After Ragnarok leaked online last week, the Santa Monica studio has issue a statement Online warning fans and passersby of the danger of spoilers ahead of the game’s official release. Players eager to join the game all new must remain vigilant until the game goes live on November 9th.
How did the leak happen? Excellent, According to game director Cory Balrog, a retailer selling God of War: Ragnarok is the culprit. There are also screenshots prematurely posted by individuals who have linked their PlayStation and Twitter accounts (oops), but some pale in comparison to the entire game in the wild.
Sony Santa Monica wrote in its statement: “As we approach launch, for our studio, we reserve Ragnarok for players who want to enjoy the game without spoilers for the first time. experience is very important.” “We ask that you be considerate of the many fans who don’t want to accidentally see clips, gameplay or narrative spoilers, and refrain from sharing them more widely.”
“We are doing our best to limit the exposure of unapproved footage and screenshots, but the reality is we can’t capture everything. For those who don’t want to risk seeing anything before launch, we strongly recommend that you do it before launch day Mute any keywords or hashtags related to the game.”
So what are the short- and long-term consequences of something like this happening? Well, in the short term it’s just a spoiler. There’s not much you can do as an individual other than stay away from information hubs like Twitter and Reddit where a loser might post a GIF of Kratos sipping henny and your whole life will fall apart. Also expect Sony Santa Monica’s DMCA strike as it tries to slap any significant leaker source where it can be found.
long? Well, as Mr. Balrog himself alluded to, you can see a growing trend of dataless disks being included in retail copies. This essentially means that when you buy a boxed copy of the game, you get a fancy disk with an installer that forces you to go home and download the full package.
As Corey admits, it’s a terrible practice, and it’s going to be absorbed across the board. There are plenty of people with poor internet connections who are perfectly entitled to enjoy the single-player action games they paid for without waiting hours or hitting internet usage caps. If you bought Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 last week, you’ve experienced it. A large virtual disk that lets you download the vast majority of games. it blows.
Either way, now you should worry about God of War spoilers. Keep these eye masks on until November 9th!
For more coverage of Ragnarok, check out our (spoiler-free!) preview of the game, as well as the exciting trailer recently released for the game.
