Urban legends aren’t exclusive to camping trips anymore. What started out as a series of scary campfire tales has blown into an internet sensation. Communities have crafted new names for these spooky stories, coining terms like “Creepypasta.” In the modern age, urban legends affect all forms of media, like books, movies, music, and even video games.
In fact, a lot of the terrifying urban legends you’ll find online pertain to “found games” and “bootleg copies.” There are classic stories in which people stumble upon an old cartridge at a swap meet or collect an item from a deceased relative. These legends usually end with the unleashing of an unspeakable evil, as well as a warning for all future players.
It’s all in good fun and these elaborate ghost stories are a way for individuals to share their writing skills with the creative world. There are times, however, when these legends can get a bit out of hand. Some stories borderline on reality, while others spark intense conversations or illicit crude and morbid creations.
The point is, there are some video game urban legends that are much scarier than others. These creepy creations tend to stick around much longer than their counterparts, giving gamers nightmares and panic attacks.
Here are fifteen of the spookier (well-known) urban legends to attach themselves to video games. Which is your favorite? Let us know!
15 A Haunted Majora’s Mask Cartridge
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is a creepy affair on its own. It’s easily the darkest of Link’s adventures, with a lot of themes and theories revolving around death, grief, and calamity. It’s hard to imagine anyone making Majora’s Mask any more unsettling than it already is, but 4Chan user Jadusable managed to do just that.
The story of “Ben Drowned” starts with an innocent rummage through some local garage sales. Jadusable happened across a rather peculiar old man who sold him a copy of Majora’s Mask. The beginning of the game played like normal, but the gamer noted some strange things happening as he progressed. This spooky urban legend is a wild ride from start to finish, and it includes something we rarely see with a lot of these stories, “in-game footage.”
14 A Corruptive Morrowind Mod Is Supremely Creepy
Way back in 2008, a mysterious Morrowind mod was uploaded to an unsuspecting internet. According to “eyewitnesses,” the mod was only publically available for a few days. Many gamers obtained the inconspicuous file (labeled Jvl1166z.esp) via trade. Sometimes, individuals would wander into smaller forum spaces and drop the file off. It wasn’t something you’d find on a larger fan site, which is good, considering its contents.
At first, players thought this mod was nothing more than a virus because it caused the game the lock up and could corrupt save files. A work around proved there was something within the file. Players found a mysterious dungeon (which would project images from the PC’s hard drive on the wall) that would alter the game upon completion. NPCs would act strange and a terrifying “assassin” would stalk their character. Some claimed to see the assassin in real life and complained of night terrors.
13 Herobrine Haunts Minecraft Players
Minecraft ushered in a new era of creative-based games in 2011. Heralded as the “one that started it all,” we’ve seen a ton of Minecraft-like “creation and building"variants flood the market. When it all began, Minecraft a peaceful refuge for artistic players to show off their skills and embark on an epic quest. As time went on, however, some single-player gamers realized they weren’t alone.
Some players (and prominent Twitch streamers) began to complain of an eerie “NPC” that would randomly appear during their play sessions. The doppelganger known as Herobrine looked very similar to the default character model but sported soulless white eyes. Players complained of mysterious structures showing up, or instances in which all of the nearby trees were stripped of their leaves. Some speculate that Herobrine is the “username” of Notch’s brother, who tragically passed when the creator was younger.
12 Text-Based Pale Luna Leads To Murder Victim
Back before the boom of internet gaming (and sharing), players loaded up PC games via CDs and floppy diskettes. Much like console, gamers traded among themselves, putting together their own “swap meets” and gatherings. There were even some computer-savvy enough to create their own adventures.
This is the premise for the Pale Luna legend. Apparently, someone had circulated some copies of a mysterious text-based adventure around the San Francisco Bay Area. At its core, Pale Luna looked like any other hastily crafted text adventure. Lines of text would form on the screen, asking for specific commands. Many gamers became frustrated by the fact that Pale Luna would crash if the wrong command was inputted. One player remained diligent in finishing the quest and was “rewarded” with some coordinates. It was there that the body of a young girl, which had previously gone missing, was found.
