Continuing in the sad tradition of Halo 2 and 3 before it, Halo: Reach has apparently been leaked. Modders at Game-Tut.com found a way to trick Microsoft's servers, which are currently hosting the full game download. The download is intended for select media and only accessible with a code -- well, until Game-Tut apparently cracked that security measure. The site has yet to openly leak the files to the general public.
It appears that the game is leaking other places as well. At least one video released shows off a tour of Forge in the game's Firefight mode, and spoilers for the game can be found everywhere from Bungie's official forums to NeoGAF (if you really want to see them, you can find them yourself).
While Microsoft and Bungie will be hosting the usual slate of Halo review events around the world in the coming weeks, it appeared as though the companies were relaxing around the usually tightly-controlled media access to the series by uploading the game to Xbox Live. Unfortunately, the system proved vulnerable to the insatiable demand for Halo, which facilitated another early game leak for this high profile franchise.
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It certainly doesn't come as unexpected news for the Halo team, which will of course still rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in legitimate sales once it hits store shelves. The same kind of thing happened with both Halo 2 and Halo 3, neither of which tanked, exactly. Both previous games were also compromised about the same amount of time before the game's official release.
Halo 2 leaked: Mid October, 2004
Halo 2 release date: November 11, 2004
Halo 3 leaked: Early September, 2007
Halo 3 release date: September 21, 2007
Halo Reach leaked: Mid August, 2010
Halo Reach release date: September 14, 2010
Based on these numbers, it's pretty obvious that the next Halo game will be released in August of 2013 and the game file will be leaked online in mid July. Sorry Microsoft - you can't argue with cold, hard facts.