Cancelled GTA Online discovered as Rockstar is hit by another Christmas leak-Adam Starkey-Entertainment – Metro

GTA Online has a longer history than expected (Rockstar)

Early plans for GTA Online have been unearthed, as a separate leak reveals details around past Halo games.

As the studio behind one of biggest gaming franchises in the world, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Rockstar Games is often affected by leaks.

The developer was famously subject to a hacking incident in 2022 by British teenager Arion Kurtaj, who was ordered to be detained in hospital indefinitely in December last year. The leak itself included footage and screenshots from the upcoming GTA 6.

Another GTA leak happened around Christmas Day last year, which included the source code for GTA 5. In what’s starting to become an unfortunate tradition, more material from past games in the series has emerged online for Christmas this year.

What is in the new GTA leak?

This leak stems from GTAForums user FrankieLiberty, who has released a bunch of old Rockstar assets, including design documents for an early version of GTA Online from 2001, GTA San Andreas, and handheld entries GTA Advance and GTA: Vice City Stories.

As detailed by X account GTAVI_Countdown, the documents show a version of GTA Online was in development in 2001 at Barking Dog Studios (now known as Rockstar Vancouver), the developer behind 2006’s Bully.

This version, which was apparently cancelled due to technical limitations, had many features present in the actual GTA Online today, like character customisation, different playable factions, the ability to own properties, and a skill system for certain attributes.

FrankieLiberty has released this information ‘as a sign of protest’ against an individual known in Rockstar fan communities as John Doe, who has allegedly been selling these stolen assets for a profit.

‘Select ex-developers have made a killing off his sales while being entirely protected with him acting as a fence,’ they wrote on the forum. ‘John Doe has easily made tens of thousands of dollars, often times reselling the same asset priced at e.g. 2k dollars to five different parties.

‘That cannot stand AND shouldn’t stand any longer – John Doe has done enough damage, to his buyers, to Rockstar and to our whole community, by being a greed-driven, deeply irresponsible bad faith actor who thinks of themselves as the Robin Hood of stolen property.’

By posting these assets online, in what is billed as a ‘Christmas gift for the community’, FrankieLiberty hopes John Doe’s assets will be ‘devalued as he won’t be able to resell them any longer for profits’.

What is the Halo leak?

Coincidentally, this wasn’t the only gaming leak over Christmas. As reported by dataminer Visceral, early builds and unreleased content from Bungie-developed Halo games have cropped up online.

The material, which dates back to 1998 prior to 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved, stems from a Halo Digsite project; which was a collaborative effort between Halo modders and developer 343 Industries (recently renamed to Halo Studios) to restore cut content from past Halo games.

While it’s unclear who actually leaked the Digsite files, X user DogbrainLudus, who recently left the project, confirmed the leak is real. ‘I nor any of the recent Digsite departures did this,’ they wrote, before clarifying that they ‘don’t know who uploaded it’.

The source of the leak might be unknown, but some believe this will mark the end of Halo Digsite — and could potentially damage the chances of future collaborations between modders and developers.

In October, the rebranded Halo Studios confirmed it was working on multiple Halo games in Unreal Engine 5, with one rumoured to be a remake of the original Halo: Combat Evolved.

Halo Infinite proved to be not quite so infinite (Microsoft)

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