The Most Famous Urban Legends in Video Games

Urban legends, urban myths or contemporary legends are short narratives of a fantastic or sensational nature, often full of mysteries or with terrifying themes, widely disseminated orally, via e-mails or through the media, which form part of a category of contemporary folklore. They are commonly reported as events that occurred to a "friend of a friend" or are public knowledge.

The term "urban legend" has been mentioned in print publications since at least 1968. English professor Jan Harold Brunvand of the University of Utah popularized the term through a series of books released beginning in 1981. Brunvand used his compilation of legends, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings, to highlight two aspects: firstly, that legends and folklores are not exclusive to so-called primitive or traditional societies; and, secondly, that by analyzing such legends, we can acquire great knowledge about contemporary and urban cultures.

Brunvard has released a string of similar books since then, being recognized as pioneering the use of the term "vector" (inspired by the concept of biological vectors) to refer to the individual who contributes to the spread of urban legends.

In this article, we present some of the most famous urban legends in the world of video games, which perpetuated the popular imagination for years until they were proven false and/or forgotten in the confines of the early days of the internet!

It’s worth mentioning that urban legends are just urban legends, and none of the cases cited in the text have any indication of being confirmed as real.

Killswitch

Killswitch was supposedly a game that, according to Soviet gaming company Karvina Corporation, was developed in 1989. Legend states that only 5,000 copies of the game were made, making it extremely popular among Soviet gamers. The game's gameplay itself pioneered the survival horror subgenre.

There were two characters to choose from, a girl or an invisible demon. The purpose of the game was to explore an abandoned coal mine, while facing demons and coal monsters.

As playing as an invisible demon was complicated for obvious reasons (you couldn't see the character), people generally chose to finish the game with the girl character. Regrettably, no one has ever completed the game with the demon, and therein lies the biggest mystery: if anyone managed to do so, the entire game would be wiped from their hard drive.

In 2005, an unopened copy of the self-exclusion game appeared on Ebay and was quickly purchased for 733,000 USD by an individual from Japan identified as Yamamoto Ryuichi. Ryuichi intended to record his gameplay on YouTube.

Ryuichi only posted one video, where he looked at his computer screen and cried. He was probably checking his bank balance, who knows...

In reality, Killswitch is not an authentic game. Instead, it appeared as a short story in the book The Melancholy of Mechagirl, a compilation of short stories and poems by writer Catherynne M. Bravo. However, it has since been converted into authentic fan games.

Bigfoot in GTA San Andreas

This is probably the urban legend with the most "proof" available on the internet.

Although the GTA universe is full of great Easter Eggs and references, the Bigfoot episode has never been authentic, but there are still those who insist that it is. It all started when some players found a pixelated image of Bigfoot hanging around CJ's residence.

The most curious thing is that, when Rockstar decided to embrace the joke, they developed Bigfoot, but in the context of Red Dead Redemption. When you eliminate him, you earn the achievement "Six Years in The Making", which coincides with the interval between the release of GTA San Andreas and Red Dead Redemption, a period in which urban legends can emerge.

Find Luigi in Super Mario 64

The story of Luigi, the urban legend of Super Mario 64, began with a description on the star statue located in the garden leading to the cursed mansion. In the description, the message "L IS REAL 2041" was supposedly read, as the official font of the letters is illegible.

The gaming community was eager to find out what this supposed secret was, which, unfortunately, never came to fruition.

With that in mind, a Mario 64 romhack was made called Super Luigi 64, with Mario's father as a playable character!

With a more basic plot and story and an abundance of characters for the time, it was natural that Mortal Kombat would generate its own urban legends, most related to hidden characters or fatalities.

The first two characters that became real thanks to rumors generated by fans were Reptile as a playable character and Ermac as a character (Ermac, in fact, was a mistake in Scorpion's coloring, so much so that in Mortal Kombat 3, they had the same movements, "Ermac", in fact, is the abbreviation for "Error Macro"). Reptile was a hidden character who challenged the player after a series of determined actions, but he wasn’t playable.

