In light of the recent DDoS attack that hit PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, Rockstar Games has announced via Twitter that they are extending access to the ‘Festive Surprise’ holiday event in ‘Grand Theft Auto Online’.

Before the holidays, Rockstar Games announced that playing ‘Grand Theft Auto Online’ through the holidays would rack in special rewards and items for players, including Christmas sweaters, holiday-themed masks for robberies, new explosive weapons, four new vehicles and snow days complete with snowball fights. Alongside the content also came an update that gave players the ability to purchase a third property housing up to 30 cars and nine bikes.

However, players were unable to access these special features for a chunk of time during the holidays due to both PlayStation Network and Xbox Live being taken down by Lizard Squad on Christmas day. The cyberattack resulted in players being unable to play games online, access online applications or even purchase and download games via console’s respective network store.

The two networks only recently went back online with Xbox Live returning first a day after Christmas and PlayStation Network returning a couple days after that. Apparently, the attacks by the Lizard Squad on the two services ceased when Kim Dotcom offered the hacking group lifetime accounts to his file storage service, Mega. Whether or not this is all true remains unclear. Regardless, the Lizard Squad credits Dotcom on their Twitter for stopping their attacks.

As of writing, it is not clear how much longer Rockstar Games would extend the ‘Festive Surprise’ event. But best guess is that it will most likely be up for only a few days after the event’s cut off time of January 5.

‘Grand Theft Auto V’ is available now for PS4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360. A PC version of the game is expected to release on January 27, 2015. 

Source: Rockstar Support Twitter, Rockstar Newswire