Rockstar Breaks Its Silence On GTA 6 Leak
The last few days have been a whirlwind in the gaming industry, to say the very least. Over the weekend, an unidentified hacker calling themselves teapotuberhacker managed to snag and leak a massive amount of footage from Rockstar Games' "Grand Theft Auto 6," which has been in development for a few years at this point. Around 3 gigs of information was simply dumped in a GTA Forums post by the hacker, who insinuated that he wanted to meet with Rockstar in regards to the hack. The internet was immediately set ablaze as fans lost their minds over the leaked "GTA 6" footage, which revealed a ton of small details: familiar locations, new combat mechanics, and even a brand new lead character named Lucia. What wasn't immediately revealed was what Rockstar planned to do about the leak, which some have called the largest in the long history of gaming.
Rockstar sources confirmed the legitimacy of the leak to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, while industry insider and content creator LegacyKillaHD reported speaking to Rockstar employees who were heartbroken to see their work being leaked before completion. On the day of the leaks, LegacyKillaHD tweeted, "Most [Rockstar employees] are waiting till Monday to find out how leadership responds or what happens next but indeed this is the real deal."
However, the company has not made any formal statement regarding the leaks until now. Here is what the team behind "GTA 6" had to say about the theft and subsequent leak.
Rockstar issues a statement on the hacks
On Sept. 19, Rockstar Games took to Twitter to acknowledge the damage done and to reassure fans that this would not hurt the game's internal release timeline. The statement explained, "We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next 'Grand Theft Auto.' At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects."
In other words, it sounds as though "GTA Online" has not been negatively impacted by the hacks in any way, so players concerned about a whole new breed of hackers wreaking havoc on the MMO can rest easy. The reference to "early development footage" also seems to clear up some of the concerns fans had for things like environmental textures and NPC animations appearing unfinished in the leaked footage.
Even so, Rockstar expressed its displeasure with the leaks, noting that this is not at all how the company intended for the game to be seen for the first time. The company also made it clear that this leak will not prompt the company to release more information about the upcoming game at this time, noting, "We will update everyone again soon and, of course, will properly introduce you to this next game when it is ready." The statement closed with a sincere thanks to the folks who have had Rockstar's back during this debacle.
Fans rally behind Rockstar
The responses to Rockstar's statement were varied, as can be expected with something so controversial. Of course, plenty of people in the comments attempted to ratio Rockstar's tweet or make memes out of the situation, but a number of fans also reiterated their sympathy for the company and their excitement for whatever comes next. For instance, "Sea of Thieves" designer Andrew Preston expressed his support for the developers working on the project.
Some people still didn't believe the leaks were the real deal until they saw Rockstar's response. Others were glad to find out that the leaks were real, because they were impressed by what they'd seen. Some have even theorized that the leaks could even serve to get fans more excited for the next "Grand Theft Auto."
It's unclear what will happen with the hacker themselves, but it sounds like Rockstar is already on the case. Though the clips and screenshots from "Grand Theft Auto 6" are being rapidly removed from the internet, fans can rest assured that the next look they get at the game will be much more complete.