This story is a bit of a strange one by the fact it’s actually as much about another video game website as it is about a video game.
The site in question is Nerd Leaks, a site that seemingly specialised in leaking gaming-related stuff. Fair enough, we’ve all done our fair share of leaking in this racket. The site recently found some images that were created by a former Sony Santa Monica concept artist, or at least he was a part-timer or something. The images seem to suggest that God of War 4 will take Kratos and his angry pectorals from Greek mythology and dump him into the world of Norse Gods. Fair enough. Nothing like a change of scenery, is there? Maybe it’ll even help cheer up the angry sod.
It’s still too early to tell if these leaks are accurate, and we doubt Sony’s just going to take to Twitter in the morning and be all like “yo, those pictures you’ve all seen were real. We’re working God of War 4 and it looks sick.” That’s just not happening, so we’ll have to wait a little longer, perhaps E3 2016.
Now, the story takes a decidedly dark turn at this point. The site that leaked the images quickly found itself at the mercy of someone who took it upon themselves to hack the site and leave a message warning the site to stop leaking stuff. Strange but hacks are certainly not unheard of. This is where it gets really weird: the site just vanished like it never existed. The site’s domain name is now for sale and if you go to the URL for Nerd Leaks you end up on the Go Daddy website. The site’s twitter account has also been deleted, almost as if someone wanted to hide themselves. It goes deeper, too. The link to the site was also posted on the popular-yet-brutal N4G site by a user named Azog. That user’s account is no longer active on N4G. They’ve just gone. Poof in the wind.
Now, many have taken it to mean that Sony has flexed its muscles and has digitally murdered Nerd Leaks for leaking what is supposed to be a secret project that the world isn’t supposed to know about. We can categorically tell you now that is not true. There have been hundreds of leaks in the past (we’ve been at the start of some of them, sorry, Sony!) and this has not, at least not in our memories, happened before. It’s all the more likely that the site owner got spooked by the initial hack and decided to up-and-run. Still, bloody weird, innit?
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