Subnautica 2, Lego Batman, and Forza Horizon 6 leaks could reveal a bigger conspiracy

The week of May 11 has surely felt long for publishers and developers as several highly anticipated games spilled onto the internet earlier than planned. The leaks are happening in such quick succession that some gamers can’t help but ask: Is something going on behind the scenes?

Over the weekend, Redditor Dramatic-Track-9935 surprised the Lego gaming forum by revealing they had a working copy of Lego Batman: Legacy of The Dark Knight, the Arkham-inspired action game releasing on May 22. The gamer claimed that they had pre-ordered a digital copy of the game from Walmart. After they downloaded the files, Dramatic-Track claimed they were greeted with a prompt to begin the actual game. Naturally, they were baffled — the game wasn’t out for another week.

Shortly after, it became obvious this wasn’t some weird, one-off glitch: other pre-order downloads of Legacy of the Dark Knight were made available earlier than planned. In response, mods for the Lego gaming forum cautioned their community that spoilers about the game would not be tolerated. Posts ignoring this rule were subsequently hit with copyright notices from the publisher. As reported by Eurogamer, these unauthorized copies of Batman have since been deactivated, and the publisher has now implemented anti-piracy safeguards on the PC version of the game.

Another notable leak recently is that of Forza Horizon 6, the upcoming open-world racing game that takes players to Japan. According to Steam users, developer Playground Games uploaded a version of the game to the platform with unencrypted files. Savvy users took advantage of the lack of protection and quickly made the Microsoft exclusive available on piracy sites. The developers responded to the leak by promising to punish early players with a hardware ban. It wasn’t a bluff: Forza Horizon 6 leakers soon shared screenshots that alleged they were hit with bans set to last 7,973 years.

Undoubtedly, the warning intimidated some players from even attempting to play the game early. But one high-profile Forza modder took Playground Games’ pronouncement as a challenge. That same day, the leaker uploaded footage to YouTube showing himself playing Forza Horizon 6 despite technically being banned from the entire franchise. The gamer, who has a history of Forza-related bans, declared that there was nothing Playground Games could do about it. But given the bold public response, it may just be a matter of time before Playground Games makes an example out of him.

The latest game to suffer a leak is Subnautica 2, the beleaguered underwater survival game. Screenshots of the game are floating around the internet, though their origin remains unclear. Unlike the other two games, the Subnautica leak isn’t happening well ahead of release: the oceanic game is scheduled to release on Thursday, May 14.

Despite its availability on piracy sites, Subnautica 2 is currently the top-selling Steam game worldwide. In fact, all Subnautica titles are currently among the top 15 best-selling games on Steam. The number two spot on the PC platform is none other than Forza Horizon 6.

Since the leaks have transpired over the course of a few days, some onlookers are curious if any of the incidents are related. Rumors that Denuvo, a digital rights-management (DRM) tool, was cracked for single-player games earlier this year are fueling speculation. As reported by Kotaku, some of the groups sharing the leaked games are known for combatting DRM. Denuvo did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but so far there’s no evidence that the leaks have anything to do with DRM-related failures. Batman: Legacy of The Dark Knight reportedly added Denuvo after its leak.

Whatever the case, given what’s trending in gaming sales charts, the leaks have done little to hamper excitement for any of the games involved.