Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom – Nintendo is about to get very angry (pic: Nintendo)

A whole lot of people are going to feel the wrath of Nintendo, as leaked copies of Tears Of The Kingdom lead to the whole game being ripped.

If there’s one company you don’t want to get riled up over leaks and pirated games it’s Nintendo. While other publishers may consider such things an occupational hazard Nintendo always goes for the jugular, having recently sued a hacker for $14 million – which they’ll be paying off for the rest of their life.

Nintendo always insists on heavy fines or even jail time and recently forced Discord to reveal who leaked the Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom artbook, so you can only imagine what they’ll do to whoever leaked and pirated the whole game.

Yesterday, reports emerged that physical copies of Tears Of The Kingdom – like so many recent games – had leaked early and now today there’s reports that it’s already been ripped and that digital copies are circulating online.

You’ll need specialist equipment to play pirate copies on the Switch, but this also means that hackers will have a head start on getting the game to work on PC, which Nintendo will also not be happy about.

Even Twitch and Discord streams showing the game in action risk serious consequences, especially as Nintendo now has all its Hollywood money from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, to hire even more lawyers than usual.

It’s unclear how many copies of the game have leaked but it’s not just one, as they’ve also turned up on eBay and similar auction sites.

That’s unsurprising, as stores will have had to get in physical copies early to make sure they have them ready to sell when the game launches on May 12.

This may well lead to Nintendo delaying the launch of physical editions in the future, something it already did with Metroid Prime Remastered – although it’s not entirely clear why they made the decision with that game.

If you’re an honest fan then it’s best to stay off social media for the next couple of weeks, which is an increasingly common problem that is surely going to hasten the end of physical games entirely.

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A whole lot of people are going to feel the wrath of Nintendo, as leaked copies of Tears Of The Kingdom lead to the whole game being ripped.