Uncharted 4 Street Date Broken

Much like The Division, copies of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End have found their way for sale early. Unlike The Division, enterprising retailers in the UAE aren't the ones responsible for Nathan Drake's final adventure being available well before the May 10 release date. Well, not yet at least.

According to a listing on eBay UK, if you have GBP 99 (around Rs. 9,500) you can pick up a copy of Uncharted 4 right now. In addition to this, independent reports from popular gaming forum NeoGAF claim that Amazon Germany has already started shipping the game.

Meanwhile UK's CEX has already been selling the game in stores.

"I went in to CEX... to actually buy myself a camera lens," a buyer known as Shabz told Videogamer, "and when I went to the counter to purchase the lens I saw behind the shop assistant that there was Uncharted 4 so as a try I said can I also get a copy of Uncharted 4, he just picked it up and rang it through the till. The game cost £55 [almost Rs. 5,500]."

He's already played the game's first two chapters, and that the single-player campaign in terms of performance "is so far running fine". "May have a few frame drops but not so noticeable," he said, adding that "at heavy firefight it wasn't too bad with frame rates".

At the moment, multiplayer is not accessible with the option "greyed out" in the main menu. The trophy list is not visible yet and the trophies themselves don't sync with Sony's servers either. Also, the downloadable content (DLC) included with the Day One Edition cannot be redeemed.

(Also see: The Division Street Date Broken in the United Arab Emirates. India Release Imminent?)

In addition to this, SimplyGames has already taken payment for the game from buyers. Odd considering it usually takes payment on dispatch of purchases. This could mean an early release in the UK as well from other retailers.

As for India, we won't be surprised if early copies hit the country like they did for a spate of Sony titles in the past. The Order 1886, Bloodborne, Driveclub, and Ratchet & Clank are just some of Sony's exclusives that found their way on store shelves prior to release, usually obtained from the UAE.

With Uncharted 4's release date pushed back a few times, it's interesting to see how little control Sony has over the distribution of what is arguably the biggest game of the year. And it's probably why publishers prefer an all-digital future for games. This would allow them to wrestle back some control from a supply chain that has way too many holes for their liking.