Via Twitter, Insomniac has responded to the massive hack against the company and the subsequent lea??king of their documents.

If you’re not familiar, Insomniac was targeted by a ransomware attack that resulted in a group of hackers gaining access to a great deal of footage from upcoming games, as well as a myr??iad of documents ranging from future plans to internal HR doc?uments. The hackers then released some of this information, with threats of publishing more if their ransom demands weren't met.

“We’re both saddened and angered about the recent criminal cyberattack on our studio and the emotional toll it has ??taken on our dev team. We have focused inwardly for the last several days to support each other,�Insomniac's release says.

The statement acknowledges data involving “personal information belonging to our employees, former employees, and independent contractors.�/p>

Hacks and leaks have been happening in the video game industry for decades. There have even been recent attacks against Sony and Rockstar, with the latter resulting in leaked development footage of Grand Theft Auto 6. Activision was hacked late last year, and it has been reported that employee information was compromised as a result of that, though the company claimed that it wasn’t.

But regardless of the company involved, I feel bad for the employees involved. ?I’m sure having development footage of a game that isn’t ready to be shown off yet is vexing ?and disappointing, but having HR documents stolen can be traumatic. Having them leaked on the internet can lead to horrible problems for the people affected.

As for Wolverine, In??somniac says that development is continuing as planned, and the team will share "offi??cial information" when it's ready.

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'Cause Jill can't stands no more

Does the gameplay of 1983’s Popeye on the NES appeal to you, but you just can’t get behind the beloved golden age license attached to it? What’s wrong with you? Where did you leave your soul? If that’s the case, the Resident Evil 3: Chibi Edition might be for you.

Created by a super-team of modders, Protopixel and Crying Onion, Resident Evil 3: Chibi Edition gives the NES arcade port a full Resident Evil make-over. Players now control Jill Valentine as they avoid the persistent Nemesis T-Type. Leon “SoccerJock�Kennedy fills in for Olive Oyl to offer assitance, and Carlos Oliveira takes over as Swee’Pea. Check it out in this video via Hack Games Longplay.

//youtu.be/yaPd2QFjlVQ

The best part of this recasting is when Jill consumes a red herb and gains the strength to clobber Nemesis. I mean, what if that was the plot of Resident Evil 3 instead? Jill should have just kept d?osing herself with genetic and viral cocktails until she was a bigger monster than Nemesis and just beat the crap out of him. Gosh, I’d play that.

Beyond the characters getting a make-over??, the backgrounds have had their palettes tweaked to look more like Raccoon City. The music, on the other hand, is still the same music, which feels hilariously out of place.

Popeye was already a great NES port of a terrific arcade game. While the modders obviously made Resident Evil 3: Chibi Edition for fun, it feels terrifically executed and great to experience. Even if you don’t intend to play it, the video in this article? features a full playthrough so you can experience the whole thing.

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Riot say it's not paying the ransom

League of Legends studio Riot Games has now confirmed that, following a recent cyberattack, hackers took source code for both League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics, as well as a legacy anti-cheat platform. But after being sent a ransom demand, Riot says it won??'t be paying.

Last week, Riot announced its systems were compromised in a social engineering attack, a method that also resulted in the massive Grand Theft Auto leak last  year. No player or personal data was obtained, but today Riot confirms that source code for the aforementioned programs was taken.?? The attackers submitted a ransom demand, but Riot Games says it will not be paying.

"While this attack disrupted our build environment and could cause issues in the future, most importantly we remain confident that no player data or player personal information was compromised," said Riot in a statement. "Truthfully, any exposu?re of source code can increase the likelihood of new cheats emerging. Since the attack, we’ve been working to assess its impact on anticheat and to be prepared to deploy fixes as quickly as possible if needed."

Prototypes and sources

While the source co??de contained a number of experimental features, Riot says most of it is in prototype and may or may not be released in the future. The company is working with external consultants to audit the attack, and plans to release a report on it in the future??. Also, Riot confirms it is working with law enforcement as they investigate the group behind the attack.

