He might be one of the most bad-ass, cybernetically-enhanced super-soldiers we've ever seen, but it seems even Master Chief himself isn't invulnerable to a spot of piracy. Reports are flooding in from numerous online forums from gamers claiming to already have their hands on the long-awaited fourth chapter in the Halo series, Halo 4.

The above image is from a post by a user on NeoGAF, which seems to be a fairly damning picture for Microsoft that physical Halo 4 discs have already found their way into the wild. And with the game going 'gold' around the end of last month – the title is due for release on November 6 - there's very little doubting that it really is the final thing, and not just an unfinished build as we so often see with these leaks just prior to the big launch. Still, it's unclear to see at this time whether the game has made its way to torrent sites yet, as we saw fairly recently with another high-profile piracy casualty, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 – even if in this case it was only a demo build.

Various YouTube videos reportedly showing leaked footage of the game have been taken down swiftly by the powers that be, while a Microsoft spokesperson told Game Informer; “We have seen the reports of Halo 4 content being propped on the Web and are working closely with our security teams and law enforcement to address the situation.” We await more news.

Richard Birkett