Maybe Not An Ex-Employee After All
The Last of Us Part Two had some early footage smeared all over the internet by some anonymous scoundrels late last month. For a while, there was a theory going around that this was the work of a disgruntled ex-employee. Now, evidence has allegedly come to light that the TLOU 2 Leaks came about through an exploit discovered in Naughty Dog’s older games.
Jason Schreier, former Kotaku staff member and infamous whistle-blower, stated that “hackers found a security vulnerability in a patch for an older ND game and used it to get access to ND’s servers.” He also addressed the disgruntled employee rumors, adding that “rumors of this being an act of protest by a contractor whose pay was robbed are not true,” and that “ND actually extended pay and healthcare benefits for contractors due to covid.”
This information was corroborated by Twitter user PixelButts, an LA game tester. They noted that a devkit would be required for this particular exploit. While it’s apparently not that hard to acquire one, this does make it an unusual security flaw. They added that the evidence makes it possible but quite unlikely that this is the work of a disgruntled ex-employee. In other words, a problem of this particular nature isn’t likely to pop up again. Assuming you’re one of the many, many expectant The Last of Us fans out there, hopefully you’ve been able to avoid this tidal wave of spoilers? The Last of Us Part 2 is coming to PS4 on June 19th, 2020.