Persona 3 Reload Shipped Early to Some Lucky Gamers

gamerant.com:

Physical copies of Persona 3 Reload started shipping early to some lucky gamers on January 22. The much-anticipated remake of the third mainline Persona game isn't scheduled to release for almost two more weeks.

Premature game shipments are a fairly common occurrence. While major publishers often incorporate severe penalties for breaking street dates into their contracts with distributors, accidental mishaps still happen on a regular basis. The most high-profile recent example of such a mistake dates back to last spring, when early copies of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom appeared in the wild weeks ahead of the game's mid-May release.

History repeats itself yet again with Persona 3 Reload, which already found its way to some lucky gamers who pre-ordered it. Multiple people took to social media on January 22 to post images of their prematurely shipped copies, with each of them expressing their excitement at being able to play the highly-anticipated RPG 11 days early.

All of the images that have surfaced online so far depict the PS5 copy of the game's standard edition, which comes without the Persona 3 Reload day-one DLC. However, this development does raise the likelihood of the PS4 and Xbox versions of the RPG already being out in the wild as well. None of the lucky gamers who got an early copy of Persona 3 Reload have divulged the retailer(s) responsible for their shipment. However, one of them has explicitly claimed they have no special relationship with the store that sent them the game prematurely, suggesting that this early release was indeed a happy accident.

Fans hoping to experience the upcoming remake spoiler-free should consider this turn of events a signal to avoid social media until February 2. Namely, some people are already streaming Persona 3 Reload as of January 22, so there is a good chance that places like Twitter and YouTube will be full of spoilers in the day ahead. Twitch, for its part, is currently cracking down on such early broadcasts