With the release of Resident Evil Village fast approaching, fans of Capcom's hugely influential survival horror franchise shouldn't have to wait too much longer to finally get their hands on the series' highly anticipated eighth mainline entry. It officially goes on sale in just two weeks and while a fair amount of information about Resident Evil Village has already been revealed, there's still plenty of mystery surrounding the game's characters, setting and story. Those hoping to uncover these secrets for themselves could be in for a nervous few weeks, though.

Try as they might, it is becoming increasingly difficult for developers and publishers to prevent information about their upcoming titles from circulating early online. The number of leaks popping up on sites like Reddit and Twitter has increased exponentially in recent years, although that's not the only thing that developers need to worry about. In many instances, over-zealous retailers have been known to start selling or shipping out games early, and this now appears to have happened with Resident Evil Village.

RELATED: Sony Deal is Apparently Keeping Resident Evil Village from Being on Xbox Game Pass

An Australian video game enthusiast with the Twitter handle @Kaiser499 tweeted an image of themselves holding what looks to be a PS5 copy of the game a little earlier today. When asked whether the image was genuine, they posted a second image showing the back of the game's box and also revealed that the file size of Resident Evil Village is 27.37 GB, making it far smaller than some of the other games for the PS5. It is worth noting though that this does not include the inevitable day one patch and so it's likely that the final file size will be noticeably larger.

If the images are genuine, this would not be the first time that the street date for a highly anticipated triple-A title had been broken in recent years. Last March, retailers began shipping out copies of Final Fantasy 7 Remake almost a full two weeks early, prompting Square Enix to lift the street date entirely. The developer did ask those who received their copies early to refrain from sharing any information about the game's story online until after the official release date though.

Whether or not Capcom will take a similar approach remains to be seen, although as this appears to be an isolated case at the moment, it doesn't seem particularly likely. What is all but certain, however, is that Capcom's legal team will be working hard to take down any content that could spoil Resident Evil Village's story for players as quickly as possible. That said, there's still a very real risk that certain posts could slip through the cracks, and so anybody hoping to avoid spoilers should remain vigilant until they've had a chance to play the game for themselves.

Resident Evil Village launches May 7 for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

MORE: Resident Evil Village's Impact on RE9 is Already Very Odd