Rockstar Games developers have described the 2022 hack behind the mass leaks of Grand Theft Auto 6 as invasive and hard to deal with, in comments published by Bloomberg and reported by GameSpot on October 14. The same day, the leaker known as CyberLeek posted another gameplay leak and said it could be the last.
It feels like somebody's wading through your dirty washing. It's like they're inside your head. You see your early work out there. Nobody's ever supposed to see that. It's really weirdly invasive. And so it's quite hard to deal with on an emotional level.
Rockstar and Take-Two eventually tracked down the hacker allegedly responsible for the 2022 leaks, GameSpot reported. That person is reportedly due in court on November 9, days before the game is scheduled to release.
Office policy
The hack pushed Rockstar to require developers to work from the office rather than remotely. Rockstar publishing head Jennifer Kolbe said the studio will revisit the policy after GTA 6 releases, though she does not expect major changes. "The idea that we would have the game in that many environments is something that I think the security team would not love," she said, adding that if the game were not one people wanted to steal as much, "maybe it would be an easier conversation."
The 2022 breach was followed this year by a new round of leaks from a person or group using the name CyberLeek, which GameSpot said had been promoting a memecoin and appears to be shutting down. Its final gameplay leak was published on October 14.
According to GameSpot, Bloomberg's report also covered the game's originally larger scope, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick's response to a delay and the creation of an entire studio to build the game's NPCs, and confirmed that GTA 6 did not cost $1.5 billion to make. GTA 6 is scheduled for release on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.