Sony has confirmed that the Last Of Us leaks were not because of an employee, as insiders claim it was hackers exploiting a security flaw.
Although the leaks last week (there are no spoilers in that link) for The Last Of Us Part 2 were clearly real, since it’d be impossible to fake that much in-game footage, the story about where they came from never really rang true.
The story repeated by most people was that a disgruntled bug tester leaked the footage, presumably smuggling it out on some kind of physical storage, but that always seemed unlikely – and now it’s been confirmed that’s not what happened.
Sony has told GamesIndustry.biz that the individuals (note the plural) responsible were ‘not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment or Naughty Dog’, with insiders claiming that they were hackers.
Although Sony has refused to confirm that the leaks were a result of hacking, former Kotaku reporter Jason Schreier has claimed that hackers got access to Naughty Dog’s servers by using a security flaw in a patch for older Naughty Dog games.
Schreier also points out that, despite controversies last year about their working practices, Naughty Dog extended pay and healthcare benefits for all contractors during the coronavirus outbreak – which is generous for a US company.
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Twitter insider PixelButts offered the same general explanation but stated that it was the Amazon servers for previous Naughty Dog games, including Uncharted 3 and The Last Of Us, that were the conduit.
Supposedly the security vulnerability had been known about since January and was only finally dealt with last week.
Since the footage is clearly real, the question now is how old it is and whether Naughty Dog can or will change anything about the game before the final release in June.
Some of the footage – which has been taken down from YouTube but is still circulating on other parts of the Internet – seems to suggest it’s relatively recently, but other sources state that it’s an early build and that much may have changed since then.
The story is unlikely to though, especially as Naughty Dog boasted about recording the final cut scene with actors over a year ago.
All we can do now is wait until 19 June, when the game will finally be released as PlayStation 4 exclusive.
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