The Ones Everyone Swore Were True
Before anyone could fact-check a claim in eight seconds, gaming ran on playground authority. Someone's cousin worked at Nintendo, someone's older brother had seen the secret level, and a rumor could survive for a decade on nothing but repetition. Some of these spread through magazine letter columns and word of mouth. Others were built deliberately, by fans with photo editing software or by publishers who found the mystery useful. Here's 20 that a lot of people believed completely.
1. Mew Under the Truck
The truck near the S.S. Anne in Pokémon Red and Blue served no purpose, which was enough to convince a generation it hid something. The instructions varied by whoever was telling you, usually involving Strength and a precise number of steps. Mew is in the game's code, though not there.
2. Polybius
An arcade cabinet supposedly appeared in Portland in 1981, caused seizures and nightmares, and was serviced by men in dark suits. No cabinet, board, or manufacturer record has ever been produced. The story keeps growing anyway, which is arguably the more interesting outcome.
3. The Triforce in Ocarina of Time
Fan sites published elaborate step-by-step guides for obtaining the actual Triforce, complete with doctored screenshots. Some versions required 100 percent completion plus a specific sequence at the Temple of Time. Nintendo never included it, and the guides contradicted each other constantly.
4. Sheng Long in Street Fighter II
A 1992 EGM April Fools feature claimed a hidden master could be fought by beating Ryu without taking damage. The name came from a mistranslated victory quote. Players spent months attempting conditions that led nowhere.
Jonathan Sloan from Burnaby, Canada on Wikimedia
5. Lavender Town's Original Music
The story claims an earlier version of the Pokémon town theme caused illness and suicides among Japanese children before being replaced. No such version exists in any dumped ROM. The audio circulating online was made by fans years after the fact.
6. Luigi in Super Mario 64
Rumors of unlocking Luigi persisted for two decades, fueled by a blurry texture some read as "L is real 2401." A 2020 source code leak confirmed a Luigi model was planned during development. He was never in the shipped game.
Blake Patterson from Alexandria, VA, USA on Wikimedia
7. Ermac in Mortal Kombat
A diagnostic menu in the original arcade cabinet listed "ERMACS," short for error macros. Players decided it was a hidden red ninja and traded increasingly complicated input sequences. Midway found the fascination useful enough to create him for a later game.
Daniel Benavides from Austin, TX on Wikimedia
8. Bigfoot in GTA San Andreas
The forests of Back o' Beyond generated years of sightings, screenshots, and video evidence. Every piece of it was mods or editing. Rockstar acknowledged the legend later, which only made people more certain the original was real.
Stefan Brending (2eight) on Wikimedia
9. Sonic on the SNES
Magazine letters pages in the early '90s regularly carried claims of a Genesis-to-SNES Sonic port. Nothing about the console war made that possible. It circulated for years anyway, occasionally with a friend's word as the only source.
10. Sonic 2's Hidden Palace Zone
An unfinished level appeared in prototype builds and got cut, spawning theories about how to reach it in the retail cartridge. No retail path exists. Sega eventually built a version of it into the 2013 mobile remaster.
11. The Herobrine Skin in Minecraft
A forum post in 2010 described a player-like figure appearing in single-player worlds, complete with a screenshot. It spread fast enough to become the game's defining myth. Mojang has repeatedly confirmed it was never in the code.
Oberon Copeland @veryinformed.com on Unsplash
12. Killing Zombie Ganon Permanently
Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask both attracted rumors about permanent consequences for specific actions, including versions where certain NPCs could die forever. The Ben Drowned creepypasta amplified it substantially. None of the described behavior exists.
13. Nintendo's Buried Atari Cartridges
The Atari landfill in Alamogordo was real and got excavated in 2014. The Nintendo version of the story, involving buried unreleased NES games, has never had anything behind it. It borrowed credibility from an event that actually happened.
14. Blanka Being a Human Named Jimmy
Fans built elaborate backstory rumors around Street Fighter characters through the '90s, several of which involved secret identities or hidden family connections. Some of these were regional magazine inventions. The official material never supported them.
15. The Second Half of Cut Content in Final Fantasy VII
Persistent rumors described a method to prevent Aerith's death, usually requiring specific level thresholds or item combinations. Guides sold this as fact in some markets. The scene is not conditional in any version of the game.
Carter McKendry from New York, NY, United States on Wikimedia
16. The GTA V Ghost of Mount Gordo
Rockstar actually placed a ghost on Mount Gordo, which is why this one is confusing. The rumors that grew around it, including that she could be interacted with or would follow you, were not real. A genuine easter egg generated a dozen fake ones.
17. Ash's Pikachu in Every Copy of Yellow
Claims circulated that specific cartridges contained an unobtainable version of Pikachu with unique moves or higher stats. Cartridge variation stories were common in an era when nobody could easily compare copies. Data dumps eventually settled it.
18. The Nintendo 64 Disk Drive Games in the West
The 64DD launched in Japan and did poorly, and Western rumors persisted about localized titles being nearly finished. Some Japanese titles existed, and the Western versions people described did not. Magazine speculation kept the idea alive for years.
19. Beating Contra Without the Konami Code
A running rumor claimed a hidden difficulty or ending unlocked only by a no-code, no-death completion. Nothing in the game rewards it. It survived largely because so few people could test the claim.
20. The Cartridge That Would Brick Your Console
Various rumors described specific games or cheat devices capable of permanently killing an NES or Genesis, usually attributed to a friend of a friend. Game Genie caused save corruption in some cases, which gave the story a foothold. Actual hardware destruction never happened.