However, it was possible to play against Reptile in Arcade Mortal Kombat, at the time it was just another game bonus that generated a character like Scorpion but with the color green (video below). In the bridge phase, the player had to win both rounds without losing and performing a fatality. The phrase "YOU HAVE FOUND ME NOW PROVE YOURSELF" appears on the screen

Due to the urban legend of Reptile as a selectable character, the series' creators chose to include the character in subsequent titles, as well as Ermac from the third title onwards.

The "Tomb Raider Code"

Another well-known myth that many are aware of; however, it’s preferable to reveal in advance that it’s false. Despite this, all the mysticism that can be formed around games is fascinating.

Rumors about the existence of a code that made it possible to remove Lara Croft's clothing began to emerge as soon as the game was released for the PSOne. Considering the number of pre-teens who became fans of this game, the popularity of this legend and the number of people exploring every corner of the game to confirm whether it was a true story is quite clear.

The Internet was saturated with fraudulent codes, but it was all just a falsehood that reached gigantic dimensions.

PlayStation 2 vs. Saddam Hussein

During the year 2000, a time when the PlayStation 2 was the most coveted video game globally, information emerged that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had purchased approximately 4,000 units of the console, aiming to acquire the 32-bit processor chips.

According to reports, they could be combined to form a kind of supercomputer which could be employed as a missile targeting system. The narrative was completely fictitious. However, sensationalist media outlets chose to publicize the news.

The only truth in this story lay in the fact that it was more economical to "remove" the CPU chip from a PlayStation 2 than to acquire it conventionally. However, it would take much more than these small components to build a large-scale weapon of destruction.

The cursed Majora’s Mask cartridge

According to legend, a 4chan user found an empty Majora's Mask cartridge for the Nintendo 64, with the name of the game marked on the plastic. Furthermore, the user published images and videos on YouTube that supported this narrative, revealing a version of the classic Zelda entirely different from the original: totally distorted and perverse.

The game also has a save file called "Ben". The new player in the game deleted this file and generated a new one, an action that, initially, should not generate any problems.

However, upon starting the game, all NPCs began referring to him as Ben, causing the community to call him "haunted" and originating one of the most famous creepypastas of all time.

Lavander Town Syndrome

In 1996, Pokémon games took Game Boy users by storm globally. Yes, except for one region of the world.

The game was introduced in Japan and, according to reports, was allegedly linked to a significant increase in the number of illnesses among children aged 7 to 12. Until they arrived at Lavender Town, the children did not develop illnesses. The game's music has been cited as the source of frightening illnesses.

The song's piercing tones supposedly gave children headaches and nausea. The level had its music modified before being shipped overseas.

Polybius and The Men in Black

Possibly, the oldest myth related to gaming.

Polybius, an arcade game, appeared enigmatically in an arcade in Portland, Oregon, in the early 1980s. The cabinet was completely dark, except for the green joysticks and the logo located on the top of the computer. The game mixed components from classic shooters like Tempest, mazes like Pac-Man and space puzzles.

When played, it allegedly caused several health problems, such as amnesia, memory lapses, nausea, seizures, headaches, among others.

It’s also reported that the men in black were frequently seen playing the game, which led some to assume that the device was not just a pastime, but a government experiment.

To this day, there is no evidence that this video game actually existed and that its adverse effects were real.

Sheng Long in Street Fighter 2

Before the internet, video game magazines were the main sources of rumors, which often propagated such rumors as a kind of April Fool's joke. This is a particular Street Fighter urban legend, which originated in the North American magazine EGM, but quickly spread around the world.

Sheng Long was a joke based on a translation error that indicated that players could unlock the character in the Street Fighter II game. The following month, EGM stated that it was all a joke.

Although some people try hard, locating the origins of some video game legends is almost unattainable. Sometimes they arise from programmers' inside jokes, while others from a simple translation mistake. For a long time, it was believed that the legendary character Sheng Long had been hidden as a Street Fighter II character, all due to a simple typo. "Shoryuken" is Ryu's famous move, however, in one of his statements in the game, he said: "You need to beat Sheng Long to have a chance." This was enough to boggle everyone's minds.

When the game was released in 1992, the manual mentioned Sheng Long as Ryu and Ken's martial arts master.

Urban Legends are part of our life story. Whether they are just invented or "real" stories, they populate people's imagination, yielding interesting stories, even if they are just someone's imaginary creation.

What other urban legends do you remember from the gaming universe? Leave it in the comments!