History Main / UrbanLegendOfZelda

* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'': Rumors about the [[EliteMooks Octolings]] becoming playable characters "soon" appeared constantly in the fandom from Day 1 of the first game's release, with said rumors peaking in October each year for the punny potential. While unused game data strongly suggests that it was considered for the first game, nothing has been officially said on that front. The creators did reveal that they considered making them playable from the start in the ''[[VideoGame/Splatoon2 sequel]]'' however, before deciding to give a narrative reason for the inclusion by tying them into the paid ''Octo Expansion'' DLC single-player campaign as a reward for clearing the new story.

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Please do not confuse this]] for an UrbanFantasy edition of Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXonIgnSWIo Even if it's]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCvpM6e9XIQ&t=16s an urban legend itself]].

** The series has an incessant rumor mill regarding the character roster with each new release. This was especially true after ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl Brawl]]'' introduced [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid Solid Snake]], the series' first non-Creator/{{Nintendo}} character. This is enough that after ''Brawl'', communities sprang up just for hacking new characters into the game. Some of the rumored characters:
*** Veritable Urban Legend of Zelda factory ''Magazine/ElectronicGamingMonthly'' pulled yet another AprilFoolsDay joke claiming that ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosMelee Melee]]'' features [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic and Tails]] as unlockable characters (and gave a very nearly impossible method to unlock them). None of this is true, but it was so hard to pull this off that few gamers found out the hard way before ''EGM'' came clean. The rumors carried over to ''Brawl''; Sonic made it, but we're still waiting on Tails.

** The original ''VideoGame/{{Metroid|1}}'' has a PasswordSave system that accepts certain interesting combinations. "NARPAS SWORD" (followed by blanks or zeroes) is one of the most famous of them, and it was put into the game intentionally. However, fans took this to mean that there was a "Narpas Sword" of some kind in the game; there isn't. It's really "NAR PASSWORD", with "NAR" either standing for '''N'''orth '''A'''merican '''R'''elease, or a reference to Tohru '''Nar'''ihito, who created the password system when converting the game from the Famicom Disk System to the Nintendo Entertainment System.[[note]]FDS ''Metroid'' had a save file system just like ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda'', but when it came time for both games to be localized for North America in a cartridge format, NOA only had the budget to give one of the games the batteries needed to retain the feature. ''Zelda'' was the one that got it, with the password save feature being created to serve as a replacement in ''Metroid'' (and later ''VideoGame/KidIcarus'').[[/note]]

** ''Metroid'' actually caused an {{inver|tedtrope}}sion; many gaming magazines referred to the statue room as a secret shortcut to Tourian, akin to the WarpZone of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros''. It's far from a secret; in fact, it's the ''only'' way to get to Tourian, but this resulted in rumors that there is a longer, "legitimate" way to get there which doesn't exist.

->'''Q''': What's all this about the 'ghost' characters who attack enemies in the distance? Is it true that they were programmed in to keep the number of active enemies down to a certain level?\\
'''A''': We're not convinced that this exists. We certainly didn't program it in. Take your cart to a priest if you are at all worried.

* ''Franchise/MetalGear'':

** The DS game ''Guitar Hero: On Tour'' has only one bonus song, "[[Music/{{Freezepop}} I Am Not Your Gameboy]]", which is unlocked by completing the Guitar Duels mode, but rumors claimed that four additional bonus songs could be unlocked, which were "[[Music/OzzyOsbourne Crazy Train]]", "[[Music/RedHotChiliPeppers Dani California]]", "[[Music/{{Metallica}} Master of Puppets]]", and "[[Music/GunsNRoses Welcome to the Jungle]]", which could be unlocked by getting 5 stars on specific songs (or all songs) on all difficulties. When people did this and did not unlock the songs, some sources added the requirement that the conditions had to be fulfilled while using the original DS (which needs a special adapter to fit the Guitar Grip into the GBA cartridge slot), not a DS Lite.

** [[VideoGame/MortalKombat3 Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3]] had one implanted by the developers themselves! During the attract mode, a purple ninja named Rain (Named after the Music/Prince album [[Music/PurpleRainAlbum Purple Rain]]) can occasionally be seen fighting Shao Kahn. Additionally, punching in a certain Kombat Kode would state "Rain Can Be Found In The Graveyard". Of course, there is no Rain in the arcade version of the game. Rain eventually showed up for real in the 16 bit versions of the game and in Mortal Kombat Trilogy.

** There were rumors that you could catch a whale in the original Gamecube game. There actually is an extremely rare chance of seeing an enormous fish shadow when riding the boat to the island, but it's only possible to catch it with cheats and glitches... However, if you manage to pull it off, you don't actually get a whale, but an ordinary araipima with an incorrect text box.

* The first two ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea}} entires on the Playstation 2 were rumored to have ways to unlock the bonus bosses [[spoiler:Zetta, Priere, Marjoly, Baal, etc]]. Nippon Ichi would make it possible to recruit most of the bonus bosses in the remakes and ports, however this is not actively possible on the original game, and any game that showed footage of this either used cheating devices or was a homebrew modded copy of the game.

** Killing the hermit (a certain shopkeeper), with a multitude of ways (supposedly) abounding to defeat him. At the time the rumors began there was no way to even fight a shopkeeper, let alone kill them. A much, much later item, the Deck of Every Card, [[AscendedFanon makes it possible to fight the Hermit]] (as a nod to the rumor), but not kill him. This is lampshaded in multiple items these days, and amongst the veteran players, "killing the hermit" has come to refer to a ''[[ADateWithRosiePalms different]]'' kind of FanWank...

