Early development footage of GTAVI leaked online over this past weekend, resulting in a total of 52 minutes of gameplay spread across 80-or-so videos. It didn't take long for Jason Schreier to confirm this with his sources, but even if he didn't, fans knew it was too elaborate to be fake.
And today, Rockstar has commented, confirming what we already believed. Rockstar's tweet makes it clear that the team is "extremely disappointed," but development of the game "will continue as planned." The company reassures fans and makes it clear that they "do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects."
A Message from Rockstar Games pic.twitter.com/T4Wztu8RW8September 19, 2022
The person who illegally accessed Rockstar's Slack and got their hands on the game's source code attempted to ransom what they had and was "looking to negotiate a deal." The hacker later made it clear that they were accepting "no offers under 5 figs."
All apparent footage of the leak has been completely scrubbed off of YouTube, but for a brief period, all 52-minutes were available to watch across two videos. Images were also mostly removed from Twitter, and it seems Take-Two is working hard to get it off as many websites as possible.
Rockstar Games has yet to comment on the ransom itself, but we do not anticipate the company is willing to negotiate with the hacker. This is already one of the most devastating leaks in industry, and it's hard to imagine what the company does next.
