The makers of one of the most popular video game franchises are dealing with a grand theft of their own.
Rockstar Games confirmed Monday that a major leak of footage from its highly anticipated game Grand Theft Auto VI is legitimate.
"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," the publisher said.
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Footage from the game began appearing online over the weekend. Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier described it as "one of the biggest leaks in video game history," which was especially significant because little was previously known about the game. Rockstar only just confirmed Grand Theft Auto VI was in development in February 2022, nearly a decade after the release of Grand Theft Auto V. That fifth entry is one of the best-selling video games of all time.
According to Kotaku, almost 100 videos apparently from GTA VI appeared on a forum, showing mechanics and characters. The leaker claims they obtained the footage from Rockstar's employee Slack and is threatening to leak more, Axios reports.
Rockstar says that it doesn't anticipate "any disruption to our live game services," e.g. Grand Theft Auto Online, or any "long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects" because of the leak. The game doesn't have a release date.
"We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way," Rockstar added. "Our work on the next Grand Theft Auto game will continue as planned and we remain as committed as ever to delivering an experience to you, our players, that truly exceeds your expectations."
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