Many moons ago developers could release a demo, usually on a CD bundled with gaming magazines, without fear of game code being pulled apart by crazed fans desperate for any information they can find. Or maybe it was that the absence of prominent social media outlets that prevented the rapid spreading of such information. Whatever the reason, those were the days of enjoying all the demo offered once you put the disk in your console, and nothing more.

Not so much these days. Release a demo and fans will chew up the content, spit out the code, and pick through the muck to find content you thought was buried deep enough to keep a secret. That’s exactly what has happened with PlayStaton All-Stars: Battle Royale. Sony recently released a beta of the mascot brawler, and as per this thread on Reddit, those lucky enough to access the game have worked through the code to discover a number of currently unannounced characters and stages set to appear in the final game.

If you’d rather wait for a formal reveals of these goodies, now is the time to stop reading.

First up, the characters. Icons and data files (though no in-game models, at least not yet) for several unannounced characters were hidden in the code, most characters appearing from franchises closely associated with Sony platforms. So far the list of new characters and their associated games includes:

• Ratchet (Ratchet & Clank)
• Sackboy (LittleBigPlanet)
• Raiden (Metal Gear Solid series)
• Dante (from the new DmC)
• Spike (Ape Escape)
• Jak (Jak and Daxter)
• Sir Daniel Fortesque (MediEvil)
• Nariko (Heavenly Sword)
• Evil Cole (inFAMOUS)

This list almost doubles the amount of confirmed characters, and nicely works towards the strengths of Sony’s IP backlog. It’s good to know Sir Daniel Fortesque hasn’t been completely forgotten.

And now for the stages. Just as with the characters, several new stages have been confirmed. The character leak included little character icons, but the stage leak included larger shots of the stages themselves. The list of stages and associated games, with accompany images:

Paris – Sly Cooper

BlackRock Stadium – Twisted Metal

Columbia – BioShock Infinite
 

Invasion – Killzone
 

Alden’s Tower – inFAMOUS
 

Franzea – LocoRoco
 

San Francisco – Resistance
 

Stowaways – Uncharted 3
 

Time Station – Ape Escape
 

As you can see, some stages are drawn from modern Sony published titles (eg: Uncharted 3), while others look further into the past. Then there’s stuff like Columbia, a stage set in the BioShock Infinite universe, a game not scheduled to launch until next year.

PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale is scheduled to launch in October this year on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.