Stories We Fell For Hook, Line, and Sinker
It doesn’t take more than a creative mind and the smallest glitch to spark a rumor; in the land of easter eggs and hidden content, one urban legend can turn the lore on its head. The reality is that gamers already spend hours combing game files for any missed detail, and that’s precisely why we fell so hard for these stories.
1. BEN Drowned
Basically, if you find a creepy cartridge out in the wild, just leave it alone. The popular legend goes that a gamer found a rogue copy of Majora’s Mask and noticed a lot of weird glitches, creepy imagery, and downright disturbing messages throughout the files. The game constantly referred to him as “Ben,” the child who initially owned the copy before perishing in a lake. Don’t worry—the whole thing was an ARG.
Daniel Benavides from Austin, TX on Wikimedia
2. Ryu’s Secret Battle
Not every urban legend is creepy. Some of us yearn for battle, which is exactly what ‘90s arcade players hoped for in Street Fighter II. Throughout the game, there was mention of someone named Sheng Long, whom players assumed was a hidden boss battle. In reality, the name came from a mistranslation.
3. Polybius
Who among us wouldn’t love to play a phantom game? A game so exclusive that hardly anyone remembers it, and those who do have plenty of unwelcome memories? Well, we have some bad news: no one’s played it ‘cause it doesn’t exist. Some said it was CIA mind control. Others claimed men in black would frequent the arcades. Some even suffered health concerns after so long at the machine. But none of it’s been proven.
4. Bigfoot in GTA: San Andreas
We have entire TV shows dedicated to people’s hunt for Bigfoot, but the fascination trickled into video games, too. Players everywhere claimed they saw a strange creature roaming around the mountainside, but Rockstar has since confirmed that the cryptid isn’t in the game. (At least, not that one.)
trenchophotography on Unsplash
5. The Madden Curse
Imagine that you’re such a hotshot NFL player that you make it to the cover of Madden’s latest installment. Maybe you shouldn’t imagine it. Apparently, fans believe that every player who’s graced the cover ends up having a disastrous season.
6. Pokémon Black
Well, this’ll teach you not to bootleg games! Legend has it that a bootlegged copy of Pokémon Red came with a solid black package instead—and a new kind of enemy. Simply titled “Ghost,” this phantom would curse you and your beloved Pokémon, leaving you too scared to fight and eventually snuffing out your catches.
7. Diablo’s Cows
Diablo’s secret cow level is probably one of the best-known urban legends in gaming. There they were, a bunch of mooers ominously hanging around. Surely, if you struck them enough, a portal would open, right? No. Of course not. But the franchise bought into the hoax and soon introduced axe-wielding farm life!
8. Sonic.exe
Wasn’t it enough to see that terrifying “fun is infinite” easter egg? We guess not, and fans of the beloved hedgehog just can’t catch a break. Hollowed-out eyes, bloody levels, a haunted disk that steals your soul—this urban legend had it all, except, thankfully, the truth.
9. Petscop
We won’t lie: it was pretty easy to believe this one. A guy popped up on YouTube with a supposedly new game that featured bizarre characters and surreal levels. The more people looked into it, the stranger it got, and even some of the biggest YouTubers covered the story. However, the game never existed.
Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
10. Sad Satan
When something surfaces off the deep web, you can bet on hullabaloo. Sure enough, curious gamers watched playthroughs and risked their own consoles to walk through it themselves. One minute, it had real crime scene screams. Another, it had inappropriate photos. In reality, it was like an edge lord in game form.
11. Lara Croft Code
The scene is this: it’s the ‘90s, your parents aren’t home, and Lara Croft keeps scaling cliffsides in those tiny shorts. That was all it took for desperate players to punch in code after code, trying to remove her clothes. Sorry, kids—it didn’t exist.
RyC - Behind The Lens from San Francisco, United States of America on Wikimedia
12. Lavender Town Syndrome
Lavendar Town is creepy. The music is strange, and the whole place feels off, especially in an E for Everyone game. However, things went a little too far when rumors spread of players taking their own lives or being driven to madness. Yeah, that didn’t happen.
13. Killswitch Deletes Itself
Hooray, a video game that deletes itself immediately after you finish it. That’s what players want, right? Apparently, it was! With supposedly only 5,000 copies released, this totally real game was a hit in the ‘80s. There’s no actual proof it exists, but there is a weird amount of detail about it.
14. WoW’s Creepy Children
It’s never a good sign when kids randomly appear in the shape of a pentagram. Spotted in Goldshire and Elwynn, players could catch six NPC children idly standing around. Things only got worse when people stood in the middle of their pentagram—cue the screams and freakish sounds.
Sergey Galyonkin from Raleigh, USA on Wikimedia
15. Berzerk Was Cursed
Unlike other games on this list, Berzerk is real. And unlike other legends, some of the terrible stories are true. In 1982, 18-year-old Peter Burkowski would tragically lose his life playing the game. Autopsies later revealed preexisting conditions, but many claimed it had to do with the game itself.
16. Herobrine
You know, for such a kid-friendly game, Minecraft has had its fair share of scares. Herobrine was perhaps the biggest. In 2010, an infamous 4Chan post kicked off the legend, stating that a weird character with white eyes would stalk his game. It wasn’t actually true, but that didn’t stop fans from running with the idea.
17. Fallout 3’s Predictions for the Future
Three Dog never knew peace again. Rumors spread that if players snuffed out the radio host, they would then hear an odd sequence of numbers on his station. Deciphering them led to a bunch of eerily accurate premonitions that then caught like wildfire in the fandom. Of course, none of it was true.
18. Luigi’s Shadow
It’s not enough that Luigi lives in Mario’s shadow—we just had to make up stories about his own. Armed with nothing but the Poltergust and trembling hands, our favorite plumber braved plenty of ghosts on his own. But in certain situations, lightning would strike and cast his shadow…one people said looked like him dangling. It was just a glitch.
19. Pale Luna’s Coordinates
We weren’t sure what to expect when someone named “Pale Luna” started following us around. Well, it wasn’t anything good; she’d tail you until the game’s finale: you digging into a very specific spot, at which point, coordinates spit out of the ground. If you searched them, they had a pretty disturbing find.
20. Squall Isn’t Actually Alive
Final Fantasy VIII was so massive that it was actually printed on two disks! And with such a cliffhanger after the first one, a lot of fans speculated that Squall never really met his end. Instead, the whole second disk is just his dream.