"We’ve made a lot of progress since last week and we believe we’ll have things repaired later in the week, which will allow us to remain on our regular patch cadence going?? forward," reads Riot's statement. "The League and TFT teams?? will update you soon on what this means for each game."

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COUNTER BREAKER!

[Update: The Killer Instinct dev team has seemingly fixed both the game's online ranked mode and its leaderboards?? problems. Normal ?C-C-C?-C-C-Combo breakin' service should now be resumed.]

Every game is a potential target for troublemakers, even Iron Galaxy's excellent 2013 fighter Killer Instinct, which?? is currently mired in its own hack-based catastrophe, despite the relative quietness of the fast-paced scrapper in the larger picture of the fighting game community.

Killer Instinct's ranked mode has, for some time now, been the target of one individual, who has been rendering the leaderboards an absolute mess with a flurry of fake accounts, which they have used to essentially "jam" the online rankings for the dedicated KI community. This irritant has gone one step further, however, and is causing the game's sync system t??o crash when trying to load players into matchmaking. Essentially, ranked mode has been rendered literally unplayable for the community.

//twitter.com/KillerI?nstinct/status/1577001295784816641?s=20&t=ITaKxasPT8Omv?ydEPVk9Bw

Fortunately, dedicated player NickyFGC was able to raise awareness of the issue �via a video and a social media campaign �and was able to get the attention of Killer Instinct's publisher, Microsoft. A simple statement was then posted to the official KI Twitter, saying that the team was now aware of the issue and had launched an investigation. It should be noted that this bug only affects the Xbox and Windows versions of KI. The Ste?am?? edition, which has its own server, is running as it should be.

Seeing Killer Instinct in the headlines again, even if for negative reasons, only serves as a reminder as to quite how excellent that reboot was. I myself scoffed arrogantly at the news the series was returning, only to then find not only did I truly love the game, but I actually became better at it than I have with any other fighter. Today, KI still entertains a throng of dedicated players, unable to tear awa?y from ??its dazzling looks, amazing soundtrack, and fast, compelling action.

Here's to C-C-C-Combo Breakers everywhere.

Killer Instinct is available now on Xbox One and PC.

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Butterfingers

As some of the regular Destructoid clan may know, Final Fight is my favorite game of all time. I'm not gonna roll out why all over again, who cares, yo? Just know that I've plunged hours upon hours (upon hours) into Capcom's legendary brawler, and across myriad platforms �thus, I was left reeling by some recently rediscovered tech, which? is hidden away deep inside the grindhouse gutter fighter.

//twitter.com/hijiyan_jp/status/15394??08098372112385?s=20&t=-Q9UDRbNqSsq9n-QyflzKA

As noted by Japanese arcade aficionado @hijiyan_jp, (with the good word spread by dedicated brawler historian Belt Action Central), it is possible for the player to "break free" from the death grip imposed by some of Metro City's meanest villains, such as Andore and Abigail. This action is activated via a button command that was impossible to perform on the original arcade cabinet, but remains built into the code of the original ROM, as well as Final Fight's many home ports.

Here's the science: Final Fight is a two-button game (A/B), though the ROM contains a placeholder for a seemingly unused third button (C). This button, designed for developer usage only, lets Messrs Haggar, Cody, and Guy, break free of Andore's grabs by pressing Up + C, dodging an energy-sapping chokehold or brutal tombstone piledriver. Given that the dedicated cabinet only had two buttons, this escape was impossible for quarter-??????????????????????????dropping kids in the arcade.

//twitter.com/BeltAction/status/15396842919821066??27?s=20&t=-Q9U??DRbNqSsq9n-QyflzKA

Through emulation, however, it is possible to remap Button C, and thus gain access to the secret escape. Weirder still, it seems that this move was directly incorporated into Final Fight's home releases. Belt Action Central has already reported that SNES players need only hit Up + Attack to activate the grab-break, with Game Boy Advance release Final Fight One also featuring the same shifty get-out-clause. Dedicated speedrunning community Speed Demos Archives has also been long aware of this secret function, sp??otlighting an explanation of the mysterious "Button C" and its use on the site's Final Fight page.

