It’s hardly surprising these days when a game gets leaked ahead of its street release date — especially for a game as big as Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. While Activision and Treyarch can’t control store owners who don’t give a damn about release dates, or delivery men with sticky fingers, they can control whether you can play their game or not.

Even if you do manage to snag some of that leaked Black Ops 4 early copies floating about, you won’t be able to play it just yet, as Treyarch has made it so that a game update needs to be patched in before you can play! Here’s the proof of it (thanks to Reddit user Shotzzify):

Given how Black Ops 4 doesn’t have a single-player campaign and every mode needs you be online (except maybe Zombies?!), this is hardly surprising. And even if you manage to connect online, who will you play against?

Lesson here? Don’t pay extra for a game you won’t be able to play ahead of its release date.

In other Black Ops 4 news, make sure to nab this PS4 Black Ops 4 theme before it disappears! Treyarch has also hidden messages in some of the trailers they’ve released, which you can try to decipher by yourself.