Online services for GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 have recently suffered outages due to DDoS attacks in apparent retaliation to Rockstar's new anti-cheat efforts.
Last week, Rockstar introduced Battle-Eye, the anti-cheat system, to GTA Online to bolster its own fair play tools. While many might have thought that the prevalence of cheating in GTA Online meant its introduction was long overdue, the additional restrictions spelled bad news for modders and those using older or more limited hardware. And it seems someone decided to fight back.
As CyberInsider notes, the attacks began over the weekend, causing connection issues in GTA Online and Red Dead Online across all platforms. Cyber Insider reports that the group behind the attacks was protesting the introduction of BattlEye, and cited a Twitter user who suggested that players could “expect more DDoS attacks in the coming days.” However, it appears those attacks have yet to materialize.
Unfortunately, Rockstar is no stranger to online threats like these. It’s had issues with GTA Online before, of course, but it’s also had to deal with attacks dedicated to GTA 6. Following the massive GTA 6 leak from September 2022, Rockstar had to deal with the spread of a lot of information from the early days of the game’s development. That’s seemingly been rectified with the presence of actual footage from the GTA 6 trailer, but the company is still likely feeling extremely wary of any follow-ups.
GTA 6 will be sold “for more than 10 years” and, since “there is no competition”, Rockstar “will not release the game until they are 100% satisfied with it,” believes a former GTA developer..