The Hogwarts Legacy community is lamenting the temporary disappearance of a bizarre leaker claiming to be the son of a senior developer.

In a now-nuked Reddit post (opens in new tab), user HogwartsInsider alleged that through their connections to their father, design director Chad Liddell, they’d been able to assist in QA on the game, and while a non-disclosure agreement partially bound them, they’d been permitted to host a limited Q+A session, revealing details about the game.

Through that thread, they answered questions pertaining to everything from player customisation to PC performance. At the time of writing, however, none of what they revealed remains visible. According to one of the subreddit’s mods (opens in new tab), Warner Bros issued a takedown notice to Reddit’s legal department, which took down the post in question. Another post, from a user claiming to have accessed the game early, was also removed, and both accounts have now been deleted.

None of the content revealed in either leak was particularly notable – there were no story spoilers and little mechanical discussion, with most players wanting to know about customisation and map exploration, and both users were wary of spoiling too much. Nonetheless, the community appears to have rallied around the leakers as their new heroes; at the time of writing, several of the subreddit’s top posts are memes paying tribute and/or decrying Warner Bros’ decision to strike the post.

The circumstances around the leak are pretty wild, as even if the leaker was exactly who they claimed to be, non-disclosure agreements exist for a reason. At this late stage before the game’s release, marketing campaigns are fully locked in, and even if a QA worker really was related to a senior developer, an unofficial question and answer session on a fan forum wouldn’t just be signed off by ‘my dad who works at Avalanche’.

The leak, which was nixed at the same time as another thread by a user who claimed to have got their copy of the game early, is just the latest chapter in a bizarre pre-launch saga for Hogwarts Legacy. While community enthusiasm remains high, the Hogwarts Legacy controversy continues, with several protests aimed at the game.

While J.K. Rowling is not involved in the development of Hogwarts Legacy, GamesRadar+ does acknowledge the author’s role in the creation of the Wizarding World, as well as her publicly stated, harmful views regarding the rights of transgender people. If you’d like to offer your support to the communities affected by Rowling’s rhetoric, consider donating to the National Center for Transgender Equality in the US, or Mermaids in the UK.