According to Japanese gaming blog Esuteru, folks who managed to grab illicit, pre-launch copies of Dark Souls are being punished by developer From Software. The site says that members of the dev team are dropping horrifically overpowered, maximum level Black Phantoms into the environments of players who grabbed their copy of the game through a street date-breaking retailer.

We're having a hard time corroborating the story, but it certainly sounds like something which the characteristically cruel From Software would do. In fact, we'd be surprised if those players even picked up on the retribution. They probably assumed their constant, repeated murderings were just par for the course.