11 Saddam Hussein Buys Up Ps2s To Make WMDs
This urban legend is particularly frightening because it seems plausible at first. Back when Sony released the PlayStation 2, U.S. intelligence noted that a large influx of consoles (perhaps as many as 4000) were being shipped to Iraq. At first, many speculated that this was simply a shipping error, or a mistake, but military strategists suggested something rather sinister.
The PlayStation 2 featured a CPU that was as powerful as most laptops and personal computers (at the time). It was suggested that Iraq was attempting to bundle the consoles together, in an attempt to craft a working “super computer.” Some strategists suggested that piggybacking these devices would allow Iraq’s military to power unmanned aircraft or missiles. The purchase of the PlayStation 2’s allowed Iraq to bypass a specific trade embargo. Whether this legend is actually true or not, it’s disturbing to think our gaming tech could be used to power weapons of mass destruction.
10 GTA V: Leonora Johnson’s Murder
This “legend” is a bit different from the others featured on this list because it’s actually a prominent part of the Grand Theft Auto V universe. Rockstar did a fantastic job in loading the latest GTA installment with an abundance of easter eggs. During your exploration of the massive game world, you’ll come across a ’letter scrap.’ If you manage to collect all fifty of these hidden items you can piece together a confession, written by an individual that murdered a famous Vinewood starlet.
This seems pretty cut and dry for an M-rated title like GTA V, but the legend of Leonora Johnson goes much deeper than it ever needed to. For one, developers crafted an entire in-game website that details the rather gruesome murder, complete with twisted photographs. To make this legend even scarier, you can find Leonora’s terrifying ghost in the game world.
9 The Infamous Excel 95 Hall Of Tortured Souls
Like the Leonora Johnson murder, the Hall of Tortured Souls is very “real.” The Doom-like “mini-game” is buried within the Excel 95 architecture, so you’ll need to perform a few simple tricks to get there. There are numerous videos online detailing how to enter the Hall of Tortured Souls, thanks to its widespread notoriety as a creepy gaming legend. The discovery of this “game” led many to speculate that Bill Gates was the Devil.
In reality, it appears that the Hall of Tortured Souls is nothing more than a cute concept to thank the development team for working so hard on Excel 95. The name is most likely nothing more than a grave exaggeration. Still, the game itself looks rather creepy, and some written commands are required to “progress” through the two-room title. Perhaps there is something else hiding within its pixelated halls.
8 Super Mario Galaxy 2: Hell Valley Sky Trees
It’s hard to imagine the world of Super Mario Galaxy 2 showing up on this list. The bright and imaginative galaxies, colorful enemies, and upbeat soundtrack all culminate into a title that is as happy-go-lucky as it gets. The only way you could possibly be afraid of this game is if you had astrophobia (fear of space). Yet, hidden within the Shiverburn Galaxy is a rather unsettling “easter egg.”
When starting the Shiverburn Galaxy, if you look up an behind Mario (in first-person view) you’ll catch sight of three mysterious figures standing atop a cliff. Closer inspection shows that these lanky alien-like entities have holes for eyes and elongated limbs. The most alarming part of this mystery comes from the filenames given to these beasts. If you sift through the game’s internal folders you’ll find files named HellValleySkyTree and BeyondHellValley.
7 A Morbid Mario Hack Is Floating Around The Web
The best legends stem from creepy things that seemingly have no answer. It’s one thing to come across a spooky easter egg that was purposely planted by developers, but it’s supremely terrifying to stumble upon something eerie that serves no purpose. This is the case with M A R I O, a Super Mario World ROM hack that paints everyone’s beloved plumber in a seriously morbid light.
Upon first glance, the hack doesn’t seem to alter much. All of that changes once you hit your first message block. You’ll be greeted by angry text, mysterious sayings, and even binary. By the time you reach the first castle, you’re already feeling rather uneasy. The “castle victory” screen will exacerbate that feeling ten-fold, as it displays a text about a murder victim in gruesome detail. We aren’t sure what’s more terrifying: this rom hack, or the idea that its twisted creator is somewhere in cyberspace.
