The 10 Biggest Game Leaks Of All Time
The gaming world is losing its marbles over the recent drop of internal data from Rockstar Games on Grand Theft Auto 6. A hacker going by the name “Tea Pot” managed to get their hands on an unfinished build of the most hyped game of the generation. It got us thinking about other times that game studios have sprung a leak. Developers typically try to keep a tight grip on information to control their marketing cycle, but sneaky spies and hardcore hackers always seem to find a way in. Here are 10 leaks that dramatically shook the gaming world.
It was apparent very quickly that The Last Of Us was going to be an important franchise player for Sony, so a sequel felt inevitable. But when a culprit leaked major plot details from TLOU 2 in May of 2020, it shook the industry to its core. The rich, compelling plot is one of the game’s biggest selling points, so to have all of that spoiled—complete with video clips to back up the shocking twists—was a big deal. The identity of the leaker was never released publicly, and although there was some fan backlash The Last Of Us 2 was a massive critical and commercial success, so no real harm was done.
The distribution chain for games opens up lots of possibilities for information to reach the public too early. One of the most massive examples came from Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service. In September of 2021, a developer from Ukraine managed to access the service’s database backend and discovered a huge list of upcoming games—many of which hadn’t been announced to the public at all. Some of the most notable included Kingdom Hearts IV, Crysis 4, and Street Fighter 6. Sheerly by volume, this is one of the most impactful leaks of all time, affecting dozens of companies and still being
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