An interesting “bug” has surfaced for Croteam’s hit puzzle adventure that has a number of gamers stumped. The “bug” first surfaced innocently enough on Steam’s forum as perplexed gamers vented their frustration over an impassable situation. During an elevator ride to a key progression point the elevator would come to a halt allowing no further progress..

However, this is no bug, but rather an intentional event designed by Croteam to thwart piracy of the game.

Once stuck in the elevator the player can do only look at the scenery and examine the QR codes on the wall of the elevator. What do the QR codes represent? Well one scans as “More bad replicas of forgotten worlds. Can’t wait. – D0G v55.1.7934n.” Another scans  as “%$&$/$(#() took the words right out of my mouth. — SKIDROW v99.20000n”. You get the idea.

The Talos Principle isn’t the first time Croteam has found a novel way to deal with pirates. Serious Sam 3: BFE spawned an immortal fast scorpion that would relentlessly pursue and dispatch the pirating gamer.