Halo: Reach leaked

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 23 August, 2010

Fans urged to "go dark".

Halo: Reach fans have been urged to "go dark" following the leak of the Xbox 360 exclusive onto the internet weeks before its official release.

Moderators of the US studio's forum issued the warning after a hacker group claimed to have obtained the game from Microsoft's own website.

"Posting to Discuss, Request, or Link To information or campaign spoilers from illegitimately obtained sources - including illegitimately obtained copies of Halo: Reach - before the game is officially released will be considered a leak and will be treated as such," moderators said on Bungie's forum.

"The moderation team is doing their best, but if you want to stay 100 per cent spoiler free, our best advice is to 'go dark' by staying off all internet gaming forums until you have played through the game!"

Halo: Reach, due out 14th September, was made available to download by reviewers from the official Xbox Live Marketplace website.

The 7GB download is priced at 99999 MS Points (£856.66).

The hackers apparently bypassed Microsoft's security and acquired the science fiction shooter.

Microsoft will no doubt be seething that the Xbox 360's biggest Christmas exclusive is playable ahead of its release despite the hackers' promise that they're "not really planning" to release the title publicly on the internet.

Somebody obviously planned to: the game is currently available on file sharing sites.

"We are aware of claims being made regarding a security exploit related to Halo: Reach and are aggressively investigating the matter," a spokesperson told IGN.

"We have no further details to share at this time."

Johnny Minkley went hands-on for Eurogamer in July.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mcmonkeyplc #1 2 years ago

    Same sizzle happened with H3 and 2

  • Vice.Destroyer #2 2 years ago

    So..., I'm confused. Did these guys cough up £856 to play Halo: Reach early?

  • Red-Moose #3 2 years ago

    Yeah like why is it even still on the Live website? Surely this is some sort of viral marketing.

  • TheStatics #4 2 years ago

    Just clicked on the xbox website link in the article and it does appear available to queue as a download... Don't have 'quite' enough MS points on my account though!

    Edit - Is this how games are distributed to reviewers? I guess they get a one time redemption code from MS?
    Edited by TheStatics at 23/08/10 @ 08:13

  • Bulbatron #5 2 years ago

    I'm actually quite looking forwards to Halo Reach. At this point in time, getting the game this early doesn't seem to me to be that big a deal. May as well wait.

  • Deckard1 #6 2 years ago

    I bet the last few levels of the game have you playing alongside master chief.


    /waits for someone who's read the books to tell him that's not possible

  • rodpad #7 2 years ago

    For those who don't get the whole story:

    It is available to download for 99999 points. You still need a special code to unlock it once it's downloaded.

    Only people with JTagged consoles can get around the code and run this. People with just flashed DVD drive consoles cannot run this.

    I'd be as bold to say that less than 0.1% of people with modified consoles have JTagged their console, since it's instantly detectable on Xbox Live and is impossible to do so unless you haven't updated the dashboard in a year or so.
    Edited by rodpad at 23/08/10 @ 08:31

  • woodnotes #8 2 years ago

    But I've just bought the points.

  • bad09 #9 2 years ago

    Consoles piracy! Now Mr games industry I dare you to piss all over the paying console customers and in turn breed new pirates all in the name of beating pirates, just like you do on PC. Go on, show consoles your "wisdom" at solving the problem there to.

    As for the leak, meh, pirates aren't customers and the gamers who support the industry will pay and Reach will will make a fortune.

  • Vice.Destroyer #10 2 years ago

    Thanks for the clarification, rodpad. It would have been nice to have been told about this special redemption code in the article. I am not in the reviewers circle, so have no idea how the process works for getting review copies of games early. The implication of this is a little bit scary for developers. So people can basically get their hands on XBL goodies meant for reviewers, as well? I wonder how long, until someone decides to share his knowledge with the world.
    Edited by Vice.Destroyer at 23/08/10 @ 09:09

  • Dizzy #11 2 years ago

    Viral marketing in action.

    "So..., I'm confused. Did these guys cough up £856 to play Halo: Reach early?"

    Yep.
    Edited by Dizzy at 23/08/10 @ 09:05

  • Sweefyt #12 2 years ago

    "our best advice is to 'go dark' by staying off all internet gaming forums until you have played through the game!"

