GTA 6 Sneaks New Gameplay Into South Park: Jason Turns a Bag of Dog Poop Into a Weapon on Vice City Beach

Rockstar's newest look at Grand Theft Auto VI didn't land on YouTube or the Newswire. It turned up in a cartoon. South Park's October 28 episode, "Guinea Pig on a Stick", cut to a short clip of genuine, previously unseen GTA 6 gameplay, and IGN confirms the footage is real. The highlight: Jason picks up a bag of dog poop on a Vice City beach and hits someone with it.

Real footage, credited to Rockstar

This isn't an animated parody. According to Notebookcheck, the end credits read "Grand Theft Auto VI footage courtesy of Rockstar Games, Inc." VICE also says the credits confirm Rockstar supplied it. That means Rockstar handed the footage over itself. It wasn't a leak.

Nobody agrees on exactly how long it runs. IGN calls it "just shy of 20 seconds" and Creative Bloq says around 20. Radio Times times it at 17 seconds, while Kotaku counts about 25. Either way, it's brief.

What the clip shows

In the episode, the boys get a "secret" GTA 6 presentation from the woman running the steakhouse that's buying up the town's beef, VGC explains. Then the show switches to real game footage:

• Jason and Lucia on a packed Vice City beach, full of sunbathers, swimmers and umbrellas
• A dog doing its business on the sand while its owner bags it up
• Jason throws something at the dog walker to start a fight, then grabs the poop bag and smacks him in the face with it, and the bag bursts

Notebookcheck points out the crowd density, the NPCs who react with dialogue and the footprints left in the sand. The clip also uses the normal third-person gameplay camera. In practice, it confirms that items NPCs drop out in the open world can be picked up and used as weapons outside missions. As Deadline quotes the episode's pitch: "That is what's coming in November."

Part of a playful launch campaign

South Park has joked about GTA 6 all season, so the clip plays as a punchline more than a paid ad, Creative Bloq argues. It's also the latest in a string of unusual marketing moves. Rockstar recently turned part of Miami Beach into Vice Beach and ran GTA 6's first TV ad during NBA opening night. Just a day after the episode aired, Edge's cover story brought 12 new screenshots and K9 police units.

Rockstar hasn't posted the clip on its own channels or released a statement about it, so for now the episode is the only official source.

What's next

• November 12: pre-loading opens at local midnight (our pre-load guide)
• November 19: GTA 6 launches on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S

With less than three weeks to go, expect Rockstar to keep showing up in unexpected places.