God of War Ragnarök Leaks Early, Big Spoilers Are Everywhere

The upcoming God of War Ragnarök, one of the biggest PlayStation games of the year, isn’t supposed to be out until November 9, but over the past 24 hours video and social media sites have been flooded with clips of people playing their way through the entire game.

We wrote a similar story last week, but it was relatively minor by comparison; some people reviewing the game had accidentally shared their screenshots, and while some of them could maybe have suggested certain things that were going to happen, most were just very pretty.

This, though, is the whole game being out there, over a week before release. It’s believed the game leaked when a store in the US, with its stock already in-hand, accidentally started selling copies early, which in this genre of news story is a tale as old as time. Director Cory Barlog is understandably a bit disappointed:

Meanwhile, given how easy it is to stumble upon footage at the moment—some YouTube videos have millions of views already—developers Santa Monica Studio have issued a statement that’s asking everyone to be considerate of fans who don’t want the game to be spoiled, but also more practically for those fans to maybe try and stay off much of the internet for the next week:

As we approach launch, it is important for our studio to preserve the experience of God of War Ragnarök for players who want to enjoy the game for the first time without spoilers.

We ask that you please be considerate of the many fans who do not want to accidentally see clips, gameplay, or narrative spoilers and avoid sharing them wider.

We are doing our best to limit the exposure of unsanctioned footage and screenshots, but the reality is that we cannot catch everything.

For those of you who do not want to risk seeing anything before launch, we strongly advise that you mute any keywords or hashtags associated with the game until release day.

We appreciate the support you’ve shown us more than we can say. We can assure you it will be worth the wait to experience the game yourself when it is released in less than two weeks on November 9th.

Thank you

Santa Monica Studio

While there’s always a very constructive discussion to be had about the way “spoiler culture” has shaped discussion of our favourite games, shows and movies, the God of War games are plodding singleplayer adventures where seeing the story unfold is half the reason people are playing them. If that’s you, you might want to heed Sony’s advice and just mute everything for the next week!