As the release of arguably Nintendo’s biggest game of the year draws near (March 3, 2017), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild isn’t spared from the jaws and claws of spoiler-hungry entities. Throughout the last few months leading up to today, there’s been a ton of leaked images, screenshots and video footage that give away more than what’s fair for such an anticipated title.
To make matters worse for Nintendo, it’s been confirmed that some people have been able to pirate the game directly from Nintendo’s source files and have used workarounds to make the game playable on the Wii U.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Pirated on the Wii U
While it wasn’t enough for hackers and data-miners to get treat themselves to seeing nearly every weapon, armor and equipment, there are reports that some have actually downloaded encrypted game files of BOTW all under Nintendo’s noses. What’s more, people online have gotten word of the incident and say that hackers now need only a simple workaround to make the game completely playable, something akin to a digital ‘skeleton key’ that allows them to run the game on the Wii U.
This means that at this very instant, there’s actual gameplay being streamed on Youtube and Twitch, as well as leaked screenshots and images taking Reddit by storm.
It’s now getting increasingly common for highly-anticipated games to be plagued by nefarious attempts of some people to get ahead of everyone else. The disappointing case holds true for game like Final Fantasy XV, Resident Evil 7, and Nintendo’s very own Pokemon Sun and Moon, which have all been at the receiving end of database attacks or irresponsible early distribution of retail stores around the world. This should urge game developers to lay out even more security protocols to safeguard their source data in the future to make sure that everyone gets to dive into the game and discover its features and content around the same time.
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