Metro Exodus publisher Deep Silver has deactivated a batch of Steam keys it said was stolen from a factory where the physical keys were being printed. The keys were being distributed by an unofficial key reseller, an announcement from Deep Silver explained, though they’ve now been deactivated. Anyone who already used one of these keys and had Metro Exodus added to their Steam libraries have also had the copy removed with Deep Silver saying that the codes were “stolen goods, and are therefore illegal.”
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In a post shared on Steam’s discussion page for Metro Exodus, Deep Silver said it had been made aware of the stolen keys that were being sold by the third-party seller. The keys, the publisher explained, were physically printed prior to the exclusivity deal that took Metro Exodus off of Steam and moved it to the Epic Games Store. People could still get the game on Steam if they’d pre-ordered it up to a certain point, but others were finding they were still able to play it through the third-party keys. That’s not the case anymore though now that those keys and the game copies associated with them have been deactivated and removed.
“These keys have been obtained illegally from the factory where physical key printing had taken place prior to the announcement of exclusivity with Epic Games, due to the criminal nature of these keys, all unlicensed keys have been deactivated and activation / download of Metro Exodus without the executable file is no longer possible,” Deep Silver said on Steam’s page for the game. “In addition, the software will be removed from the Steam library of any players using an unauthorised code. The keys being sold on this platform are stolen goods, and are therefore illegal.”
The development with the third-party Steam keys is the latest incident to befall Metro Exodus since the game’s exclusivity announcement. It was review bombed not long after the announcement was made and led to immense backlash after the game was pulled from the platform just weeks before it was scheduled to release. Epic Games has since commented on the incident and said it never wants to have that happen again.
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