Zelda; Tears of the Kingdom gets leaked online after a Kotaku senior editor recently complained about being blacklisted by Nintendo of America pre-release coverage

A Kotaku senior editor recently complained about being blacklisted by Nintendo of America pre-release coverage, so in retaliation, they decided to publish leaks for Tears of the Kingdom. 

Early on, the footage was mostly screenshots from private livestreams, with several small clips of unseen footage from cutscenes and gameplay. But the game has circulated from there, and there are several livestreams on private Discord servers — others are attempting to stream live on Twitch and very quickly getting taken down. Of note, these streams have shown how Tears of the Kingdom opens as well as early gameplay and regions.

If you’re looking to play Tears of the Kingdom without having it spoiled ahead of the release date, you’ll want to steer clear of social media and Reddit.

It’s become increasingly common to see footage early from major games; Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was spread online more than a week in advance of its release date in November.

The entirety of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom recently leaked online over a week ahead of the game’s May 12 release date. Now some players are making their way through it and streaming their journey for all to see while hackers comb through the game’s files for more clues. As a result, we’ve already learned a great deal more about Nintendo’s most anticipated Switch game of the year.

One big takeaway so far is that Tears of the Kingdom is even bigger than any of the trailers and previews have indicated so far. While the main surface map is borrowed from Breath of the Wild, the floating islands and a sprawling underground region effectively expand the map across two additional vertical layers. There are also some welcome additions to the previous game’s formula as well as a couple of disappointments. Here’s what players have discovered so far.

Later reports detailed that Discord servers dedicated to the leak had been removed due to copyright infringement at the “request of the copyright holders.”

Unfortunately for Nintendo, leaks can be an inevitable phase of rolling out a major title. Back in 2017, Breath of the Wild also experienced its fair share of leaks but still went on to sell nearly 30 million copies globally.