A couple of weeks before its May 12th launch, it appears that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has leaked. According to a report from Kotaku, physical copies of the game have leaked from retailers, and people are streaming the game on Twitch and Discord.
You can watch streamers play Tears of the Kingdom right now
You can watch streamers play Tears of the Kingdom right now
It was relatively easy for me to find a Tears of the Kingdom stream on Twitch hidden within the 300 or so channels streaming Breath of the Wild. The two games have the same art style, UI, and have similar in-game locations, so it can be hard to spot a Tears of the Kingdom stream from a Breath of the Wild one at a glance. I won’t post any spoilers or links (heh), but if you notice a big red hand in the top-left corner of the game screen, back away immediately.
In the stream I found, the chat was filled with messages begging the streamer to switch to something else, lest the channel be taken offline. Kotaku’s report also included chat messages from Discord streams in which viewers posted a “copypasta” informing any Nintendo lawyers who might be lurking that they were not affiliated with the streamer or condoned their actions to ostensibly guard against any legal action Nintendo might pursue.
It does seem like Twitch and Discord are taking action against early streams. Kotaku reported that the Discord server hosting a Tears of the Kingdom stream has been taken offline, while the Twitch stream I found was shut down a few minutes after I discovered it. Excitement for the Breath of the Wild sequel is totally understandable, especially if you get something before everybody else. But it seems foolish for streamers to broadcast they’re playing a game not yet out since, at best, it seems a misguided desire to be first and, at worst, a flagrant disregard for how aggressive Nintendo can be in defense of its IP.
Tears of the Kingdom comes out May 12th. It’s probably best to wait until then to play.