    Talk about knowing your audience. It takes someone without any sort of intelligence to still not be able to take a wild stab at how the next installment in the blandest, most uninspired, unoriginal gaming franchise ever created is going to end.

  • CaptainQuint #13 2 years ago

    This has been news since Friday evening, yet here we are again with Eurogamer having an article on it the following Monday morning.

    Give it up EG, it's embarrassing. Either staff the site over weekends or don't bother with stories which happen during it.

  • TVoJ #14 2 years ago

    @CaptainQuint

    Shut up you idiot. Just because you stay in your bedroom all weekend wanking over Hentai, dreaming of one day having friends.
    So the EG staff have lives after the mon-fri drag. Get a life son!
    I have a Mon-Fri office job, I'll tell you what, any work related emails I receive outside 9-5 I'll just disregard. I'm sure no-one will care.

    cock

  • CaptainQuint #15 2 years ago

    Ha hah hah hah haaaa!

    Brilliant!

  • darkmorgado #16 2 years ago

    This has been news since Friday evening, yet here we are again with Eurogamer having an article on it the following Monday morning.

    Yeah, because I am sure they will have people lining up to do shift work on weekends. Hey, how about we make them do night shifts as well? Cos of timezones and all that. I demand that news be posted 24 hours a day!

    Oh, and don't forget things like Christmas day as well. Why the hell should they be expected not to work on a public holiday? Do they think people don't read the site?

    Cock.


  • darkmorgado #17 2 years ago

    @Argentlupine

    It's easy to see why they do it this way. If they sent out loads of discs, you are almost guaranteed that some will get "lost" or some less than trustworthy journalistic hack will just make a load of copies or rip the contents.

    At least this way requires some form of authentication, even if it has sort of failed this time.

  • rodpad #18 2 years ago

    It is very odd for sure, since DRM was cracked a while back, however this won't result in any lost sales since JTagged people that do download and crack this will have to change their ways to actually play this online.

    This means they will have to either buy a retail copy on a virgin console, or burn a copy onto a flashed DVD console. Either way, neither will result in a lost (or gained for that matter) sale because of this particular "leak".
    Edited by rodpad at 23/08/10 @ 10:27

  • BobsUncle #19 2 years ago

    @darkmorgado

    Other tech sites (Gizmodo, Engadget, Kotaku) do updates over the weekend. Since when was running a news website a Monday to Friday 9-5 job?

  • Kaminari #20 2 years ago

    And people are worrying about the PS3 "hack"... LOL.

  • TVoJ #21 2 years ago

    @BobsUncle

    Since EuroGamer runs 9-5 Mon-Fri.
    They dont need to apologise to anyone for when they run THEIR business. The rest can do what they like. The point is, they dont work weekends, and they update when they get in monday morning. Stop moaning and accept it.
    Edited by TVoJ at 23/08/10 @ 11:17

  • CaptainQuint #22 2 years ago

    Ooo, you are quite the twat in real life, I bet.

  • coolbritannia #23 2 years ago

    Covenant battle net is talking about a decrypted transmission revealing details of Reach battle plan. This is Halo Nation, going dark.

  • tachometer #24 2 years ago

    This is just a taster for Activisions pricing plan for the next Bungie game

  • TVoJ #25 2 years ago

    It would seem that the general EG reader disagrees with you I'm afraid friend.
    Thanks all.
    Now rack off ya jerk!

  • dingo75 #26 2 years ago

    Ok let's hope that the Ubi monkeys have Ubilauncher ready for consoles because clearly they need it.
    Oh and Mafia II is out as well (Xbox 360).

  • TravisTouchd0wn #27 2 years ago

    "Shut up you idiot. Just because you stay in your bedroom all weekend wanking over Hentai, dreaming of one day having friends."

    Wow. Did I log onto 4chan by accident?

  • Pwnsweet #28 2 years ago

    NO SPOILERS!

    I've got the game and I'm very disappointed with the frame rate. It's not as consistent as ODST and Halo 3, dropping below 30fps more often and also dropping further than previous games, sometimes to as low as about 15fps.
    Edited by Pwnsweet at 24/08/10 @ 01:08

  • layleeloo #29 2 years ago

    Wakers. Do these guys not know they will help to kill the industry. Saying that, MS could just send the discs to games reviewers instead to prevent this