We have some bad news. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has leaked. As in, the entirety of the game has made its way into the hands of fans that aren’t quite as fearful of the ‘Big N’ as they should be. If you were planning on taking a break from social media until after the game’s release – it appears your time has come.
Tears of Nintendo
But how does a game like Tears of the Kingdom, with this much hype (and perhaps the best lawyers in the world) backing it, manage to leak early? Well, we don’t know. Physical copies of the game began cropping up over the weekend ($300, seriously?) before they were eventually taken down.
The leak wasn’t just limited to the odd physical copy, though. One of the early buyers took one for the team, with digital copies penetrating even the deepest, darkest corners of the internet (AKA 4chan). It’s unclear just how many physical copies are in circulation, or how many people managed to get access to ripped files.
The worst part? Some users managed to play Tears of the Kingdom using an emulator and managed to stream the footage through Discord. Said footage eventually made its way to more mainstream forms of social media. For the time being, Nintendo seems to be more-or-less on top of the leaks, meaning frequenters of YouTube and Twitter should be safe – for now. Stuff hasn’t seen the footage, meaning Nintendo’s copyright and marketing team has to be doing something right.
Read More: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom gameplay is as glorious as it is strange
Still, it can’t hurt to set up a list of muted keywords on your various social media to keep your eyes from exposure to unwanted sights.
As for the leaker (or leakers), we can only imagine that Nintendo has released the metaphorical hounds in a bid to find them. The ‘Big N’ hasn’t yet commented, though we’ll likely hear something substantial should the company apprehend the culprit. Guilty parties may be subject to jail time or the loss of their monthly income, similar to that of Gary Bowser.
If you’re more interested in seeing footage of Tears of the Kingdom that doesn’t do a deep dive into spoilers, we recommend checking out Zeltik’s preview of the game, released under the watchful eye of Nintendo, which doesn’t spoil anything that the trailers haven’t already given away.