GTA VI hacked Rockstar confirms, but work ‘continues as planned’

Rockstar has verified the Grand Theft Auto VI, GTA VI, footage leaked online over the weekend was robbed from its network.

“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,” Rockstar expresses on Twitter.

“We are extremely disappointed to share any details of our next game with you all in this way. However, our work on the next Grand Theft Auto game will continue as planned. We remain as committed as ever to delivering an experience to you, our players, that truly exceeds your expectations.”

The user who broadcasted the gameplay, “teapotuberhacker,” claims they also attacked Uber last week, but it’s still unclear whether they’re connected. 

Now, facts about how the “network intrusion” happened are remote, but Rockstar states it will “update everyone again soon.”

On Sunday morning, the hacker posted a 3GB file containing 90 videos of early GTA VI gameplay footage, which aligns with previous reports that indicate the game could feature a female protagonist for the first time. The hacker also threatened to “leak more data soon,” including source code, assets, and testing builds from GTA V and GTA VI.

Grand Theft Auto is a sequence of action-adventure games developed by David Jones and Mike Dailly. Later titles were created under the oversight of brothers Leslie Benzies, Dan Houser, Sam Houser, and Aaron Garbut.

It is mainly produced by British development house Rockstar North and broadcasted by its parent company, Rockstar Games. The series’ name references the word “grand theft auto,” utilized in the United States for motor vehicle theft.

The gameplay concentrates on an open world where the player can conduct missions to progress an overall story and encounter various side activities—most gameplay twists around driving and shooting, with occasional role-playing and stealth elements. The series also has features of the earlier beat-them-up games from the 16-bit era. The Grand Theft Auto series contests are set in fictional locales modeled after real-life cities at different moments, from the early 1960s to the 2010s.

The original game’s map enclosed three cities—Liberty City, San Andreas (based on San Francisco), and Vice City—but later titles tend to focus on a single setting. Usually, one of the original three locales, albeit remodeled and enormously expanded. The series centers on additional protagonists who endeavor to rise through the grades of the criminal underworld, although their explanations for accomplishing so deviate in each title.

The antagonists are typically characters who have crossed the protagonist or their organization or characters with the most impact on impeding the protagonist’s progress.