After Insomniac found itself at the centre of a major, and quite alarming, hack from a ransomware group named Rhysida last week, we’re now unfortunately starting to see some of the obtained information and data appear on the internet. The deadline that the group gave Sony to respond has passed, and the group has dumped a reported 98% of the data it stole, totalling at 1.67 terabytes of information including game development files as well as personal employee information.
Users on message boards have begun trawling through the data and unsurprisingly started to pick apart anything relating to the studio’s next big game, Marvel’s Wolverine and posting it online, including video footage.
The leaked footage and information contains a heap of in-progress footage from development of the game that dates to 2022, including animation tests and more complete-looking slices of the game. Leaked information reportedly also includes planned release dates, a list of locations from the game as well as a play-by-play of the opening tutorial sections of the game in text form, and supposedly even playable builds of the game that can be run on both PC and PS5 devkits.
The data also includes names and renderings of voice and capture actors along with characters they’re playing in-game, plus agreements and release timelines, concept art and forecasts for future Insomniac titles both from Marvel and other franchises, so it’s a far bigger than just leaked assets from one game and sure to be a massive blow to the folks at the studio who’re now facing their work and personal information and conversations being published for all to see.
Ah jeez, I think there's a PC build in there. That's probably gonna massively increase the chance of random videos of the game running popping up before too long then.
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) December 19, 2023
Naturally, we’re not going to be embedding or sharing any of the leak directly here, and we wouldn’t encourage anyone to go seeking them out in solidarity with the thousands of folks this affects.
CyberDaily reports that Sony has launched an investigation, but it’s hard to see this not being out of control as it is. It’s a grim situation for the folks at Sony, PlayStation, Insomniac and their various partners all around. It was one thing to see GTA 6’s marketing-ready trailer drop a few hours early, but literal terabytes of in-house data and personal info as well as production plans potentially going all the way into the next decade is something else entirely.
We’ll be sure to update this if and when an official statement is issued.
