Crysis 2 DevBuild Leaked

It's a bad day to be a PC gamer. A development build of Crysis 2 has been leaked to the torrent sites, two months before release and what's worse is that it's completable. Plenty of thieves are out there downloading and playing it as I write this and it makes me angry. This behavior is the scarecrow in our yard deterring the very growth we hope for. Yes it's made of straw, yes it looks scarier than it is but it does a great job nonetheless. Never mind that there is one is every yard, consoles and handhelds alike, ours is bigger and meaner-looking so we lose the most.

The dev copy not only has the complete campaign but also the master key for authentication online. This bodes badly for Crytek but they could use it to their advantage by changing and flagging the master key to shut down pirates. Two months gives them either a chance to change the gold master or at least a zero-day patch that's required before authentication.

All is not lost though, reading the myriad of posts across the many websites and forums reporting on the issue I see a glimmer of hope. Many posters are vehemently opposed to the spread of the leak and voice their support to purchase the game instead of downloading it now. Posts go on to point out that this is the reason PC loses franchises and releases to the console market and that acts like this is what gives PC users a bad name.

If any good can be gleaned from this debacle, it's that the game seems to run fantastic on a Crysis spec'd computer so those worried about performance have something to measure against. Also it seems that the DX9 version is the only one included and requires an x64 operating system. It's not hard to imagine that Crysis 2 will look insanely better in DX11 with full shaders engaged.

Hopefully this won't spell the end of another franchise to the console market, the thought of having to jump and wave my hands around like a lunatic to engage my nanosuit in Crysis 3 make me even angrier.