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Zelda fans are advising each other to be extra cautious after pirated versions of the upcoming Tears of the Kingdom were leaked online, with footage and streams of the game appearing on the internet.
Over the weekend, a number of Twitch and Discord streams started surfacing online, despite it being two weeks before the game’s official release date on May 12. Reportedly these streams showed much of the early game, before being eventually taken down by Nintendo and the sites in question once the companies involved got wind of them.
It’s not currently known where the leak of the game originated from, or how widely available the pirated versions of the game managed to spread, although evidence of a number of physical copies being sold on online marketplaces were shared to Twitter. However, as reported by PC Gamer, it also seems that a number of these copies were ripped to be playable on PC and have also been spotted on multiple torrent sites including footage of the game running on the Steam Deck via an emulator.
Nintendo are of course doing their best to try and mitigate the leak as best as possible, issuing copyright takedown notices to Twitter, Discord and Twitch to try and ensure the offending footage is removed from those sites, and the company has also ordered Discord to shut down a server believed to be a major hub for the Tears of the Kingdom leaks.
It’s not the first time Nintendo have taken swift and decisive action against Tears of the Kingdom leakers. Just last month, according to TorrentFreak, Nintendo of America filed a subpoena to identify the real identity of a Discord account – “including the name(s), address(es), telephone number(s) and e-mail address(es)” of a user who posted images from a 200 page ‘artbook’ of Tears of the Kingdom to a Discord server that called itself the ‘Tears of the Kingdom Official Discord Server’ – as well as to have the server shut down for breaches of the DMCA.
It’s likely that Nintendo will take further action – both practical and legal – to try and mitigate the leak as best as it can, but for now fans are being warned to be vigilant while browsing the internet for the next couple of weeks, lest they see more than they intended. Zelda Tears of the Kingdom will arrive officially for the Nintendo Switch on May 12, 2023.
Nintendo Switch OLED Model: The Legend of Zelda
Screen type
OLED
Color
Zelda limited edition (green)
Storage Type
Flash
USB Ports
2
