We are still a month away from Assassin's Creed Shadows' intended launch date, but it seems that copies are landing in the hands of gamers well ahead of time. A number of physical copies of the game have seemingly been stolen and sold online, leading to a number of leaks. 

On social media, user @DannyStevens_ posted photos of the game's case, install screen and images of the game running, which have since been taken down. The account has also gone private since making the post. The early copy of the game was found on Facebook Marketplace in the US and it wasn't the only early copy being put up for sale a month ahead of launch.

On Reddit, another person with early access to the game shared a number of details. For starters, the version of the game currently on the disc is a very old build, and since we are still a few weeks away from launch, there is no day-one patch available. With that in mind, any early gameplay footage that does the rounds will likely include bugs that won't be seen in the day-one version of the game.

Based on this early version of the game, players will begin as Yasuke, a character that has been at the centre of controversy. After nearly 10 hours of gameplay, it is claimed that the person with this early copy of the game had yet to meet the game's second playable character. Whether or not Ubisoft has changed this to allow players to pick their preferred character from the start of the game still remains to be seen.

Ubisoft is aware that early copies of the game are circulating and is already issuing DMCAs to get marketplace listings and gameplay footage taken down. Assassin's Creed Shadows will officially release on the 20th of March for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

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KitGuru Says: Situations like this do occur from time to time. Anyone who was following Kingdom Hearts 3 in the lead-up to launch will remember that copies of the game were similarly stolen and sold online weeks before launch. This time around though, it looks like Ubisoft became aware of the problem before gameplay footage and streams began circulating. 

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