The September 2022 Rockstar Hack: The 90 Leaked Test Clips Explained

Overview: The Biggest Leak in Gaming History

On September 18, 2022, the video game industry experienced its biggest unauthorized leak. An online user going by the name “teapotuberhacker” uploaded a 3 GB file containing 90 short developer test clips directly to GTAForums.

The videos showed early internal test builds, character walking animations, sound tests, and developer debug screens for the next Grand Theft Auto game.

The leak confirmed several major facts to the public for the first time:

Dual protagonists named Lucia and Jason.
A modern-day return to Vice City and the surrounding areas.
Major upgrades to physics, robbery mechanics, and police tactics.

Rockstar Games confirmed the leak the very next day, assuring players that game development would continue as planned.

Quick Facts: What Was Confirmed

Question	Fact	Source
Was the leak real?	100% Real Early Footage	Confirmed by Rockstar Games in an official public statement on September 19, 2022.
How old was the footage?	Early Test Builds (2021–2022)	Development menus on screen showed test dates spanning from early 2021 to mid-2022.
Who was responsible?	Arion Kurtaj (Lapsus$)	Identified, prosecuted in London, and sentenced in December 2023.

[!IMPORTANT] We Do Not Host Leaked Videos: We do not host, share, or download leaked videos or proprietary game code. This guide provides a factual news summary only.

How the Hack Happened

Court proceedings and investigations showed that the attacker did not crack into secured server banks, but used social engineering:

Slack Infrastructure Compromise: The perpetrator targeted an employee credentials cache via social engineering and credential stuffing, gaining unauthorized access to Rockstar Games’ internal enterprise Slack communication workspace.
Confluence & Asset Server Exfiltration: From the compromised Slack channels, the intruder navigated internal shared links to Confluence documentation repositories and asset staging environments.
Automated Download: The attacker downloaded 90 diagnostic video clips recorded by QA personnel across various studios (including Rockstar North, Rockstar India, and Rockstar Lincoln) dating between early 2021 and September 2022.
Extortion Attempt & Public Drop: When attempts to initiate direct ransom communications with Take-Two management stalled, the attacker published the clips publicly to force corporate engagement.

Technical Analysis of the 90 Video Recordings

The 90 leaked video clips offered unprecedented insight into Rockstar’s internal development methodology, debugging toolchains, and engine architecture:

1. Developer Menus & Debug Overlays

Each video showed standard developer test menus on screen:

Memory Tracking: Live numbers showing RAM and graphics memory usage on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X test kits.
Physics Lines & Collision Boxes: Colorful lines checking where feet touch the ground, how vehicle springs bend, and how water floats.
AI Vision Cones: Visual markers showing where characters and police officers were looking and how alert they were.

2. The Two Lead Characters (Lucia & Jason)

The clips proved that the game has two main characters:

Several clips showed Lucia robbing a roadside waffle restaurant, holding up witnesses, and aiming guns to keep people from hitting the silent alarm.
Other clips showed Jason testing weapons at an outdoor shooting range and swimming in coastal waters.
We saw test clips of characters sharing weapons and the inactive partner providing covering fire.

3. Enterable Buildings & Interactive World

The footage showed way more enterable buildings than in Grand Theft Auto V:

Detailed indoor spaces like diners, pawn shops, gas station marts, motels, and nightclubs.
Interactive physics: cash drawers opened, soda cans rolled, and items on shelves reacted dynamically to gunshots and physical hits.

Official Publisher Confirmation & Studio Statement

On the morning of September 19, 2022, Rockstar Games confirmed the leak publicly:

“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. At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects.

We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way. 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.“

Take-Two also filed an official note to investors confirming that development was on track and player data was completely safe.

What Happened to the Hacker

Following an international police investigation by the City of London Police and the FBI:

Who Was Responsible: The hacker was identified as Arion Kurtaj, a member of the hacking group Lapsus$, which had also breached Microsoft, Nvidia, and Uber.
Court Verdict: In December 2023, a London court sentenced Kurtaj to an indefinite hospital order, requiring him to remain in a secure medical facility until doctors and judges determine he is no longer a danger.

How the Leak Changed Game Development Security

The September 2022 incident changed how the entire video game industry protects its secrets:

Physical USB Security Keys: Game studios replaced phone text codes and apps with physical hardware security keys (like YubiKeys) for all employee logins.
Return to the Office: Studios brought developers back to work inside secured studio buildings instead of working from home.
Invisible Screen Watermarks: Studios now use invisible screen watermarks to trace any leak back to the exact computer it was recorded on.

The September 2022 leak remains one of the biggest moments in gaming history—giving fans an early look at GTA 6’s huge world, while showing the clear difference between early test footage and the finished, polished game.