Disturbing Secrets Buried in Video Games

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Disturbing Secrets Buried in Video Games    #VideoGames #Gamer #GamingCommunity #GameSecrets #HiddenInGames

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00:00Sonic CD was the third installment of the Sonic the Hedgehog saga. It was released in 1993 for

00:12the Sega CD console, and is often referred to as one of the best games in the Sonic franchise.

00:16The game's soundtrack, graphics, and cutscenes make it an instant classic among 90s video games,

00:22but there's another reason why the game got so much attention. Shortly after its release,

00:27strange rumors started circulating on messaging platforms, such as Internet Relay Chat and Usenet.

00:32These platforms were obviously not as developed as the messaging apps and online forums that we

00:37use today, but because the internet was still very young, these platforms were ideal for gamers

00:41wanting to connect with an online community. According to the rumors, a series of hidden

00:46passwords could give the players access to secret images and messages within the game.

00:50Pretty soon, people started using these passwords, and found something disturbing.

00:54When the game opened on the title screen, by pressing the button combinations down,

00:59down, down, left, right, A on the controller, players would be taken to a sound test screen,

01:04where they could experiment with different number combinations to hear music and sounds

01:08from the game's soundtrack. Most of the number combinations brought up normal sounds and music

01:13from the game, but one specific combination would take the player somewhere completely different.

01:17Many users reported that after typing in the numbers 46, 12, 25, or just 12, 25 in some versions of the game,

01:25the screen would change to a background consisting of rows and rows of sonics with creepy human-like faces

01:31wagging their fingers. This is what it would look and sound like.

01:35Part of what makes this screen so unsettling is the creepy music and sinister laughter in the background.

01:57In the foreground, there's a message written in Japanese on the screen. When translated to English,

02:02the message reads, Infinite Fun, Sega Enterprises, image by Majin.

02:07According to several articles and comments in the online forums from back then, the word Majin

02:12translates from Japanese to devil, which freaked out a lot of people. It wasn't until much later that

02:18people started realizing that there might have been a mistranslation, and that there might be more

02:22to this unsettling image than everyone thought. It turns out the word Majin can mean devil, but it's

02:28really a word that refers to any supernatural being that uses magic, including genies, sorcerers, and

02:33demons. But in this context, it means none of these things, and it's actually just a nickname. Majin is

02:40the childhood nickname of Masato Nishimura, the landscape designer of the game and the voice of

02:45Sonic the Hedgehog in Sonic CD. According to expert translators, calling Masato Majin would be

02:51similar to mispronouncing your friend Shan's name as seen as a joke. The name was used as a play on

02:57words, confusing users into thinking that the message on the secret screen was signed by the devil.

03:02As for the creepy, human-like Sonic figure in the image, it turns out that it's a cartoon of Masato

03:07Nishimura's face, and the unsettling music is just the final boss music from the American version of

03:12Sonic CD. In the Japanese and European versions of the game, the secret screen could still be accessed,

03:18but the music was much less eerie. Notice the complete difference in atmosphere when the music is

03:33more upbeat. And this wasn't the only time that Nishimura signed his name in the games he helped

03:38design. In the game Shenmue, which came out in the year 2000 in the US, he signed using the same

03:43nickname throughout various parts of the game, and later claimed in an interview that he did it because

03:47he liked to stand out. Although the secret screen probably wasn't meant to scare anyone,

03:52the off-putting, human-like Sonic, the mistranslated message, and the jarring music

03:57definitely disturbed a few people.

04:03Otaho no Tatari is a classic Japanese RPG indie horror game that came out in 2011 and was developed

04:09using RPG Maker, a program made for users to experiment with and make their own RPG games.

04:15Many classic games in multiple genres have been made with RPG Maker, including Skyborn,

04:20Off, To the Moon, and Corpse Party. Otaho no Tatari, which roughly translates to The Curse of Otaho,

04:27follows the story of a young girl who loses her family under very strange circumstances,

04:32and must unravel the mystery by exploring a haunted mansion and finding the clues that

04:36our little sister left behind. Although the game became pretty popular in Japan,

04:40it was never really marketed in the US. Because the game was never officially translated,

04:45and a US version was never released, a lot of people haven't even heard of Otaho no Tatari.

04:50The game is filled with unsettling images of real-life corpses and disturbing faces,

04:55which pop up at random times of the story to scare the user.

04:59Of course, being a horror game, jump scares and creepy images should be expected,

05:04but there's one particular screen that has terrified users since the game's release.

05:08In 2014, a user reported that he found a glitch that he wasn't sure was a part of the game.

