The GTA V video game recently had its nine-year anniversary on Sept. 17, but this was not the only reason why the video game engineering company Rockstar Games was in the news this past week.

Many fans woke up to a disappointing video showing footage of the new game in development from Rockstar Games by the title of GTA 6, the sixth installment in the infamous GTA video game series. According to an article written by Tech Crunch writer Darrell Etherington, the data was found on GTA Forums that the hacker themselves posted.

The post contained 90 videos of clips from the game, with debug code and other confirming factors such as the hacker showing the interfaces running all but confirming it was content from the new up-and-coming game.

Rockstar Games officially posted a statement on their Twitter page on Sept. 19, stating, “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 effects 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. We will update everyone again soon and, of course, will properly introduce you to this next game when it is ready. We want to thank everyone for their ongoing support through this situation.” – The RockStar Games Team

When the leak first broke on Twitter and other social media platforms before Rockstar Games’ statement was released, many users had speculated that it was possibly an update to the massively popular online version of the GTA V video game. Fans also speculated that the footage was possibly for the new installment of the franchise, but the ones that were thinking so were unimpressed with what they had seen so far.

The game footage, some of which has been taken down off of forums due to copyright claims from the company, shows both a male and female protagonist that the user is playing, which aligns with original rumors that the new installment of the franchise would have a male and female protagonist to play as. Another factor that was also pointed out by many watching the leaked clips was that the resembling architecture and surrounding areas resembled that of Miami, which as previously mentioned has been rumored as a potential site for the gameplay.

Nonetheless, the new installment will definitely have its shoes to fill once it is released. The last installment of the franchise, GTA V, is considered by many publications and outlets to be one of the most influential games of the past 20 years, if not ever.

It currently ranks second in the all-time sales of video games, with only Minecraft being above the game in sales and it is also the fastest selling video game in one day, with over 11 million copies being sold in one day.

If the sixth installment of the franchise is anything like the last games, I am almost certain that it will be a crisply detailed open-world game that many will love despite this one incident. A thing for people to remember in moments like this is that games like this take multiple years to develop, and also that everybody and anybody is vulnerable to online attackers.

With this barely being the testing trials for the game, many people and I believe that the game will not be ready by the time the company is ready to set a date, but I also believe the game will be that much a better experience for its users because of this mishap.