We’re still a month away from Gears of War: Judgement’s planned March 19th release date, but that hasn’t stopped a few pirates from attempting to play the game early: an apparently complete version of the game was leaked onto multiple torrent sites overnight, and videos of people playing through the entire game are already being uploaded onto Youtube.
When aksed about the leak, a Microsoft rep responded by saying “Consumers should be aware that piracy is illegal and we take vigorous action against illegal activity related to our products and services,” and that “Playing pirated copies of games, such as ‘Gears of War: Judgment,’ is a violation of the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use and will result in enforcement action, such as account and console bans.”
Microsoft faced a similar situation when Halo 4 leaked online ahead of its launch date last Fall. In that situation, Microsoft did end up banning a lot of idiots who tried to play their pirated copies online, so it’s pretty safe to assume that Microsoft isn’t making idle threats in this case either.
Meanwhile, anyone who’s still interested in picking up a legit copy of Gears of War: Judgement will still have to wait a month before they can try the game out. Development duties this time are being handled by Bulletstorm developer People Can Fly, and it’ll be interesting to see where the series goes now that former Epic designer CliffyB isn’t in charge of the project. Wal-Mart is currently running a deal where anyone who preorders Judgement from them will also score a free copy of either Gears of War 2 or 3 with their order.
