Some Legends Won’t Die
Video games are only built from code, no more, no less. And yet, that hasn’t stopped players from blaming them for illnesses, unexplained files, and the occasional ruined NFL season. Of course, it’s more fun to tell yourself that cursed titles are, in fact, real, and that they still have us in a chokehold every time we think about them. And who knows? Maybe you shouldn’t play these 20 titles at night.
1. Polybius
Few legends have lasted as long as Polybius, an arcade cabinet from 1981. Players supposedly experienced all kinds of ailments at the screen, including seizures, nightmares, memory loss, and hallucinations. If that wasn’t bad enough, mysterious men would also roam around to collect information from the machines. As cool as the story is, no authentic cabinet, software, or contemporary record has ever been found.
2. Pokémon Red and Green
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know the story of Pokémon Red and Green, particularly its Japanese releases. They got connected to the fictional condition known as Lavender Town Syndrome. Those high-pitched frequencies in Lavender Town’s music supposedly caused headaches, disturbed behavior, and a wave of deaths among children in 1996 (though the claims have no credible evidence behind them).
3. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
You know, we just wanted to play this game in peace before that famous creepypasta rolled around and ruined it forever! “Ben Drowned” turned an already disturbing Zelda adventure into the story of a haunted Nintendo 64 cartridge. Long story short, its fictional owner encountered a save file named BEN, complete with strange dialogue, reversed music, and a statue that followed Link through corrupted areas. It was all fake, but it still freaks us out.
Daniel Benavides from Austin, TX on Wikimedia
4. Madden NFL
The so-called Madden Curse may not involve ghosts, but that didn’t stop NFL fans from assuming a curse all the same. Several athletes featured on the cover later suffered injuries or disappointing seasons, and while plenty of cover stars escaped disaster, every new selection still inspires nervous predictions before the season begins.
5. Berzerk
Berzerk earned a grim reputation after two players died shortly after playing it. 19-year-old Jeff Dailey actually did lose his life from a heart attack in 1981 after recording a high score, while 18-year-old Peter Burkowski suffered a fatal heart attack after playing in 1982. Neither death proved that the cabinet caused anything supernatural, but that obviously hasn’t stopped the rumor mill.
6. Killswitch
The legend of Killswitch is this: it’s a limited-release 1989 computer game made by a fictional Soviet company called Karvina Corporation. Supposedly, the program deleted itself once you finished, making every playthrough permanent and preventing owners from copying it. Pretty convenient, right? Well, yeah, it was fake, but fabricated screenshots and auction claims still have some of the general public fooled.
7. Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic.exe began as a horror story about a CD containing a corrupted version of the original Sonic the Hedgehog. The fictional game showed familiar characters being hunted by a demonic Sonic with black eyes who addresses the player directly. Fan games spread so widely that some younger players encountered Sonic.exe without realizing the entire legend was a hoax.
8. Minecraft
For years, players insisted that a pale-eyed figure called Herobrine appeared in isolated Minecraft worlds. He built tunnels, pulled leaves from trees, constructed strange pyramids, and just creepily watched you. Mojang joked about removing Herobrine in update notes, which only encouraged fans to keep treating him like an actual Easter egg.
Oberon Copeland @veryinformed.com on Unsplash
9. Pokémon Silver
“Pokémon Lost Silver” follows someone who discovers a used copy of Pokémon Silver containing an unusually advanced save file. As this so-called player continues, Pokémon disappear, and characters become increasingly disturbing. The trainer’s then reduced to a mutilated figure trapped in darkness. Good luck pulling people off this theory.
10. Super Mario 64
The “Every Copy of Super Mario 64 Is Personalized” theory claims Nintendo secretly designed each cartridge to react differently to its owner. It would be cool…if it was real. Fact or fiction doesn’t matter for some believers, though, who remember odd childhood memories, weird castle layouts, and the infamous Wario that supposedly emerges from a giant floating head.
11. Pale Luna
Pale Luna was supposedly an obscure text adventure distributed in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1980s. Okay, yes, it was a creepypasta, but people ran away with the idea that a nearly unplayable program was filled with cryptic commands. It also eventually provided coordinates leading to a buried body. Obviously, no commercial release was documented; the game and its discovery were fictional.
12. Sad Satan
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could go one year without hearing about this crudely made edgelord game? Now, Sad Satan did actually appear in online videos during 2015, though its origin remains disputed. It’s not cursed, though. It’s just an annoying blend of dark corridors, distorted audio, and disturbing photographs.
13. Petscop
At first, Petscop looked like a legitimate forgotten PlayStation game. Its cheerful surface gradually revealed references to missing children and characters whose movements were supposedly being controlled by someone else. As cool as it is, you’re safe to sleep tonight—the game was created for a carefully planned web series.
14. Godzilla: Monster of Monsters
This popular story centers on a cartridge of Godzilla: Monster of Monsters that begins changing beyond anything programmed into the real game. We’re talking new monsters, familiar creatures dying, and a red demonic entity named Red that chases you through increasingly personal levels. People fell for it thanks to all the detailed screenshots that emerged.
15. LSD: Dream Emulator
Released for the original PlayStation in Japan, LSD: Dream Emulator sends players through unpredictable environments, all of which were inspired by a developer’s dream journal. You’ll face everything from shifting rooms and unsettling faces to a recurring Gray Man figure. Nothing supernatural has been demonstrated, but that hasn’t stopped collectors from looking for it.
16. Hong Kong 97
To be fair to the believers, Hong Kong 97 sure sounds haunted. It’s filled with repetitive music, crude imagery, and a game-over screen that reportedly uses imagery of a real body. Its creator later explained that he made the game as a deliberately terrible release, but that didn’t exactly help. The unidentified man and the game’s presentation kept producing rumors that it’s cursed.
17. The Theater
Have you ever heard of the Theater, an endless cinema lobby with little more than a ticket-taker and empty hallways? Well, that’s good—now you and your loved ones aren’t up for grabs by the Reaper. Long story short, the more you try to enter the theater, the harder the Ticket-Taker becomes distorted. Then the program crashes or displays threatening messages. Don’t worry, it was all a hoax, though playable versions now exist online.
18. Catastrophe Crow
Catastrophe Crow, also known as Crow 64, was presented as a canceled Nintendo 64 game. Rumors then spread that it was also created by a developer who vanished after becoming obsessed with the project. Videos showed unfinished environments, buried messages, and disturbing scenes that just about everyone worked together to decode. It was ultimately an alternate-reality horror project.
19. Kanye Quest 3030
This one does actually have some lore attached to it. What looked like a strange fan-made RPG gained a darker reputation when players discovered hidden content connected to a group called Ascensionism. Secret passwords, recruitment language, and even references to surrendering personal identity led to theories that the game was testing potential members for a real-life cult. Investigations revealed that the material was really part of an abandoned ARG, but not everyone buys that.
20. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Atari’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial has been blamed for everything from frustrated children to the North American video game market crash of 1983. Millions of unsold cartridges were rumored to have been buried in a New Mexico landfill, and hilariously enough, that claim was confirmed when an excavation found copies in 2014. Alright, the game wasn’t literally cursed, but its failure and decades underground gave it a legacy few ordinary bad releases ever achieved.