So there you have it, my fellow vigilantes, no more piledriver peril... I wish this shit worked on Street Fighter V's Abigail. Anyway... I gotta run... I have a personal b??est to beat.

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Art exhibition coming to Tokyo this summer

This year sees the 20th anniversary of the cult JRPG franchise .hack//. To celebrate two decades of dystopian sci-fi action, publisher Bandai Namco has announced several different endeavors that will look back at the video games, manga, anime, and ?novels set within CyberConnect2's new millennium.

The original run of the .hack manga has been digitally republished and is available for Japanese fans to purchase between now and July 4 directly from the CyberConnect2 website. In addition, a special anniversary book will launch on July 19, looking back at every release in the series �from the original  2002 PS2 release .hack//Infection through collectible card title .hack//Enemy. Unfortunately, Bandai Namco did not announce any plan?s to localize these re-??releases for western fans.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ulUhubUdYc

A special exhibition will also be installed at Yurakucho Marui in Chiyoda, Tokyo between the dates of August 9 and August 28, 2022. The installation will feature original concept artwork and other audio/visual elements celebrating the multimedia franchise. In December, a second commemorative anniversary book will also be released, alongside a special three-CD set of .hack's evocative and melodramatic score.

But what in the way of new games? Well, Bandai Namco has not offered any such reveal, or even the announcement of a reveal, but mystery still surrounds the "Last Recollection" trademark, which the publisher filed back in April of this year. It is believed that this pertains to an as-yet-unannounced set of the four mainline titles in the .hack franchise, namely .hack//Infection, .hack//Mutation, .hack//Outbreak, and finally .hack//Quarantine. So just sit tight for new news, hack squad.

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Sad Emote

Twitch has posted a new statement concerning last week's major site hack, which saw the entirety of the streaming service's website �including its infrastructure, dev too??ls, and pay records �laid bare as a public torrent file. Having conducted an investigation, Twitch is saying that user passwords and payment in??fo should not be considered at risk.

"Twitch passwords have not been exposed," reads the statement. "We are also confident that systems that store Twitch login credentials,?? which are hashed with bcrypt, were not accessed, nor were full credit card numb?ers or ACH / bank information."

"The exposed dat??a primarily contained documents from Twitch’s source code repository, as well as a subset of creator payout data. We’ve undergone a thorou??gh review of the information included in the files exposed and are confident that it only affected a small fraction of users and the customer impact is minimal."

The hack, believed to have taken place on Monday, October 11, came about after an infiltrator made their way inside Twitch's walls during a server switchover. Among the data dump that subsequently appeared online was Partner pay records, Twitch.tv's desktop and mobile builds, associated Twitch properties, and even unreleased projects �such as a "Steam-style" dashboard created by Amazon Game Studios. Twitch has since suggested that the hack was perpetrated by a "malicious third party," though no further details t??o the hacker's identity have?? been released.

Regardless of the above statement, it is probably wise for users to change their passwords and switch out their stream keys regardless �better to be safe than sorry, etc. The hack 'n' dump of Twitch is, frankly, one of the biggest video game stories of 2021. It's momentous. Yet I can't help but feel it's already becoming yesterday's news, destined �like so many headlines �to be forgotten by next month, despit??e being one of the biggest security breaches in internet history.

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Working to establish what data has been breached

Twitch has offered a brief update on its initial findings regarding this week's hack, which saw over 120GB of data, code, developer tools, and more leaked?? from the site and uploaded onto public domai?ns. At this time, Twitch is stating that an external third party is responsible for the hack, having capitalized on a server configuration exploit.