6 Mary’s Real Location In Silent Hill 2
Fair warning for anyone who hasn’t played Silent Hill 2, the subject matter for this next item is spoiler-heavy. We all know how mentally broken James was in the classic horror hit, Silent Hill 2. His fragile psyche had caused him to completely repress his heinous actions, forcing him to live through a literal nightmare that swept through the town of Silent Hill. There’s much speculation as to what the town represents, with many suggesting it’s a created Hell, bent on punishing James for his callous actions.
As more gamers became acquainted with James’ story, new and interesting ideas were exchanged. A creepy “legend” now suggests that James knew right where Mary was the entire time. Some gamers believe that the protagonist has Mary locked firmly in his car trunk, which we see right before he embarks on his darkness filled journey through Silent Hill.
5 A Scary Dungeon Hidden In World Of Warcraft
For the most part, World of Warcraft is just like any other MMO. There are certain areas of the game designed to mimic spooky locations and monster-like enemies. Every MMO has that one zone that’s filled with gravestones or dying trees. Due to its teen rating, you aren’t apt to find many things that will scare you (unless you count the infamous Goldshire children).
That said, there is a mysteriously hidden section of WoW that houses an abandoned zone. Some players figured out how to access this walled-off area by glitching through, only to be met by piles of corpses and humans hanging upside-down from chains. The dungeon is laced with implications of torture and imprisonment. It’s curious why this zone was never used, but some speculate it would have changed the game’s teen rating, due to the unsettling content.
4 Sony Receives Letter From Beyond The Grave
Back in 2003, Sony found themselves putting together a team to work on a new game for the Twisted Metal franchise. The proposed title, Harbor City, was supposed to serve as a sequel to the high octane trill, Twisted Metal Black. Unfortunately, tragedy struck. It was reported that six of the team’s founding members had perished in a plane crash.
The project was immediately canceled. In 2007, a very eerie letter made its way to Sony headquarters. The letter urged developers to finish and release Harbor City. At first, this seemed like a letter from a rather dedicated fan, but the note was actually signed by the six team members who lost their lives in the plane crash. Many consider this to be a sick joke by some pranksters, but it’s a creepy thought that it may be real.
3 Fallout 3 Predicts The Future
This is one of our favorite gaming legends. According to some players, there is a specialized radio station which you can tune to by completing a series of tasks during your Fallout 3 adventure. The infamous “numbers station” can be activated by killing radio DJ Three Dog, skipping the signal boosting mission for GNR, and destroying Raven Rock.
Once all three of these parameters have been met, Galaxy News Radio will sometimes transform into a numbers station. A voice (supposedly Three Dog’s) will read off a series of random numbers in a monotone voice, which is then followed by strings of Morse code. Some have tried to decode these messages and claim they point to historical events. A couple of these events have already happened, including the death of actor Gary Coleman and the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster.
2 FNAF Is Based On True Events
Ever since Five Nights At Freddy’s released, Creepypasta creators and horror fans have been attempting to create spooky legends and backstories to accompany the otherwise “storyless” game. The premise for FNAF is already unsettling enough, with you taking your seat as a security guard and attempting to protect yourself from killer animatronic suits.
One legend, concocted by the authority on game theories (MatPat) is an incredibly morbid and plausible look at what inspired FNAF. Unbeknownst to many, a killing spree took place at a Colorado location of Chuck E. Cheese’s in the mid-1990s. A disgruntled ex-employee took out his frustrations on five co-workers that were burning the midnight oil. Luckily, one of the victims survived the attack and was able to testify against the deranged individual. We highly recommend watching MatPat’s video, as it makes a ton of sense.
1 The Harrowing Tale Of Sonic.exe
We decided to place this particular legend as number one on this list, thanks to its web-wide fame. The original Sonic.exe tale comes from a user named JC the Hyena, who received a strange disc from a friend. The individual wanted JC to destroy the disc, but seeing as he was a big Sonic fan, he decided to play it. It was immediately apparent that this wasn’t a normal game, but rather, a hacked copy that someone had made.
The game featured three playable characters (Tails, Knuckles, and Robotnik) who would all run away from a demonic Sonic with beady red eyes. The game supposedly featured horrible imagery and gore. At the end of the play session, JC found himself stalked by a blood-stained plush. The story itself is definitely “fake,” but the response it triggered was not. People loved this story and someone even created a game to accompany the creepy tale.
