Some rumors are very, very fake. Others turn out to be true—and today's Sunset Overdrive news adds yet more credence to a major Xbox leak from January that predicted a number of still-unannounced titles, including a remake of Halo 2 and a sequel to Forza Horizon.
In January, a user named "ntkrnl" on the message board NeoGAF posted a number of teases and hints for upcoming games on Microsoft's newest console. He claimed that the Halo 2: Anniversary Edition will be out this fall and include a beta for Halo 5; that a sequel to the racing game Forza Horizon will also be announced for later this year; and that the white Xbox One—currently only available to Microsoft employees—will be released to the public.
Halo 5, ntkrnl wrote, will be out in 2015.
At the time, we confirmed that he was connected to Microsoft, but we weren't able to verify all of the leaks. But today, one of his January posts about the upcoming Xbox One game Sunset Overdrive stands out:
Sunset Overdrive is set in some weird fucking future (like 2020)
Everyone drinks this fucking drink, Overcharge XT or whatever and you either turn into one of these giganto monsters or you die.
This big corp (Microsoft, lol) takes control of the city trying to wipe this shit out, because its their drink and they fucked up.
Supposedly there is managed content that will be developed for an entire year, as it is an open/breathable world.
Today, Insomniac Games released a new trailer for Sunset Overdrive. In it, drinks created by a big corporation turn the world's inhabitants into monsters. Those specific details weren't public information before today.
While it's certainly possible that the leaker guessed those little details from Sunset Overdrive's E3 teaser trailer last year, it's also yet another validation of what ntkrnl wrote. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has been teasing a Halo 2 remake for quite some time now, and some of ntkrnl's other rumors have also come to fruition in some form, like images of a Titanfall-themed Xbox One that was later shown off by developer Respawn.
In other words, it's become pretty clear that ntkrnl was legit—although of course some of the details in his posts could change over time, particularly the long-term promises. (Crackdown 3, ntkrnl promised, will be out in 2016, as will an Xbox One game by the Japanese studio Platinum.)
For a full rundown of all of the ntkrnl leaks so far, check out this NeoGAF post.
To contact the author of this post, e-mail jason@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @jasonschreier.