The GTA 6 leaks have revealed a first for the series
(Picture: Rockstar Games)The Grand Theft Auto series has received plenty of criticism over the 25 years since the first game came out, for encouraging violence and disrespecting women.
Even in the more recent games, the key interactions with women in the games tended to be as annoying wives, and prostitutes, with occasional female criminal partners thrown in.
For GTA 6, however, it seems Rockstar Games will be breaking the mould by introducing the first female playable character in the story aspect of the game.
While players could have female avatars in previous games in online mode, where you can choose your customisable character, this will be the first time a woman is a protagonist in story mode.
GTA 6 leaks confirm first playable female character
This information comes from the recent hacks that broadcast extensive clips of the game, still in development, online.
While these leaks are surely a blow to the developers, at least it offers a glimpse of what’s to come when GTA 6 is formally released.
Named Lucia, this female character can be seen with a number of weapons, robbing restaurants and stealing a police vehicle in the leaked clips.
Some fans have also claimed that she is Latina, although the quality of the images has not wholly confirmed this yet.
As an in-progress version of the game, there are plenty of glitches to spot, as well as debug commands and other technical information overlaid onto the clips.
This also means that, while Lucia is more often than not spotted simply standing around, much of the action she gets into is probably just not created yet.
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What could the repercussions of the GTA 6 leaks be for Rockstar Games?
In a statement posted to social media, Rockstar Games responded to the leak: “We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorised 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.”
Not only are hacks of this scale damaging to the reputation of both the developers and the game itself, the leaks might not stop here.
The hacker, who has not been publicly identified, has been posting on social media to get Rockstar’s attention and is likely hoping to sell back unpublished information.
If the hacker decides to publish any more data or, even worse, if they managed to steal the source code, this could leave GTA 6 vulnerable to even more hacks and exploits when it’s officially released.
Already, the public image of the game has taken a hit, with people taking to social media to criticise perceived low quality in these early-stage examples of the game.
Rockstar Games and publisher Take-Two could also face financial consequences, with drops in stock value possible after this unprecedented level of hacking.
Still, all publicity is good publicity as they say, and the reveal of Lucia, even if unplanned, is gathering excitement for the game that will hopefully continue until its formal release.
