Rockstar Games, the makers of video game Grand Theft Auto, say that more than 90 clips of Grand Theft Auto VI were leaked and shared on social media at the weekend.
The unauthorised download was posted to the GTAForums website by user teapotuberhacker, who claims to have downloaded the files from employee communications.
“We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorised third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto,” read a statement posted on Rockstar Games' Twitter account.
The wildly popular free-roaming role-playing video game allows a large amount of freedom to the player.
Among the collection of clips were examples of in-game combat, scenery and characters which suggest the game could include the series’ first female protagonist and be set in Vice City — a mock version of Miami and the setting of the Grand Theft Auto 2002 release.
“We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way,” the company said.
“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 expectation.”
Soon after posting the clips, teapotuberhacker invited staff at Rockstar Games and parent company Take Two to get in contact.
Teapotuberhacker then threatened to leak more data, including source codes and assets for recent games, as well as a Grand Theft Auto VI testing build.
Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular video game series ever created and has sold more than 380 million copies worldwide.
Agencies contributed to this report
