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Top Video Game Leaks
Details of Bungie’s latest game leaked online yesterday, and it led us to start thinking about some of video game’s biggest leaks of the past.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – About six months before the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and before the game was even officially announced, a huge glut of information about the game appeared online offering tons of details on everything from the new aspects of multiplayer, to the plot details of the storyline. If you read through all the documents that appeared online, nothing was a mystery or a surprise when you finally got to play the game.
Half-Life 2 – Half-Life 2 was the unfortunate victim of a leak, but it didn’t get quite as out of hand as Modern Warfare 3. The source for the game was stolen and everyone at Valve had a panic attack, but they jumped on the thief early and the code that made it online ended up not revealing a ton of details about the game, as Valve was still hard at work adding new stuff. The man who hacked into Valve’s network and stole the file has since apologized and promised to purchase all of Valve’s games with hard-earned money.
Doom 4 – Doom 4 is a real thing that id has acknowledged it is working on, so what leaked wasn’t an unplanned early announcement or anything like that. It was a collection of over 170 images that featured characters models, concept art, and environment images. Design director Matt Hooper acknowledged the leak, but also said that the final product has all kinds of stuff that didn’t show up in any of those images.
Mass Effect 3 – The multiplayer beta for Mass Effect 3 accidentally went live a little bit sooner than BioWare wanted it to, which wouldn’t have been too bad, but people picked apart the files to find story details for the unreleased game.
Sony – Sony has a long history with leaks, whether it be the accidental reveal of unannounced hardware, or the leaking of personal information of all of its users. Every time a new model of PlayStation 3 has been placed into production, it seems to get leaked. The PSP Go was prematurely revealed, as was PlayStation Home. The recent PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale went through all kinds of leaks before it finally released. Even the trailer for The Last Guardian, which was called Project Trico when it leaked, released earlier than planned.
How do you feel about games leaking early? Is it exciting? Or something you don't like seeing? Sound off in our reader discussion!
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