8 Classic Gaming Urban Legends That Persist Today

It’s almost impossible for modern games to keep secrets from their players. Thanks to leaks and online chatter, players know just about everything about a video game before it comes out, and what they don’t know can be explained by countless YouTube videos that come out within a day or two of release.

Back in the day, classic games held secrets that took players years to find. On top of that, players spread wild urban legends about their favorite titles. It took years (if not decades) to disprove some of these myths, and many players never stopped believing things they first heard on the middle school playground.

Here are the absolute best classic video game urban legends of all time!

There are some spoilers ahead for some admittedly very old games. You have been warned!

8

Saving Aeris in Final Fantasy VII

One of the most shocking moments in RPG history was the death of Aeris in Final Fantasy 7. She’s a steadfast member of your party for the early part of the game, and she seems poised to be the obvious love interest for Cloud. Plus, her bizarre lore is central to the game’s biggest mysteries. Because of that, she seemed like she would be with you to the end, and that made her eventual murder at the hands of Sephiroth that much more of a brutal surprise.

Almost from the very beginning (possibly spread by a Squaresoft employee), there was an urban legend that it would somehow be possible to bring Aeris back to life. Some people thought this could only be done in the Japanese version of the game, and others thought that the answer involved using the Underwater Materia in a special way. Variants of this rumor even involved Sephiroth killing Tifa instead! Ultimately, though, there was never any truth to this urban legend.

7

Shen Long in Street Fighter II

We don’t always know where the craziest video game urban legends come from. That’s not the case with Shen Long, though. Back when most video game news came through print magazines, Electronic Gaming Monthly claimed that in Street Fighter II (a game that perfected the fighting genre), players could fight against Shen Long (Ryu’s master) if they played through the campaign as Ryu and then survived 10 rounds with M. Bison without taking any damage. This would allegedly allow players to fight Shen Long and unlock him as a playable character.

EGM later fessed up to this being an April Fool’s Day joke. The joke built on the Ryu win quote “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance,” but Shen Long was never even a character: Capcom had simply mistranslated Shoryuken, Ryu’s famous dragon punch. This rumor had surprising repercussions, though, inspiring the inclusion of Akuma (a similar character) in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Later, Gouken (Akuma’s brother and the actual master of both Ryu and Ken) was added as a playable character to Street Fighter IV as both a secret boss and a playable character!

Despite their over-the-top violence and humor, one of the appeals of Grand Theft Auto III and its spinoffs is how realistic and immersive the gameplay was. Therefore, it wasn’t that surprising when real-life myths began to creep into the franchise. And the most persistent of all these myths was that Bigfoot could be seen in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. According to this urban legend, you could sometimes see this stealthy sasquatch lurking in the rural countryside of the game. Sadly, though, everyone’s favorite creepy cryptid was never programmed into this game, though some players believe he’s still in there, waiting to be discovered.

They still believe in the myth mostly because modders wasted no time adding Bigfoot to the game, which means there are plenty of realistic images and videos floating around, making it seem like the cryptid is really in the game. Later, Bigfoot was added to Grand Theft Auto V as a nod to the persistent urban legend; a legend that, like the Sasquatch legends in real life, refuses to go away.

5

Herobrine in Minecraft

If you say “Herobrine” to older Minecraft players, you might just get the same reaction that younger players give when they hear someone say “chicken jockey.” You see, Herobrine is the name of an infamous urban legend involving this crafting game. The legend began in 2010, with a 4chan user claiming that he had run into a creature that looked like Steve but with white eyes. This creature had seemingly built its own structures before quickly vanishing; the user later claimed his messages to other players about his phenomenon were inexplicably deleted and that he eventually received a message from a user named Herobrine that simply read “stop.”

The legend grew, with some players believing Herobrine was the ghost of the Minecraft creator’s brother. Eventually, popular Minecraft streamers used custom texture packs and staged encounters to “prove” Herobrine was real. But it was never real: game creator Notch denied Herobrine ever existing and clarified that he never even had a brother. This hasn’t kept many fans from still believing, and Minecraft devs sometimes wink at this urban legend with update logs humorously referring to how they “removed” the character or “don’t talk” about his existence.

