It should come to no surprise to anyone that knows me that I'm a big fan of the 'Souls' series, From Software's "Trilogy" of brutally hard RPGs; Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2. From that, it should also come as no surprise that I am incredibly excited for Hidetaka Miyazaki's (the director of Demon's and Dark Souls 1) new masterpiece Bloodborne.
"But Will!" I hear you saying, "With the game still 9 days away from release, how do you know it's a masterpiece?" Well my friends, approximately 3 days ago, if my calculations are correct, at least 1 copy of Bloodborne was leaked to the public, and as the wannabe journalist I am, in conjunction with my love of LA Noire, decided to do some digging to get to the truth of who has the leaked copy of Bloodborne.
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| Like me, these customized messengers are useful, and strange |
First off I should state this, this is really more of a profiling than actually talking about Bloodborne, I'm really excited for the game, and this leaker has shown some really awesome stuff from the game, as much as Sony tries to stop him. If you are here for info on the game, you've come to the wrong place. Here, we're on a manhunt!
My first theory was obvious dear reader. About 5 days ago, Edge magazine did a cover of Bloodborne, not a full review, but they seemed to be in the process of playing the game. The figure "40 hours in" was thrown around a lot, which, coincidentally, was the same rough amount of time our leaker mentioned they had played when they posted in the Bloodborne subreddit. Could this writer for Edge be trying to leak some vital information to the public? After all, most of the information this leaker has shown us has been information that FromSoftware have not want shared yet, but as part of the 'Souls' community, our reviewer feels obliged to share. This may also be supported by the fact that our leaker mysteriously disappeared from reddit shortly after his post was made, leaving someone else to repost his evidence, which he had saved to notepad.
While my first lead sounds probable, I feel it's, however, unlikely. Edge is a highly prestigious gaming magazine, and if my research turned up anything, its that Edge are the only magazine actually telling people they have a copy of the game. To me this suggests that Sony trust them enough not to break embargo and leak information. You could suggest that the other reviews have it aswell, but if that's the case then why arent they sharing that info with us? I feel like the leads don't add up.
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| So clearly Miyazaki has been playing Bioshock... |
This leads me to my second theory: Currently Bloodborne seems to be in a finished state, after all, it's on a disc and all that needs to be done with the game is the day 1 patch. This means that it's likely that gaming stores, EB Games or JB Hi Fi (see Best Buy if American) already have copies of the game.
I used to work in a retail store like these, and I was around for the release of Tomb Raider and the Temple of Osiris. We had that game in the back for about a week before it was on shelves. This happens because the physical discs have to be shipped in and arrive before the games release, so the store has copies, as well as allowing time for the store to shrink wrap the games and get them ready for sale. All of this is a lengthy process, and so this time can vary. It's incredibly likely that Bloodborne is IN your usual gaming store today just waiting for the 25th to come.
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| I want this, like so much. |
My second theory is thus: Someone who works in one of these stores has either stolen, or more likely, gotten permission from their manager to take one of the copies and play it. This isn't uncommon, in the place I worked part of my contract said that this may be a possibility, but I couldn't break embargo on the information. This is so they people who work in the store know about the game when it comes out, and so on the day of release they can be knowledgeable about whats going on, and I doubt that's uncommon. However, like the Edge situation before, breaking embargo could have serious penalties for these people, so again, it's unlikely.
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| Confirmed!! Bloodborne has weapons!! |
Now, Sony knows the game has been leaked. Streams of it on Twitch have been pulled, as have videos on YouTube. I managed to get myself a copy of a recorded stream of it, and by Jove, it was no easy task.
Then I found a lead that lead to my answers. A user on reddit had been reposing everything from the leaker. The leaker had supposedly been posting on the website Playstationtrophies.net under the alias rmchiva925 (Chiva). Chiva had been posting screenshots on the website and claimed that the copy he had bought had arrived early, and being a good member of the 'Souls' community, he shared his information online. Aswell as that, Chiva also shared some information about how he got the game to the users of this site, and so the rabbit hole went deeper.
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| Unfortunately, Chiva has yet to find this crying baby |
As I started to investigate Mr. R. M. Chiva, I began to learn a few things. Firstly, it seems he shares a similar view with the games developers and has only shared some small amounts of information about the game. Aswell as that, he has alerted Sony to his ownership of the game, which might explain how easily it has been for them to take down anything they find appropriate, but has had a few missteps along the way, such as the stream I manages to get my hands on. Finally, I got the pieces on information I had been looking for.
Our unknowing friend Chiva has also told us that the he got the copy of Bloodbornes from a man on the Canadian Classifieds website Kijiji for $90 Canadian. It seems to me that street date wasn't broken by stores, but by private sellers who managed to get their hands on some early copies and are selling them online. From the look of it, Kijiji looks fairly unloved and people seem to be still selling copies there. I searched more major sites like this, and it seems that they are all being policed as to not break embargo.
So there you have it internet, the scoop on who leaked Bloodborne, who has it and well, how to get your hands on it if you live in Toronto I guess...
In the end, Sony seems to be keeping an eye on Chiva as long as he keeps his part of the deal in having an early copy. I hope all you Souls fans like me can enjoy what he shares with us, and keep it together for another few days.
