It’s coming up for a week since the launch of Watch Dogs Legion and, usually, following the release of a major game, one of the biggest pieces of underground news surrounding them generally tends to revolve around a game getting cracked/pirated. In this instance, however, and regarding this particular title, there is something far more alarming for Ubisoft!
What is it? Well, coming in a report via DSOGaming, the entirety of Watch Dogs Legion’s source code has leaked online. And, having had a quick check ourselves, this does appear to be an entirely legitimate claim! And before you ask, no, we’re not giving you the link to it! You want to find or access illegal files? – Then do your own dirty work!
On the whole, while this news is definitely shocking (particularly to Ubisoft) it isn’t entirely unexpected. Why? Well, back in October, the hacking group “Egregor” claimed that that had obtained this information as well as a lot of other, yet undisclosed files. With Ubisoft seemingly not willing to pay the ransom, the full source code information for the game has now been released online with the group seemingly making good on their threat.
Now, coming in at around 550GB, this is clearly a lot of data, but some of you may be wondering why this is so important. Well, put simply, the source code is like the DNA of any program. It’s not just the files from the completed product, but it’s everything that has gone into making it. With that information, you could not only easily mod a game, but it would also allow you (with significantly less effort) to release a ‘pirated’ version of the game. Albeit, it does not appear that this has happened… Yet!
While this is clearly a very difficult and embarrassing situation for Ubisoft, we should note that source files leaking online, regardless of the application be it a game, program, whatever, is exceptionally rare. Given the fact that Watch Dog Legion is a brand new AAA-release, however, this leaked source code is about one of the worst-case scenarios that could have occurred with this. The only thing stopping this from being an outright disaster is that it has been released after the game’s launch rather than beforehand!
Put simply though, there are going to be literally armies of people scouring through that data at the moment with many of them doing so simply for the ‘prestige’ of releasing the first pirated version of the game. Make no bones about it, this is a huge problem for Ubisoft!
What do you think? Do you think this will have a big or small impact on the long term success (or failure) of Watch Dogs Legion? – Let us know in the comments!
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