4

The Nude Tomb Raider Code

The original Tomb Raider is one of the first major video games to make sexuality a big part of its story and marketing. As such, the game prompted immediate rumors that there was some kind of nude cheat code. According to the rumor, putting in a specific code would activate a “Nude Raider” mode, causing Lara Croft to lose all her clothes. While some people thought this mode could be activated by finding hidden items, the most popular version of this urban legend involved players putting in a special code to remove the character’s clothing.

Despite suggestive dialogue (most notably Lara saying “I’d better take off these wet clothes” after you exit the pool), there was never any way (code or not) to strip Lara Croft down. However, the devs had great fun teasing fanboys hoping to see some skin. In Tomb Raider 2, there is a scene where Lara is about to get into the shower; just before she shows any skin, she notices the camera, tells players they’ve seen enough, and shoots it.

As a fun tie-in, that same game actually included the code players thought was the “Nude Raider” code in the first game, but putting it in causes Laura to explode rather than get naked!

3

Squall Is Dead in Final Fantasy VIII

Some of the best video game legends are the ones that are very difficult, if not impossible, to disprove. For veteran RPG fans, the best example of this is the “Squall is dead” theory regarding Final Fantasy 8. The crux of this theory is that, at the end of disc one, we see protagonist Squall impaled by an ice shard that seemingly should have killed him outright.

He wakes up at the beginning of disc two completely healed, which is never explicitly explained, even though Squall mentions having no wounds. Because of this and the fact that the plot subsequently becomes increasingly surreal, some players believe Squall died at the end of the first disc and that the rest of the game is what he dreamed while he was dying.

Of course, this is a game where you regularly heal your injured characters and even bring them back to life during battles; therefore, it’s possible that Squall was healed and maybe even revived offscreen. And the only other corroborating evidence for this theory is that the game’s plot keeps getting weirder, to which I can only say, have these people never played a Squaresoft game before?

At any rate, series developer Yoshinori Kitase officially denied this theory when he heard it in 2017, but he liked it well enough to say he might include that in a possible future remake of the game.

2

Ghandi Becomes Warlike in Civilization

One of the oldest and most popular video game urban legends goes all the way back to 1991. That was the year the first Civilization game came out, and one of the leaders it featured was Gandhi. Because he was so peaceful, the urban legend claims that his aggression level was only 1 out of 10; however, the legend further asserts that once the AI switches to democracy, it lowers aggression by 2 points, putting Gandhi at -1. This allegedly made him 25 times more aggressive than anyone else, and part of the urban legend is that Gandhi would now take advantage of the advanced tech tree to rampantly launch nuclear warheads at other civilizations.

Sadly, none of the hilarious “nuclear Gandhi” urban legend is true. The aggression level only went to 3, and the government’s going democratic does not lower it. At permanent aggression level 1, Gandhi could still launch nukes, but he didn’t do so any more than other peaceful leaders like Lincoln. Still, the developers were so tickled by this persistent myth that they added a nuclear Gandhi feature to Civilization V, which had the side effect of re-igniting the urban legend about the first game.

1

Finding Luigi in Super Mario 64

When Super Mario 64 came out, it had almost everything Nintendo fans could ask for. Mario, Peach, and Bowser were back, and this time, the plucky plumber had to navigate through fully 3D stages, literally adding a new dimension to his platforming adventures. However, Luigi was conspicuously absent, and that led to a bizarre urban legend that he was somehow hidden within the game. And it’s all because of a statue in Peach’s courtyard whose inscription is illegible, but some fans believe it reads “L is real 2401.”

The number never made much sense, though some players later tried to claim it referred to the release date of Paper Mario (though that game came out on February 5, 2001). Mostly, players glommed onto the “L is real” and spread rumors that there might be some way (perhaps collecting every single coin) to unlock Luigi. There wasn’t a method of doing so, although Nintendo later made Luigi one of the playable characters in the 2004 Super Mario DS release.

Interestingly, the Luigi truthers got some validation in 2020 thanks to a major leak (the Gigaleak) of Nintendo information. This leak revealed code showing Nintendo planned to include co-op in Super Mario 64 (which is still one of the best 3D Mario games ever made) before scrapping the idea. That mode would have likely included Luigi, but the final version of this Nintendo 64 game sadly never included Mario’s brother.

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If you grew up with friends claiming their uncle worked for Nintendo, you’ve probably heard of most of these urban legends. Now, all these years later, you know the truth behind the craziest myths in gaming!