It’s been a big year for gaming, and we’re not even done yet. We still have a new Call Of Duty coming, as well as Death Stranding, DOOM: Eternal, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The developers of these games have already given us plenty of info to let us know just what they’re about (and as two of them are sequels, we sort of had a good idea already), but other games have been more tight-lipped. Thus we turn to the game-loving ne’er-do-wells to find out more about upcoming games.
We speak, of course, about the fabled “leaker.”
Some of the biggest leaks in 2019 made huge headlines, and while most of the leakers remained anonymous, a few leaks were passed along by big-name YouTubers. Game companies usually let leaks slide, but a few have started to take aim at leakers to try and shut them up.
Let’s take a look at a few of our favorite leaks of 2019 so far.
Pokémon Sword & Shield Leaks
Sword & Shield might be the most leaked game of 2019. We’ve known months before a Nintendo Direct just what each new announcement will reveal, with most of them coming from 4Chan.
First, there was the leak that revealed the three starter Pokémon and what their typing would be, which was later confirmed with the reveal of Grookie, Sobble, and Scorbunny. Then there was the whole Gigantamaxing thing, which sounded absurd in the leak but turned out to be entirely true in the latest trailer.
Now an entire direct has seemingly leaked, which will tell us our starter Pokémon.
PlayStation 5 Schematics Leak
Back in August, Sony tried to patent something called an “Unknown Electronic Device” in Brazil. It got picked up by a Dutch tech blog since it was from Sony and had an extremely bizarre description. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Sony’s next-gen console.
Although it kinda looks like an early Xbox 360 with a slice missing from the middle (or as our editor Corin Bae puts it: “It looks like a bidet”), this thing is supposed to have some serious power hiding inside– enough to make a modern PC’s video card look like a toy car.
That’s probably just marketing hyperbole, but it certainly looks cool. It also means that Sony seems to be ahead of Microsoft in getting the next-gen console to market.
MediEvil Demo Leak
Games don’t normally have demos these days. If you’re lucky and you buy a game you hate, the store will let you trade it in (or Steam will give you a full refund), but otherwise, you’re pretty much flying blind before you buy.
MediEvil will apparently come with a demo you can download on the PS4 store. We know this because the demo was available briefly in Japan before Sony noticed and took it down. Still, a bunch of Japanese gamers downloaded the remade game’s first level and were able to play it weeks before anyone else.
GameStop Shutting Down Leak
This is a bit of a sad story. GameStop has been in financial trouble ever since people started downloading games instead of buying them in stores. The company has been announcing layoffs and restructuring all year long, but one leak on YouTube suggests the whole company is going to close up shop.
By the end of the year, half of their locations will close. In 2020, only a fraction of the 4,400 GameStop locations will remain. We haven’t quite seen the GameStop apocalypse yet, but judging by their past performance, it might very well be coming.
Borderlands 3 Leaks and Take-Two Interactive’s Reaction
Before Borderlands 3 released earlier in September, a bunch of leaks came out about the game. Most of them were pretty inconsequential details about how character skills would work and certain guns’ abilities. YouTuber SupMatto was a big source for these leaks and was seen as a huge hype man for Borderlands 3 because of it.
TakeTwo Interactive, Borderlands 3’s publisher, didn’t see it that way. They wanted to shut SupMatto up, so they sent a pair of private investigators to SupMatto’s home to do it.
SupMatto later took down his Borderlands 3 videos and exposed TakeTwo for their actions, adding more fuel to the #BoycottBorderlands3 fire. Then his channel disappeared entirely, leading many to think that TakeTwo had taken legal action.
It just goes to show that being a leaker comes with its risks.