The GTA 6 September leak will go down in history as one of the biggest leaks in the history of gaming. But it will have dire consequences for the game, including a very likely delay of the eventual release.
Man, what a weekend it was. On Sunday, September 18 a hacker released tons of development footage and material from GTA 6 unto the internet, which is one of the biggest leaks in the history of video games. This has caused a huge uproar, excitement, confusion and so much more on the internet. But what a lot of people failed to consider is that this leak is very bad news for Rockstar and that it will most likely lead to a delay in the game's release. Here's why.
GTA 6 Will Very Likely Be Delayed After Leaks
A leak of this size is obviously bad news for Rockstar on many levels and will lead to consequences for the game's development. One major point, which maybe hasn't been considered strongly enough in the aftermath of the leak, is this: the hacker, who acquired the revealed footage, also claims to have taken parts of the source code of the game. A reductive explanation in case you don't know what that means: the source code is usually the base a game is built on, all the functions, algorithms, scripts and so on that the game is working with, are based on the source code.
A malicious hacker having access to that is obviously terrible for Rockstar. The game has potentially become susceptible to cheats, hacks and attacks forever, if this code is or has been shared online. This will be a major concern for Rockstar Games and publisher Take-Two, and it will most likely prompt additional development to change the code and protect the integrity of the game.
Check out everything we know about GTA 6 in this video:
The leak also seems to have revealed tons of content from the game, which might be another concern for Rockstar and cause additional development. They might want to change as much as they can. Neither Rockstar Games nor parent company Take-Two have publicly responded to the leak yet, so we don't know what their reaction will be for now. Don't expect them to talk about delays or the release any time soon: our best theory for a GTA 6 release date was around 2024/25, so it will take a while anyway. Now it might take even longer.