As the medium itself is known forsecrets and exploration of what is possible, it was only a matter of time before urban legends formed around gaming. Bigger than a rumor, an urban legend somehow becomes known to seemingly everyone, even before the internet age. The most absurd, radical, and imaginative ideas about games wiggle and sneak through society, captivating anyone who hears them.
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Myths surrounding special cheat codes, secret areas, and new playable characters are out there, but there are also tales of government mind control, voodoo-like curses, Cryptozoic creatures, and raising the dead. These are the ten legends that are gospel to some and blasphemy to others but have nonetheless captivated and inspired all since their mysterious and shadowy inceptions.
10Big Foot In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Legend Status - Undetermined, possibly true
Life and art imitating one another, the legend of Bigfoot inGrand Theft Auto: San Andreasclosely mirrors its real-life counterpart. Somewhere, deep in the most hidden sections of San Andreas’ woods, lives a giant, human-like beast that has only been maybe seen and never documented. Many accounts are of a dark and shadowy figure that seems to get away just before any camera captures it.
Although Bigfoot’s existence has been denied by the C.E.O. of Trickster, Terry Donovan, most Rockstar staff were not aware of the notorious Hot Coffee mini-game in San Andreas, leading to further conspiracies. Everyone who braves a night out in the woods of Flint County may not see Bigfoot but will certainly feel the presence of something out there.
9E.T. And The Atari Landfill
Legend Status - True, mind-blowing
A game so erroneous and so downright heinous that it had to be buried in the desert like radio-active toxic waste. This word-of-mouth legend was so mind-blowing in Nintendo NES cartridges that, honestly, it felt just too far-fetched or theatrical to be true. How couldAtarifall so far and so fast?
Oddly enough, this amazing legend turned out to be true. In 1983, Atari Inc. buried around 700,000 copies of E.T. and other games in a landfill within Alamogordo, New Mexico. As part of the fantastic documentary Atari: Game Over, the site was dug up in April 2014, unearthing thousands of boxed games, including the fabled E.T.
8Nude Fatality In Mortal Kombat Arcade
Legend Status - False, at least for now.
Perhaps trying to will it into existence, many heard or told the legend of nude fatalities hidden withinMortal Kombat. Certainly known for its secrets, such as Reptile and Ermac, the original Mortal Kombat Arcade machine is a Hellraiser-like puzzle box full of mystery. Couple that idea with the game’s boundary-pushing violence and graphics, and the idea of a nude code doesn’t seem that implausible.
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This legend permeated through arcades and schools across America despite the absolute lack of evidence, illustrating the powers of imagination. While Ed Boon and Jon Tobias have denied this legend’s validity for decades, they also claim some secrets in early Mortal Kombat games haven’t been found to this day.
7L Is Real 2401 In Super Mario 64
Legend Status - False, still heartbreaking
Every 90s little brother’s dream, the idea of multiplayer inSuper Mario 64really was just too good to be true. When visiting the rear open-garden section of the castle in the game, a blurry inscription can be found on the fountain’s statue. L is Real 2401. This inscription is still responsible for a plethora of conspiracy about multiplayer and Luigi.
Similar to Mortal Kombat, Super Mario 64 was so next-gen and so expectation-shattering that anything seemed possiblein this ultimate launch title. Sadly, Luigi and two-player modes were originally programmed but were cut for memory issues, according to Miyamoto. This hasn’t stopped fans from continuing to speculate about Super Mario 64’s secrets.
6Sheng Long In Street Fighter 2 Arcade
Legend Status - False, but fascinating
Translation is an art form. When Ryu’s win screen displayed “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance” inStreet Fighter 2Arcade, everyone read Sheng Long as a name. Electronic Gaming Monthly fanned the flames with an infamous April Fools piece, and the legend grew. Even though it is just a mistranslation of Shoryuken, the seeds had been planted.
Arcades were the hotbed for legends in this era, strangers bound in fandom recounting anything they have ever heard about a game, mostly as “fact.” Funny enough, the legends of Sheng Long helped inspire the creation of characters Goken, Ryu, and Ken’s master, as well as Akuma. Despite it being fake, it is now real, kinda.
5Mew’s Truck In Pokemon Red and Blue
Legend Status - False, wrong location
Pokemon’sinitial release on Gameboy was pandemonium. Similar to Zelda 1 and Breath of the Wild, the game shows you limited basics and lets you figure out the rest. This structure, along with the game’s 150 hard-to-find monsters, leads to an unprecedented amount of rumors, speculation, and urban legends. One legend still shakes the tall grass to this day: Mew’s Truck.
Supposedly hidden underneath the only truck vehicle in the game, a 151st monster, Mew, was the object of more speculation than any other Pokemon. Though Mew is in the game via a glitch elsewhere, nothing has ever been found with the strange truck.
4Michael Jackson and Sonic 3
Legend Status - True, Genesis Does
Still being researched and pieced together to this day, Michael Jackson’s actual involvement in the creation of songs for theSonic3 soundtrack on Sega Genesis has been the stuff of legend for decades. While some believed Jackson had created the entire soundtrack, years of digging to the bottom of this legend have unearthed new, true details.
According to Yuji Naka, Sonic creator and former Sonic Team leader, Jackson did, in fact, create music that still remains in the official release(s) of Sonic 3. While Michael’s production team also created some songs, Jackson himself wrote music for the game, according to Naka. Jackson would not be credited officially by his own choice, not liking his music’s final sound on the Genesis hardware.
3The Madden Curse
Legend Status - True, The numbers don’t lie
Equal parts bizarre and intriguing, theMaddencover athlete situation is an infamous and dark legend always described as a curse. After being chosen as the cover athlete, strong, real-world problems, injuries, and some form of consequences were inevitable. Dating back to 2001, no one is safe from this dreaded curse.
Peyton Hillis, Ray Lewis, and Vince Young, among others, did not have successful NFL seasons when on the cover of Madden. Reaching the status of cover athlete almost guaranteed your downfall in the football world for many years, some argue to this day.
2Saving Aerith in Final Fantasy 7
Legend Status - False, bummer
Nothing can be done about it, and that really is the hardest part. For anyone who has ever playedFinal Fantasy 7, the horrific and sad moment that is Aerith’s inevitable death is heartbreaking. There has to be a way to avoid it, to prolong it, something, somehow. These thoughts lead to theories and rumors that turned into a legend; a way to save Aerith from dying has always been hoped for.
If there ever was a legend that should be true, this is certainly it. The real truth is, however, sad and permanent, no one can save Aeirth in the PlayStation masterwork Final Fantasy 7, they never could, and they never will.
Legend Status - Classified
The United States government has been known to think outside the box regarding military technology applications in civilian society. This is especially true in the shadowy and ghostly world of special operations and secret, classified research projects. One such project supposedly was executed for a short period of time in 1981 somewhere in Portland, Oregon.
The project, codenamed Polybius, was allegedly a subproject of the very real MK Ultra program. A stand-up arcade unit with one joystick and one button, the game supposedly hypnotized players, leaving long-term or permanent psychoactive neurological effects. A stand-out in gaming urban legends, Polybius is fascinating, real or not.
