I opened X at midnight and my feed looked like an emergency alert: spoilers everywhere. I felt the rush you get when a secret leaks out too soon, the mood collapsing. By dawn the conversation had already split into fury, apology threads, and demands for action.
I’m a reporter who has watched games launch and fandoms fracture; you probably follow the series closely enough to know how sharp the harm feels. Resident Evil Requiem is days from release, and what should have been a controlled reveal turned chaotic. Capcom issued a calm, emotional plea asking anyone with early copies not to spoil the story—but that wasn’t the only response.
When my notifications flooded, a veteran voice cut through the static — Hideki Kamiya fired back
Kamiya, the original director behind Resident Evil 2 and a creator credited on Devil May Cry and Okami, took to X and did not mince words. While Capcom’s statement asked for restraint, Kamiya’s post accused those leaking plot beats of ruining years of work and wished them a fate that grabbed attention: he said they “deserve a thousand deaths” and hoped they would be unable to enjoy games again.
I know Kamiya’s bluntness is part of his public persona; you’ve seen him call out spoilers before. Still, his message landed harder than most corporate posts precisely because he’s an industry figure with colors that don’t fit corporate beige.
Why did Hideki Kamiya react so strongly?
Because spoilers don’t just ruin surprise — they erase the payoff creators planned. You can sympathize with fans who want to share excitement, but leaking major story beats days before release strips everyone of the intended experience and disrespects long production cycles.
On the timeline, a magazine leak earlier this year made the problem worse
A real-world scan of a print magazine had already leaked key endings for a previous Resident Evil release, and those wounds are still fresh. That pattern—the same story leaking in multiple ways—explains why emotions ran hot this time.
Platforms matter here: X (formerly Twitter) is where Kamiya posted and where many spoilers spread, but leaks also land on Reddit, Discord, and video platforms like YouTube or Twitch. Companies such as Capcom typically respond with takedown requests, account bans, or legal letters; Steam, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live often cooperate to limit distribution of leaked builds.
What did Kamiya actually say about the leakers?
He called the act despicable, framed it as theft of a shared joy, and used language meant to express how personal the betrayal felt to creators. I won’t repeat every harsh line, but the essence was a furious plea for respect toward creative labor—and a desire that leakers lose the simple pleasure of playing games themselves.
In comment threads, the community split between condemnation and defense
Some argue leaks reveal corporate missteps or accelerate transparency; others see them as theft that wrecks an emotional arc. I find most readers fall somewhere between anger and resignation: you want accountability, but you also want the story intact when you finally sit down to play.
Leaks act like a cracked mirror, scattering the image of a planned surprise into jagged reflections—every shard shows less of the original intent. Developers lose control of their narrative; players lose the chance to be surprised; publishers face PR fires that cost goodwill.
Will Capcom punish leakers?
Capcom’s immediate public approach was restraint: a request, not a rage campaign. In practice, publishers tend to follow up with DMCA takedowns, account enforcement on platforms, and—when files or early builds are involved—legal action. Whether that happens here depends on who leaked, how the content spread, and the company’s appetite for litigation.
I’ll be blunt: I don’t think deaths are deserved for anyone who spoils a game. You might disagree—maybe you think strong words are justified when years of craft are flattened in an afternoon. What matters to me is protecting experiences worth waiting for while holding platforms and people responsible for how they share.
So where do you land — does Kamiya’s outburst feel justified, or did he cross a line that hurts the conversation around spoilers?