Kingdom Hearts 3 Leaker Sells Game Early, Gets Caught Shortly After

It's been a hectic couple of days as leaked footage of Kingdom Hearts 3 were spreading online, originating from a physical sale listing. It led to a response from Tetsuya Nomura, and even the supposed seller has already been "captured."

Over the weekend, photos and video of unseen Kingdom Hearts 3 content surfaced online. This sparked a response from the game's director, Tetsuya Nomura, asking people to please avoid and not share spoiler content while they investigate the issue.

We're aware that a small portion of Kingdom Hearts 3 has been circulating online before its official release. We are also aware as to how this has all happened. We're sorry to see this caused concern amongst our fans who are excited for the release.

The whole team has been working together since yesterday night (Japan time) to investigate what we can do to better this situation, but first we would like to ask that you do not share these videos.

The game's epilogue and secret movie, which are the biggest spoilers in this game, are planned to be released at a later date just in case, so they will not be shown before the game's release.

We want everyone to be able to equally experience the full game after its release, so we ask for your continued support on this matter.

We're also very grateful that our fans have been warning each other already about the spoilers. Thank you very much.

We're one month out from the release. Let's enjoy the game together when it releases on Jan. 29, 2019.

Director Tetsuya Nomura

The leak originated with a now-deleted Facebook Marketplace listing, which was selling the game for $100 a piece. The leaked images and video were supposedly used as proof toward the product's authenticity. The game discs, made for Xbox One, were supposedly from somewhere in the disc-printing/distribution stream and not from retailers. Someone claiming to know the seller stated that they have a history of illegitimate sales and has a connection with a manufacturing and printing process somewhere in North Carolina. They believed that it was only a matter of time before they were caught.

Not long after, Quinton Flynn, voice actor for Lea and Axel in the Kingdom Hearts series, claimed that the person behind the leak has been "captured" on Twitter.