Four days after Rockstar named Justice as the composers of GTA 6's original score, the behind-the-scenes version nobody asked for (but every electronic music fan wanted to hear) arrived: Daft Punk were supposedly first on the list.

The story comes from a single source, and that needs saying up front. None of what follows has been confirmed by Rockstar, Daft Punk or Justice.

What the account said

On Sunday, October 19, the music-leak account @hasitleaked posted on X that Rockstar approached the company that still manages Daft Punk with a pitch for "a final comeback" to score the game, backed by "essentially an unlimited budget." Justice, according to the post, "were Rockstar's second choice." Those three phrases are the only parts quoted verbatim by the outlets we read.

The story spread quickly. GTA BOOM, IG News, GLITCHED and Sunday Guardian Live all picked it up on the 19th and 20th, and this is where the versions start to drift apart:

  • IG News and the Sunday Guardian say Daft Punk turned the offer down.
  • GLITCHED is more careful, saying the duo "may have" declined.
  • GTA BOOM, the most detailed piece we read, only reports the pitch and Justice's status as the backup.

Our take: the refusal is a logical inference (Justice got the job, so Daft Punk didn't), not something the original post spells out in the quotes that reached us. We couldn't open the post itself, since X blocked direct access, so we're relying on what the press quoted.

On the source's track record, IG News says the account has been posting about Daft Punk and Justice for more than ten years, and GTA BOOM says it has been right before in that niche. Both still advise taking the claim with a grain of salt. So do we.

What's official

On October 15, alongside the launch trailer, Rockstar introduced Justice as the composers of the game's "original dynamic score." The official music page credits the duo as "original score composers" and features the single "Flower in a Hurricane", with Tame Impala, SZA and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

The same page confirms that GTA 6: The Album will have 34 original tracks and arrives on November 19, the game's launch day.

There's also a detail that makes the rumor stick: Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, one half of Daft Punk, is credited as producer on "RHYNO," Travis Scott's track on the album. Mixmag Asia, GLITCHED and GTA BOOM all mention the credit. Rockstar's page lists the song but doesn't name its producer. So one member of Daft Punk is already involved, just on his own, not as the duo.

Why the story is believable (and why that doesn't make it true)

On paper, it fits almost too neatly.

The two acts go way back. Pedro Winter, aka Busy P, managed Daft Punk from 1996 to 2008 and in 2003 founded Ed Banger, the label that signed Justice early on. Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay grew up in the duo's shadow and are often described as their heirs.

Daft Punk know how to score. They wrote the music for Tron: Legacy (2010), recorded with an 85-piece orchestra. A score the size of GTA 6's wouldn't be unfamiliar ground.

Justice are on a roll. Hyperdrama (2024) was nominated for the Grammy for best dance/electronic album, and "Neverender," featuring Tame Impala, won best dance/electronic recording. One correction worth making: GTA BOOM writes that Hyperdrama "won a Grammy"; according to the record we checked, the album was nominated and the single was the winner. And yes, the Tame Impala on "Neverender" is the same one on "Flower in a Hurricane."

Then there's the other side of the scale.

The wall called 2021

Daft Punk announced their split on February 22, 2021, with the "Epilogue" video: one robot explodes in the desert, the other walks away, and the closing card reads "1993–2021." In 2023, Thomas Bangalter explained part of the decision with a line that stuck: "the last thing I would want to be, in the world we live in, in 2023, is a robot." That same year he released the orchestral ballet Mythologies, helmet off.

The 10th anniversary edition of Random Access Memories, also from 2023, was marketed with "Infinity Repeating" billed as Daft Punk's "last song."

GTA BOOM says Bangalter has "repeatedly" ruled out a reunion. We didn't find that specific statement in the sources we read. What we did find is the context above, which points the same way without being a formal denial.

That's why, in our view, the most plausible part of the rumor is the least glamorous one: that Rockstar asked. A company spending what it's spending on GTA 6 can afford to try. And a "no" would be consistent with everything the duo has done since 2021.

What nobody has confirmed

  • Whether there was a pitch at all, when it happened, and who received it.
  • The money. "Unlimited budget" is the leaker's phrase, not a figure. The Sunday Guardian links it to estimates of the game's cost ($1 billion to $2 billion), but that's the paper's math, not a document.
  • Whether Daft Punk declined or the conversation simply never went anywhere.
  • Whether Homem-Christo's work on "RHYNO" has anything to do with the alleged pitch. None of the sources we read draws that line directly.

For players, the rumor changes nothing: the score is by Justice, the album lands on November 19, and several singles are already out. But if anyone at Rockstar or in the duo's camp ever confirms it, it'll go down as one of gaming's more fascinating near-misses.