Persona 6 & Kingdom Hearts 4 Achievements Leak on Steam by Accident
Steam achievements are usually something players look forward to hunting down and exploring after a game launches. This week, they became an unexpected source of leaks for games that are months away from release, and in some cases, have not even been announced.
Achievement lists tied to dozens of unreleased PC games suddenly appeared through third-party tracking services, exposing names, gameplay clues, locations, and potential story spoilers. Among the games caught up in the Steam mishap are Persona 6, Kingdom Hearts 4, Fable, Judas, Deus Ex Remastered, and Minecraft Dungeons 2. Some reports now put the number of affected titles above 80.
The information first drew attention after appearing on Exophase, a service that tracks achievements and trophies across gaming platforms. It initially looked like Exophase had somehow obtained private information, but the site's owner offered a much simpler explanation.
Exophase owner Mike Bendel said achievements that should have remained private appeared to become accessible through Steam's API. Exophase automatically scans available achievement data, so its systems picked up the newly accessible information and added it to the site.
There is currently no indication that someone hacked Valve or stole the information. Instead, Steam appears to have temporarily made data available that developers and publishers had not intended the public to see.
Persona 6 is easily one of the leak's biggest catches. Atlus has revealed relatively little about the RPG, and the game still has no announced release window. Yet an apparent list of 48 Steam achievements has now surfaced.
Those achievements reportedly contain references to the game's setting, characters, combat systems, romance, and story events. They appear to point toward Yokohama as a major setting and reference an organization called Hex, along with investigations and arrests. None of those details have been confirmed by Atlus, so the achievement list should not be treated as an official preview of the game.
Kingdom Hearts 4 was caught in the same mess. Its apparent achievement list contains clues about locations and Disney properties that could appear in the upcoming game, potentially spoiling reveals Square Enix may have planned to save for trailers or other announcements.
Developers often tie achievements to completing chapters, defeating bosses, visiting locations, unlocking characters, or reaching particular endings. Put a full achievement list together, especially one arranged around story progression, and it can begin to resemble a rough outline of the game.
Valve has yet to publicly explain what happened. Until the affected publishers confirm the information themselves, the achievement lists remain leaks rather than official details. For anyone hoping to play these games without knowing what is coming, though, avoiding spoilers may have suddenly become much harder.
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