GTA 6 Nearly Got Banned in South Korea, and It Was All the Dongs’ Fault

GTA 6 came within a whisker of being refused a rating in South Korea, which would have effectively banned it there. Not for the violence, not for the drugs, but for all the blokes wandering around Leonida with their bits out.

That’s according to minutes of South Korea’s Game Content Rating Board (GCRB) meetings, obtained by Korean outlet Inven. The board’s first vote was a 3-3 tie, and it took three meetings to finally wave it through.

How close it got

• 1 September: Rockstar applied for a Korean rating, Inven Global reports.
• 10 September: the first review tied 3-3 between Adults Only and refusing a rating. The board postponed and recommended changes instead.
• 28 September: a playable build only reached the board then, because of security concerns.
• 2 October: the second review postponed again, saying it needed more time actually playing the game. An 8 October meeting was cancelled for lack of a quorum.
• 16 October: the third review gave GTA 6 an Adults Only (19+) rating, eight votes to one.

The problem was background willies

Board members reckoned the violence, crime and drug content wasn’t much different from GTA 5, Inven Global reports. What nearly sank it was frequent male genital nudity in the background, with no sexual context.

“I do not believe genital exposure to this extent falls within acceptable limits under the current standard,” one member who voted for refusal said, as quoted by Polygon. A member in the majority said Rockstar appeared to have covered genitals in the explicitly sexual scenes while allowing them in the background.

• The rules changed: Korea loosened its wording in September 2025, so genital exposure no longer automatically triggers a refusal. GTA 6 was the first big game tested under the new wording, per Inven Global.
• Hot Coffee it isn’t: a board researcher found no sexual interaction was possible during the nude scenes, and the sex scenes play out like cutscenes, Inven Global reports.
• The lone holdout: the one member who voted no worried background nudity would now turn up in loads of future RPGs, as quoted by Polygon.
• Odd one out: members noted that 10 overseas rating boards had already given it adult ratings, so Korea would have been the only country to refuse, Inven Global reports.

Meanwhile, the map leaked in a London shop

In other GTA 6 launch-week chaos, the Leonida map appears to have leaked from a Selfridges merch display in the UK, VGC reports. It seems to be the souvenir map from the Collector’s Edition, folded up in the window, with a clearer photo shared from an Instagram account that’s since been deleted.

Fans have picked out names like Pelican Valley, Lummox County, Moreau and Manzana, according to Game Rant. None of it is confirmed by Rockstar, and it’s a stylised poster rather than a proper road map.

What about NZ and Australia?

We’re fine. Polygon lists 18+ ratings in Australia and New Zealand, and we’ve already busted the rumour that our R18+ label means a censored Kiwi copy. GTA 6 launches on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on 19 November, and New Zealand gets it first.

Our take

Three meetings, a cancelled quorum and pages of official minutes about how much dong is too much dong. South Korea’s rating board earned its pay this year.

To be fair, the board got the right answer in the end. Adults can handle a nudist beach in a game about robbing people, and banning the biggest game of the decade over background tackle would have made Korea a global punchline.

Everything else on the launch is on our GTA 6 page. Rockstar being Rockstar, or totally unnecessary? Tell us in the GetRekt Discord.

Sources

• Inven Global: GTA 6 came close to rating refusal in South Korea
• Inven Global: GTA 6 rated Adults Only in South Korea following private board review
• Polygon: GTA 6 nearly hit with ban over ‘frequent male genital exposure’
• VGC: GTA 6 map seemingly leaks at Selfridges merch drop
• Game Rant: GTA 6 map spotted in the wild
• Rockstar Games (YouTube): Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 2