HomeGenreActionDeep Silver Disables a Batch of Stolen Metro Exodus Steam Keys

Deep Silver Disables a Batch of Stolen Metro Exodus Steam Keys

Metro Exodus publisher Deep Silver has disabled a good number of Steam keys that were stolen from a factory and sold by an unofficial key reseller.

The release of Metro Exodus on PC had a turbulent history. Initially, the game could be preordered on Steam and physical copies were also being sold with a Steam code inside. All of that came to a stop when Deep Silver announced that the game would only release on Epic Game Store. No more Steam preorders and no more Steam keys to get from authorized key resellers. If you managed to preorder a game or buy it from an official key reseller before the announcement, you were safe and your order would still be honored. And if you bought the game from any other place that Steam, Humble Store or Razer Store, you might have a bad surprise waiting for you upon starting a Steam client and not seeing Metro Exodus in your library.

Deep Silver notified everyone in a Steam post on Thursday:

These keys have been obtained illegally from the factory where physical key printing had taken place prior to the announcement of exclusivity with Epic Games, due to the criminal nature of these keys, all unlicensed keys have been deactivated and activation/download of Metro Exodus without the executable file is no longer possible,” it said.

“In addition, the software will be removed from the Steam library of any players using an unauthorized code. The keys being sold on this platform are stolen goods and are therefore illegal.

“If you have been affected we strongly recommend you contact the seller who sold you the unlicensed key and demand a refund.” The only supported key sellers for Metro Exodus were Humble Bundle and the Razer store, Deep Silver said.

“We were not aware that [the stolen keys] had gotten into the wrong hands,” it added. “The binaries were disabled on these keys from the beginning, the community brought it to our attention that the games they had from the reseller were not updating. After an investigation, we have become aware that they were stolen.”

What’s that saying? “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t’. Or in this case, if you find a shady store selling games/keys for half of the price compared to everywhere else, you should think twice before buying anything.

Admir Brkic
Admir Brkic
I play video games from time to time and sometimes they manage to elicit a reaction from me that I can't help but to write about them.