05:13In a video that he uploaded to YouTube, the player walks around the perimeter of what

05:17appears to be a shrine in one of the game's locations. Out of nowhere, an error glitch appears

05:22on the screen. The message is a seemingly meaningless mess of jumbled up letters from the Roman alphabet

05:28and the Japanese alphabet, along with a bunch of numbers and random symbols. Only by changing the

05:33system locale to Japan do the letters in the error message start to make a bit more sense.

05:38The glitch is still there, but the Japanese text is now legible. According to some users who tried

05:43to translate the game, the text is a collection of disturbing messages mixed in with random,

05:48generic error codes. But there was more to the glitch than just an error message.

05:52This is gameplay footage of one user who ran into the glitch during one of his playthroughs.

06:22A few seconds after the glitch, an eerie noise can be heard, and the chilling image of what appears

06:37to be the lifeless body of a woman pops up on the screen. The first user to post about this glitch

06:42was understandably terrified. Disturbingly, once this screen appears, the only way to get rid of it

06:48is by exiting the game. It's unknown where this image came from, and it was never confirmed whether

06:53or not this is an image of an actual deceased person. The image can't be found anywhere else in the

06:58game, and because it appears randomly after an error message, most users thought that the glitch wasn't

07:03designed as a part of the game. For a while, nobody could understand why this chilling image appeared

07:08on the screen, until one user spent some time exploring the game files and found that it's actually

07:13not a glitch at all. According to Borzoi Appreciator, if you walk through the three gates on the side

07:19of the shrine, an event will trigger after a few seconds that calls a fake crash message and then

07:23pulls up that image. It's a hard-coded feature, and that image is supposed to shut down with the

07:29game after 10,000 seconds. In the game files, the image is titled Yaboi, which roughly translates from

07:35Japanese to dangerous. Yaboi is an expression of awe or admiration, similar to the words wild or insane in

07:42English, meaning it could be used both positively or negatively. In this case, it's unknown whether

07:48the name of the image holds any significance. Since it was discovered, many players have referred

07:53to this crash screen as one of the most terrifying jump scares in RPG history.

08:02Little Big Planet is an extremely popular puzzle platform video game series that features 10 million

08:08user-generated levels, three main console games, two handheld games, and four spin-offs.

08:14With a big emphasis on user-generated content, Little Big Planet was created under Sony's concept

08:19of play-create-share, and the games are all about guiding Sackboy and his friends on their adventures

08:24as they explore millions of user-generated worlds. Because the games are made for kids and are played

08:30by millions of children around the world, you wouldn't expect to find anything disturbing or creepy in

08:34Little Big Planet that could potentially upset a young audience. But the games actually feature

08:39a surprising amount of easter eggs that have intrigued players for decades, some of which

08:44are definitely a little eerie. In 2019, a 2008 PlayStation 3 development kit featuring an early prototype

08:51build of Little Big Planet 1 was publicly made available online. Less than one year later,

08:56a group of Discord users reported that hidden within the developer profiles located in the developer

09:01kit, they found this cutout of a bloody man with its arms sticking out and the bones of his hands

09:06visible. With the oddly shaped eyes, the disfigured face, and the splashes of blood all over the body,

09:13the image itself is pretty disturbing. What's even stranger is that to this day, nobody knows what

09:19this image was even doing inside the development build for Little Big Planet. Due to the graphic and

09:24unsettling nature of the cutout, it's unlikely that the bloody man would have made it to the final

09:28version of the game. Unless of course it was meant to be used as a first draft or as an idea for a

09:34more child-friendly object or secondary character in the game, but the easily visible bloodstains

09:39make this an unlikely theory. Regardless of its purpose, it's unlikely that anybody will ever find

09:44out why or even how this image of a deformed bloody man made it into the development kit for a kids game.

09:51The files that reference the bloody man have been completely erased,

09:54adding to the mystery of this disturbing, unused object.

10:01Race with Ryan is a kids multiplayer racing game based on the massively popular YouTube channel

10:06Ryan's World, which has over 35 million subscribers. The videos feature 11-year-old Ryan Kaji, his mother,

10:14father, and twin sisters. Formerly Ryan's Toys Reviews, Ryan's World is a mashup of unboxing and

10:20personal vlog videos that has gained over 55 billion total views, and in 2018, Ryan was listed as the

10:27highest paid YouTuber in the world, thanks to his revenues from YouTube, the family's licensed

10:32merchandise, and Ryan's TV shows. In 2019, Race with Ryan was released as the first official licensed

10:38game from the Ryan's World empire, and was well received by the channel's fans. Race with Ryan was

10:44marketed as a fun, innocent multiplayer game for a very young audience, which makes sense considering the

10:50YouTube channel is geared towards children from ages 2 to 6, but one user found something incredibly

10:55disturbing hidden in the game's files. In 2019, a Twitter user by the name of Tiniest Turtles posted

11:02this image, reporting that he had found the texture while digging around in the files of Race with Ryan

11:07out of curiosity. The image shows a cartoon face crying bloody tears with its eyes and mouth sewn shut.

