tyres. Both Jason and Lucia can use it. Creators who attended the preview believe basketball and the shooting range are among the activities that raise Focus, though the on-screen +2% from the leak remains the only direct evidence.

The world seems to care about the sport too: a TV inside the leaked Game Hoorde store plays a basketball broadcast featuring the game’s Miami Heat parody team, and creators note a stadium exists on the map, fuelling speculation about attendable games or even sports betting.

The +2% is bigger news than the hoop. Previewers confirmed that health, stamina and Focus can all be permanently raised above their normal ceilings through side activities such as working out consistently, and temporarily raised through consumables like food, drinks and protein bars, in a system they compare to Red Dead Redemption 2. A few games at the waterfront court, a gym session or a fishing trip become small investments in the character instead of pure downtime.

Only Jason has been shown on the court so far, in both the leak and the Extended Look, but the underlying stats are not his alone: Lucia uses Focus in the same way and is the one shown building strength in the gym, so the question is only whether the hoop is shared between them. The evidence for every leaked stat and system, graded row by row, sits in the leaked gameplay mechanics guide.