"Forest Figure": The GTA 6 hack file that points to a Slender Man hiding in the forests of Leonida

Among the files stolen from Rockstar in 2022 is one called "Forest Figure." Kotaku describes it as a figure visible among the trees. The hunt has already begun.

In September 2022, a 17-year-old boy using an Amazon Fire Stick, a hotel TV, and a cell phone carried out the biggest leak in video game history: 90 videos from the development of GTA 6. Among all that material were debug menus with internal lists of in-game events, and on one of those lists, under “possible secrets,” was a name that, four years later, continues to keep the community up at night: “Forest Figure”. The figure in the forest.

Kotaku, which documented the original material, described it bluntly: “a figure that can be spotted in the woods”. Nothing more. No texture, no mission, no context. Just a name and a chill down the spine.

What is the figure?

The leaked list already included the Skunk Ape—Florida’s Bigfoot—as a SEPARATE entry, with a documented sighting in a scene where Jason gets scared (“animal_scare”). And there lies the key to the community’s reasoning: if the swamp ape already has its own entry, the “figure” in the woods is SOMETHING ELSE. Something humanoid. Something that the word “figure” describes better than the word “creature.”

Hence, the prevailing theory points to Slenderman: tall, thin, always distant, always among the trees. It would also fit with the game’s history:

• In San Andreas, Rockstar DENIED Bigfoot’s existence (“he doesn’t exist, just like in real life”) and fueled 20 years of legend.
• In GTA 5, they actually included him: in the “Predator” mission, he can be seen through thermal vision among the trees, and the ghost of Mount Gordo appears every night between 11:00 PM and midnight.
• The official Mount Kalaga postcard mentions northern forests with “radical paranoids” and mystics.

Also on the same leaked list: “Dancer Mystery” and “Dancer Mystery Stalker” (a stalker and what appears to be a murder mystery), “Mine Shaft Discovery,” a World War II plane, a small plane that crashed in the Everglades... About 1,368 events in total—three times as many as in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Take this with a grain of salt—these are files from 2022

All of this comes from a build from four years ago: Rockstar may have changed or deleted it. And “Forest Figure = Slenderman” is fan speculation, not in-game text. But Rockstar’s track record suggests one thing: when they plant a name like that, it’s because they want us to spend years searching for it.

The hunt begins on November 19. Will you venture into the forests of Mount Kalaga by day… or by night?