11:14The image itself isn't the scariest thing on the internet by any means, but what makes it unsettling is

11:19the fact that the face in the image is the face of Ryan's character in the game, which of course is

11:23based on the real 11-year-old Ryan Kaji. Because the developers refused to comment on the image,

11:29the disturbing texture caused a lot of speculation in online communities, and pretty soon people started

11:34coming up with theories and possible explanations for the chilling image. As far as anyone can tell,

11:40the image can't be found or triggered in the game itself. The bloody texture was just hidden in the

11:44game files along with other, less disturbing textures that would have been used to modify

11:48Ryan's face and reaction based on certain events during a race in the game. Some users have commented

11:54that the textures were created by a burned-out, annoyed developer as a way of blowing off steam

11:59and managing the stress of developing a video game from scratch. Or that the texture was just a

12:04placeholder made to experiment with the animation of Ryan's face taking damage during a race.

12:09Other people have speculated that the developers made the texture for fun after they had finished

12:13developing all the other textures they would need. Because the image was relatively easy to find

12:18in the game files, it's possible that the artist put it there on purpose as a marketing gag.

12:23It was never likely that the race with Ryan would match the popularity and fame of classic

12:27karting games like Mario Kart, and the developers may have included the unsettling texture as a way to

12:32bring more attention to the game. But this theory is shaky, again considering that this is a kids game,

12:38and therefore the main audience they'd want to market to would be very young children.

12:42Because of how graphic the image is, other users suspect that there is actually something much

12:47more sinister going on. According to one popular conspiracy theory, the bloody texture is Ryan's

12:52call for help to the world. Because the stitched face looks like a doll's face, people have speculated

12:58that Ryan asked the developer to put the image in the files to represent how he's being used like a

13:02doll to make his parents money. Of course, this theory is very far-fetched. But even if it's not true,

13:08the texture is still incredibly creepy and seems completely out of place in a game that was

13:12intended for very young children. Valhalla is described by fans as a cyberpunk bartender

13:21action game that revolves around a bartender simulator. In a dystopian world where nano-machines

13:27have infected humans and the human race is being oppressed, the user plays the role of a bartender

13:31in a small downtown bar named Valhalla. Part of what makes Valhalla interesting and so popular among

13:37its fans is the game's plot changes depending on the types of drinks that you make for your clients,

13:42which makes the game an interesting cross between a visual novel and a bartender simulator.

13:47As is often the case with video games, some users decided to explore and dig around in the game's

13:52files, and pretty soon people started finding a folder named Answer, which contained only one image

13:58labeled Her. Upon opening it, a blue-haired woman can be seen standing on a dark, empty street with

14:04her back to the user, facing a strange shadow figure in the distance. Eerily, this image is not

14:09a reference to anything in the game, and it doesn't even look like it fits into the storyline in any way.

14:14The aesthetic of Valhalla is based around 2D retro pixel graphics, and this 3D image is completely

14:21out of place in the context of the game and its files. In 2017, one user mentioned the game

14:26developers in a tweet, assuming that the image was meant to be a teaser or a marketing stunt for

14:30another game. But disturbingly, the developers replied to the post with the message,

14:35People keep finding these images in the game's folders, and we have no idea why.

14:39It might be spyware. Spyware is a type of software that's installed on a computer without the user's

14:45knowledge to gain private information about the user without consent, and then sent to another

14:49organization or person. According to the developers of Valhalla, it's possible that the images found in

14:54the files could have been planted there with malicious intentions by somebody else.

14:58Strangely, the image labeled Her wasn't the only eerie discovery that fans of Valhalla made in the

15:04folders. Throughout the game's files, users found images of weird creatures and dark silhouettes,

15:09and even files with creepy music. Despite the developers warning about the files possibly

15:15containing spyware, most users' conclusion was that this was in fact just a marketing gag for Nirvana,

15:20a game made by the same creators that was supposed to be released in 2022, but got pushed back

15:25indefinitely after the developers started working on other projects. It was never 100% confirmed

15:30whether the bizarre images and random files were meant to create buzz around another game,

15:35or if they were placed there for another reason.

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