'Uncharted 4' US, UK, Germany Street Dates Broken as Sony Grapples with Theft
Just as developer Naughty Dog released the "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End" launch trailer, reports that the game has broken the street release date in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany emerged online. Even as some gamers confirmed these street broken copies, Sony urged fans to avoid purchasing the game before the official release date as the copies sold have been stolen.
Naughty Dog's final entry to the "Uncharted" series is not due to become available to the buying public until May 10th, roughly two weeks from now. But as reported initially by Videogamer, at least one gamer already owns a copy of the game. Said gamer bought the "Uncharted 4" game from CEX in the UK earlier this week.
The publication has talked to the buyer, known as Shabz. The buyer showed the site the receipt as proof of the transaction.
"I went into CEX... to actually buy myself a camera lens," Shabz told VideoGamer, "and when I went to the counter to purchase the lens I saw behind the shop assistant that there was Uncharted 4 so as a try I said can I also get a copy of Uncharted 4, he just picked it up and rang it through the till. The game cost £55."
Shabz reveals he has already played the game's first two chapters in single-player campaign. Obviously, multiplayer isn't playable yet and neither are trophies or the DLC code. He said the single-player campaign is "so far running fine." He thinks there might have been a few frame drops but they weren't "so noticeable."
In addition to the UK, there have also been reports of "Uncharted 4" copies already delivered to Amazon customers in the US and Germany. Reports also suggest that in-hand copies of the game also appeared on eBay.
Unfortunately, Sony has said in an update at the PlayStation Blog that the street broken copies in the UK were stolen "while in transit" and that they have not yet shipped any copies to retail.
"Any suggestion that UK retailers have broken the official street date is not correct," the publisher said.
Police are already investigating the matter, Sony said.
