Take-Two cracks down on leaked Grand Theft Auto 6 footage as Rockstar confirms 'network intrusion'

Yesterday's leak of GTA 6 footage was one of the largest in the history of the games industry, and it was inevitable that the official response to it would be swift and far-reaching. Now, it appears said response has begun. In a statement, Rockstar Games has confirmed the company "suffered a network intrusion" where an "unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto."

The statement further expresses how Rockstar is "extremely disappointed" that details of the next GTA were "shared in this way" and says that the studio will "properly introduce you to this next game when it is ready." It adds that work on the game will continue "as planned," suggesting that the leak won't affect the projected development of the game, as was the case with Half-Life 2. You can read the full statement below:

A Message from Rockstar Games pic.twitter.com/T4Wztu8RW8September 19, 2022

Meanwhile, Take-Two Interactive has begun issuing takedown notices on footage (and links to footage) to multiple websites. Take-Two's response started late yesterday evening, with several videos on YouTube showing the leaked footage being removed at the request of the company. Take-Two has also issued takedown notices to two major GTA communities, namely the Grand Theft Auto 6 subreddit page, and GTAForums, the initial source for the leak.

As reported by VGC, the GTA6 subreddit was temporarily taken down as moderators cleared it of any imagery of the leaked material. It has since been reopened with a warning stating "no one can post links, photos and videos of the recent leaks" in order to protect the subreddit from being "obliterated by Rockstar Games."

Moreover, the GTAForums thread that kicked off this whole affair was also taken down while links to the leaked material were either removed or otherwise concealed. The thread is now back online, but is locked with a message that states, "All sensitive media in this thread has been hidden and the thread has been made public again for archival reasons."

Take-Two also addressed the leak in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, in which it reaffirmed that ongoing projects and online services will not be impacted, and that it has "already taken steps to isolate and contain this incident."

The leak originally appeared on GTAForums early on Sunday morning, and appears to be the result of a social engineering hack. The leaker, who variously goes by the moniker 'Tea Pot,' also claimed responsibility for a recent hack on Uber. Following deliberations regarding the validity of the footage, the leak was confirmed as legitimate by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier. After the leak went viral, Tea Pot updated their original post with a message to Rockstar and Take-Two, claiming they were "looking to negotiate a deal" although they didn't specify the nature of the deal they were proposing.

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Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.