By Brendan Clementz

Mario & Luigi: Brothership, a new installment in the popular spin-off in the mustachioed plumbers’ iconic video game series, released recently to a mostly positive reception. Despite Nintendo’s intentions of a November 7 release date, however, the game was leaked before release, marking another leak from a gaming company recently. 

After the shutdown of the developer behind the well-known RPG series, Alphadream, the Mario & Luigi franchise was held in limbo for nearly five years, until a trailer released of a new installment, subtitled Brothership. Fans were excited for the comeback of a well-loved series, but some gained access to it sooner than expected when it leaked on October 20. 

This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened to Nintendo. Before the release of Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom in 2023, the game was leaked online, and some pirated it and shared information about it. As a company that holds secrecy of inner workings to the utmost importance, Nintendo was not pleased then, and likely is not now either. 

Security at game companies seems to be more lax in recent years than ever before. Companies like Activision and Insomniac have been the target of hacks, with the hackers gaining access to inside information about planned and scrapped projects alike. However, the most concerning aspect of such leaks have been information about employees becoming widespread, such as addresses and phone numbers.