Wading Through the Rumors
In the vast land of video games, players spend a lot of time making up rumors. Some of them are easily dismissed as nonsense, but others catch wind in the community, sometimes told through the grapevine for years. And then you have a few that actually aren’t rumors at all, leaving you to second-guess yourself. Should you play PS2 games on a PS3 console? Is Mew hiding under that darned truck? Don’t worry, we have everything you need to know.
1. Sega Blast Processing
Where were you when you first heard about “blast processing”? We’re guessing you were just a wee child somewhere in the ‘90s, desperately trying to score more storage from your new Sega Genesis. Well, luckily for you, a producer went on to explain the whole process…right before we found out that it was just a marketing ploy.
2. Removing Lara Croft’s Clothes
Look, we were all enamoured with Lara Croft in the ‘90s, but some gamers took it a little too far. Hidden in their rooms with the doors locked, they tried every code they could to remove her clothes. Alas, the promised land never existed.
3. Sparky the Dog
Five Nights at Freddy’s has had more than enough time in the sun, but that hasn’t stopped its fans from finding new things to gab about. Enter Sparky the Dog, a horrifying new animatronic that some fans even faked images of. He never existed—but he was made real in the 2023 flick.
4. Blowing Nintendo Cartridges
Shut up, literal warning that was printed on the back of our cartridges. You’re not our real mom! Every single one of us ruined our Nintendo games by aggressively blowing into them. We thought it would clear the dust and somehow “reset” everything. In reality, all it did was disturb the pins.
5. Herobrine
Ah, 4Chan, a place where legends are born. It was no different in 2010, when an infamous post claimed that a creepy character with white eyes would stalk his game. It wasn’t actually true, but Herobrine eventually earned his spot in Minecraft lore.
6. Bringing Aerith Back to Life
Alright, it’s been years since our devastating exposure to Aerith’s death—and during those years, we all tried to bring her back. We maxed all our weapons. We tried all the cheat codes. And all we got was our lousy trauma.
7. Vermilion City’s Random Truck
Hark! A truck in the middle of the road? Surely something’s lurking beneath it. Mew, perhaps? Cue every gamer trying whatever they could to sneak a peek. Surf as many times as you want; there was no way anything special was hiding under there.
8. Ratman
No, we’re not talking about poor Doug Rattmann from Portal. We are, however, talking about another character shrouded in mystery: Ratman from GTA IV, the freaky humanoid cryptid rumored to live in Liberty City’s sewers. Looks like the alligators got to him, though.
9. Polybius
Say hello to the phantom game so mysterious that people actually lost their lives playing it. Pretty spooky, right? Well, don’t you worry—none of it’s real. For the longest time, gamers said it was CIA mind control, while others claimed men in black used to frequent the arcades. Polybius scored a notable reputation among thrill-seekers, but they were all let down pretty quickly.
10. Sonic in Super Smash Bros. 64
Oh, cool! Your friend just unlocked Sonic in Smash Bros.! He won’t tell you how, and you can’t ask any questions, but just trust that it’s a very real thing that happened. And thus sparked the endless rumor that you could, in fact, do the same at home.
The craziest part about video game myths is that some of them are actually true. Let’s dive into a few things conspiracy theorists got right.
1. Bowser Statues Can’t Hurt You
You know, it’s not every day we drive into fire-breathing statues, but that can-do attitude unearths the truth of video games! In Mario Kart 64, those piddly Bowser statues can’t even reach the player, reducing them to nothing more than decorative rocks.
2. PS3 Consoles Can Play PS2 Games
We’re always excited when a new console comes out, but the biggest question remains: can it play old games? A lot of people didn’t even want to risk it, believing that the PS3 couldn’t handle original games. Well, if you have the original thick console, you can actually play both PS1 and PS2 games without issue.
3. Lisa Follows You Around in P.T.
Listen—if we’re still haunted by Lisa, you’re going down with us. The revolutionary teaser has long since enamoured gamers and sleuths alike, and both parties combed through its files to find any crumb of information. Sure enough, they discovered that that seven-foot freak absolutely stalks you down the hallway.
Alicia Christin Gerald on Unsplash
4. You Can Find Mew In Pokémon Red and Blue
Alright, so maybe Mew wasn’t hiding under that stinking truck. That doesn’t mean he isn’t in the game! If you’re willing to trigger a number of glitches, you can actually spawn and capture the rare Pokémon.
5. Bigfoot Lurks in GTA
Hang on! We know what you’re thinking, and no, we’re not talking about GTA: San Andreas, the game that sparked this whole rumor. Initially, so many players claimed to see the infamous sasquatch that Rockstar themselves had to quell the rumors. However, that didn’t stop them from putting him into GTA V as a special easter egg. Under the right circumstances, you can even transform into him in GTA Online.
6. Atari Buried Games in the Desert
How far would you go to bury every copy of a terrible game? Well, we don’t know can’t hurt us, and until 2014, people chalked this up to a simple rumor. Surely, Atari didn’t buy thousands of unsold copies of Pac-Man and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and dump them in a New Mexico desert. Boy, do we have news for you.
7. Hidden Bosses in Mortal Kombat
We know you yearn for battle, and luckily, Mortal Kombat delivered. Before kids could Google tutorials, we were forced to find secret battles hidden in our favorite games, which is exactly what happened with Reptile…after we nailed two flawless victories without blocking. Oh, and a Fatality.
8. Diablo’s Secret Cow Level
For a while there, Diablo’s secret cow level was one of the best-known legends; countless mooers were harassed by desperate gamers trying to open a so-called portal. Well, it didn’t exist, you heathens! And you targeted them for nothing! That said, the franchise actually bought into the hoax and soon introduced axe-wielding farm life into the next installment.
9. Controlling the Master Hand
We love to duke it out with our friends and ruin relationships with button-mashing, but who controls the battlefield? Thanks to this glitch, you do! In a pretty simple series of buttons, you can take control of the omniscient hand in Super Smash Bros. Melee, where nothing can touch or KO you.
10. Other Characters Were (Almost) in GoldenEye 64
It wasn’t enough that we played as James Bond in GoldenEye 64—we wanted all the characters, darn it. The saddest part is that we almost got them, but thanks to licensing issues, they merely became one photo tucked away in the game’s code.