"We have learned that some data was exposed to the internet due to an error in a Twitch server configuration change that was subsequently accessed by a malicious third party," reads the brief statement. "Our teams are working with urgency to?? investigate the incident."

"As the investigation is ong??oing, we are still in the process of understanding the impact in detail. We understand t?hat this situation raises concerns, and we want to address some of those here while our investigation continues."

Twitch goes on to state that there is "no indication" that login deta??ils nor any payment information of its users have been accessed. The site continues its investigation into the security breach, and will no doubt keep its community updated. In any case, it's probably wise for Twitch users to?? reset their stream keys and update any associated passwords.

The hack, believed to have initially taken place on Monday, has seen crucial software and documentation laid bare to the p?ublic. This includes Twitch's own security tools, full Creator payment records, archived comment sections, and even the bones of associated projects, such as IGDB, early CurseForge builds, and a conceptual version of "Vapor": an abandoned Steam-style dashboard developed by Amazon Game Studios.

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Users advised to reset stream keys and update passwords

[Update: Twitch has confirmed that the data breach is genuine and will update the community about the hack when it has more information.]

According to reports this morning, Twitch has been hacked wide-open by?? person or persons unknown. The live-streaming site's source code, along with an abundance of related account data, has been supposedly leaked as an online? torrent.

First reported by VGC, the 128GB release was uploaded onto online forums by an anonymous hacker, who claimed that they found the Twitch community a "disgusting toxic cesspoo?l" with the goal of the hack/leak being to "foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space". The leak appears to be genuine, as members of the public have already begun sifting through the torrent's contents in order to publish private data and details pertaining to popular streamers and �more specifically �their earnings.

The hacked data is said to contain the entirety of the Twitch.tv b?uild �which includes clients for desktop, mobile, and console, as well as comment histories; a selection of proprietary SDKs and internal AWS services; all associated Twitch properties including IGDB and CurseForge; internal developer "red-teaming" tools, (used for the purpose of hack testing); an unreleased "Steam-style" platform which was origi??????????????????????????nally conceived by Amazon Game Studios; and Creator Payout Reports, reportedly dating as far back as 2019.

It is assu??med that a huge data dump of Twitch users' personal details is also in the mix, and ?thus it would be wise for all users to reset their Stream Keys and update their associated passwords.

Twitch is yet to officially comment on the event. According to a VGC source, the company is ?aware of the security breach, with suggestions that the data was hacked as recently as Mond??ay, October 4.

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See the world in 8-bit

Hackers and modders have found ways to port all kinds of games, usually Doom, onto other systems. But a new video sh??ows how one person managed to get Google Maps working on some old Nintendo hardware, complete with retr?o graphics.

Creator "ciciplusplus" posted to YouTube and Reddit today about the Google Maps they made for the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES. (Thanks, Gizmodo.) In the short video, they show how, inspired by an old Google April Fool's joke from 2012, they ended up creating a version of the world you can view in all its 8-bit?? glory.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vcPnk-6saw

Ciciplusplus made use of a few different methods to make their pixel dreams come to life. On the hardware side, they used a guide for creating a custom NES cartridge from YouTuber "TheRasteri," in order to make a housed Raspberry Pi setup for the mod. And on the software side, Ciciplusplus found an old blog�a href="//alastaira.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/creating-the-legend-of-zelda-map-tiles-from-bing-maps-aerial-imagery/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">coincidentally from 2012—that used Bing Maps' aerial imaging to convert these omniscient overviews into tiled displays that looked similar to The Legend of Zelda.

The result is Google Maps, showcasing a rough layout of the wo??rld constructed in 8-bit, that seems accurate. They scroll around it a bit using the NES controller, and you can see little city markers pop up, in retro-styled font.

Is it a reasonable way to get directions from one city to the next? Probably not. But it's a pretty interesting hack that I'd love to see expand out even more. I mean, a street view is probably a bit unrealistic right now, but who knows what the future might hold. We've now put Google Maps and even a full NES inside a cartridge, so anything's possible.

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