The game development studio Insomniac Games, which is owned by Sony, was the victim of a significant ransomware attack this week. The Rhysida ransomware group released 1.67TB of data, including assets and story spoilers from unreleased games, a roadmap of upcoming titles, internal company communications, employees’ personal data like passport scans and compensation figures, and various other information. The group demanded a ransmom of $2 million, which Insomniac declined to pay.
Consequently emails, Slack messages, slideshow presentations, and other documents surfaced online. These materials included screenshots and assets from Insomniac’s upcoming Wolverine game, along with confirmation that Wolverine is the initial installment in a trilogy featuring X-Men characters. The leaked content also unveiled the company’s ongoing development of another Ratchet & Clank game and a new Spider-Man sequel.
Rhysida placed some of the data up for auction to entities other than Insomniac, and some of it was successfully sold.
Being one of the industry’s highly accomplished and successful developers, Insomniac Games has an extensive fan base likely to explore the leaked information about the upcoming titles.
Insomniac Games gained widespread recognition with the Spyro the Dragon series on the original PlayStation. The studio then went on to develop and oversee the Ratchet & Clank series on PlayStation 2, expanding to release additional Ratchet & Clank games on PlayStation 3. Additionally, the studio ventured into the first-person shooter genre with a series titled Resistance.
More recently the studio has launched fresh installments of the Ratchet & Clank series on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, in addition to three highly praised Spider-Man games. Insomniac Games also ventured into virtual reality development on the Oculus platform and introduced an Xbox exclusive titled Sunset Overdrive before transitioning to Sony’s ownership as a first-party PlayStation studio in August 2019.
The hack also leaked internal company details that might pique the interest of Sony’s direct competitors, including Microsoft.
The magnitude of this leak is substantial, even compared to other major leaks in the past.
