Update, 10:40 p.m. EDT: Sony has responded to today's influx of No Man's Sky gameplay videos by essentially describing the on-disc version of the game as unfinished. The company's statement confirms that "a significant pre-release patch" will go live on Monday, August 8, and it will represent "a culmination of the studio’s day-1 aspirations."

"Sending out early copies of the game prior to the patch would not be a fair depiction of the game as it’s intended for consumers," the statement noted. Sony confirmed that any progress in the current version will be erased for players who patch the game—and that the review embargo will lift at midnight EDT of Tuesday morning.

Original report: Anticipation has been building around the space-exploration video game No Man's Sky for years. The game will finally launch on PlayStation 4 consoles this Tuesday and Windows PCs a few days later. But game-review outlets complained about the issue, and one report on those complaints, posted by review-aggregation site OpenCritic, alleged that review copies would not arrive until the game's launch date of August 9.

As a result, a few major game-review sites that wanted to cover Sky's impending retail launch went a different route this Friday: streaming raw gameplay footage.

Rather than be bound by any embargo, reporters at Polygon and Kotaku purchased retail copies of No Man's Sky from unnamed retailers who broke the game's official August 9 street date. The reporters immediately began streaming their opening-sequence sessions. Polygon's gameplay video did not include voice-over commentary, while Kotaku staffers Jason Schreier and Patricia Hernandez turned their mics on to talk about their first-blush impressions.

Both videos step blatantly into spoiler territory as they each include well over an hour of the game's opening experiences. The reporters' opening planets, as expected based on prior hands-on impressions, appear to be wildly different. Polygon's "Gohetaajavit" is a much colder, darker place than Kotaku's more radioactive "Ozhgaryarsari" (try saying that out loud). However, both players made quick work of the game's opening "repair your ship" objective, taking roughly 15 minutes each to collect enough resources to blast into space and begin their long slog to the center of the game's 18-quintillion planet galaxy.

Polygon and Kotaku both used Facebook Live as their distribution platforms, as opposed to YouTube, Twitch, or even DailyMotion, the site used by last week's gameplay leaker, a Reddit user nicknamed "Daymeeuhn." We're not sure if Facebook Live was chosen for convenience's sake or if the review sites opted for a platform that might be less likely to comply with takedown requests from console-version publisher Sony or developer Hello Games. As of press time, both videos were still available to watch.

Independent game critic Jim Sterling reported a No Man's Sky game-review embargo of midnight EDT on August 9. He also alleges that review copies will not arrive until the morning before that embargo lifts. We have sent questions to Sony regarding the apparent street-date break and will update this report with any response. (We will also feverishly await our own copies, having not found any retailers in our respective cities who are ready to break the game's street date.)

This article has been updated to better reflect the report made by OpenCritic.