You Need To Be Careful Searching For Resident Evil Village
As most interested parties know by now, Resident Evil Village arrives in just a few short months on May 7. However, if you're in the habit of surfing sites like YouTube, Reddit and ResetEra for information on upcoming games, you're going to want to be careful in the months going forward, especially if you want to avoid spoilers.
Leaks are coming out in a regular stream these days, like one from earlier today that Capcom has already apparently had taken down. GamesRadar reports that a YouTube clip recently surfaced which showed a boss fight that was not yet intended for public viewing. In fact, today's video was an extended version of a boss fight that already leaked in December, following a large-scale ransomware hack on Capcom. The company refused to pay the attackers, so the group responsible released sensitive information, including developer-build sections of the new Resident Evil game. Now that Capcom has taken action on this latest offense, there's no longer any sign of the boss fight video online — but that doesn't mean it won't happen again.
Because so much data was stolen before it was supposed to be out in the wild, the risk of spoilers is potentially much higher other highly-anticipated launches. Since the hackers didn't get their way, they may want to exact revenge by putting out as much information as possible before the game releases and their stolen assets become truly useless. Among the leaks that hackers have released were screenshots, marketing plans, and plot details for Resident Evil Village — including the ending.
Many media outlets are refusing to share too-specific details of the leaks, as this could potentially motivate the hackers to commit more offenses of this type.
Naturally, leaks are nothing new in the video game industry, and fans get plenty of information that way. In 2019, for example, a listing leaked on the PlayStation store gave fans a clue that the Resident Evil 3 remake was indeed on the way. In early 2020, "multiple development sources" told VGC that a Resident Evil 4 remake was coming, well before the hacker attack revealed the same. The Resident Evil franchise also has some leakers on Twitter who have been "dependable" when it comes to spilling the beans on game details.
However, the Capcom ransomware attack was on another level. Rather than intrigue devotees of the franchise with tantalizing tidbits here and there, the hacker group seems to want to remove all the fun of discovery from the upcoming sequel. So, if you don't want Resident Evil Village spoiled, be vigilant when you're getting onto the information superhighway — it might very well be dangerous to go alone.