** ''VideoGame/MetroidDread'' received its fair share of urban legends, some of of them tongue-in-cheek. In particular, memes about a secret ending involving Zero Suit Raven Beak are making the rounds due to his villainous popularity in the fanbase.

* There was a rumor in Japan that if the player completes the Famicom version of ''[[VideoGame/KungFuMaster Kung-Fu]]'' 24 times (the number equivalent to the letter "X", a reference to the Japanese title ''Spartan X''), the player will be forced to fight Sylvia (the hero's girlfriend) as a BonusBoss. It turns out the rumor was a started by a gag in a video game manga titled ''Famicom Rocky'', where the protagonist uncovers this secret after completing the game too many times. This is what inspired the ''WebAnimation/NatrapsX'' series of parody videos.

* The original ''Franchise/{{Tekken}}'' was rumored to have a nearly unbeatable BonusBoss named "Dragon Fighting Jack" or "Dragonclaw", based on [[CoversAlwaysLie a screenshot depicting "Dragon vs. Jack"]], the former of which was really [[BruceLeeClone Law]] (Dragon being his placeholder name), and a blue robotic character at the bottom of the front cover, which was the alternate costume for the boss [[PsychoPrototype Prototype Jack]].

** A supposed hidden boss called "Ghost Sigma", which was claimed to resurface upon the release of ''VideoGame/MegaManZX''. It doesn't help that in ''Zero 3'' you can find a rematch with [[BonusBoss Hidden Phantom]], who dies in the first game. Additionally, Phoenix Magnion in ''Zero 2'' has an attack that summons four images based on ''Mega Man X'' antagonists, two of which are shaped like Vile from [[VideoGame/MegaManX1 the first game]] and Colonel from ''VideoGame/MegaManX4'', who could be mistaken for Sigma's first phase from ''X1'' due to them both using {{Laser Blade}}s.

* There are many (joking) rumors on how to unlock secret characters for ''[[VideoGame/{{Touhou}} Scarlet Weather Rhapsody]]'', the most prevalent ones allowing you to unlock [[{{Tykebomb}} Flandre Scarlet]] and [[AnIcePerson Cirno]]. This was not helped by fans making their sprites for ''VideoGame/{{MUGEN}}'' based on the ''SWR'' spriting style; many of them emulate the look incredibly well, going so far as to modify SFX from the game to fit the fanmade sprites. (The Cirno rumors were officially killed with her inclusion in ''[[ExpansionPack Hisoutensoku]]'', though Flandre fans are still left waiting.) A slight bone was tossed to Flandre's fans -- one of Remilia's alternate color schemes is essentially Flandre. Flandre proper was eventually added to a later game, ''Touhou Genso Rondo'' (a BulletHell duel game) for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 that was even released in the West, making this the closest Flandre ever appeared playable.

* In the original ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'', the normally peace-loving Gandhi was noted to start threatening players that "our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!" around the time democracy and uranium became available, which was put down to an interaction of his Aggressiveness rating of 1 with the Democracy government lowering it further, causing an [[OverflowError underflow glitch]] that "lowered" his Aggressiveness to 255. Years later, "Nuclear Gandhi" became a meme that was even acknowledged in ''Civilization V'' and ''VI'' by making the leader's AI fond of nukes. But when ''Civ'' creator Sid Meier released his memoirs in 2020, he explained the whole thing was bupkis - there was no underflow glitch (C uses signed ints by default, so while underflow is ''technically'' possible, you'd either need a much larger drop or to go out of your way to use unsigned ints), and Gandhi's threats were the same as other nuclear-powered civs in the first game, and making them was his AI's way of deterring war. That whole "glitch" story only got started in 2012, a quarter-century after ''Civilization I''[='s=] release, and stemmed from edits to [[https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Gandhi_(Civ5)?diff=prev&oldid=36524 the series' wiki]] and TV Tropes itself.

* In the original ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'', the normally peace-loving Gandhi was noted to start threatening players that "our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!" around the time democracy and uranium became available, which was put down to an interaction of his Aggressiveness rating of 1 with the Democracy government lowering it further, causing an [[OverflowError underflow glitch]] that "lowered" his Aggressiveness to 255. Years later, "Nuclear Gandhi" became a meme that was even acknowledged in ''Civilization V'' and ''VI'' by making the leader's AI fond of nukes. But when ''Civ'' creator Sid Meier released his memoirs in 2020, he explained the whole thing was bupkis - there was no underflow glitch (C uses signed ints by default, so while underflow is ''technically'' possible, you'd either need a much larger drop or to go out of your way touse unsigned ints), and Gandhi's threats were the same as other nuclear-powered civs in the first game, and making them was his AI's way of deterring war. That whole "glitch" story only got started in 2012, a quarter-century after ''Civilization I''[='s=] release, and stemmed from edits to [[https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Gandhi_(Civ5)?diff=prev&oldid=36524 the series' wiki]] and TV Tropes itself.

* Rumors of secret weapons and characters for multiple completions of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' were widespread.
** Claims that completing the game 50 times with Otacon and 50 with Meryl will garner you Raven's Vulcan Cannon were mentioned in magazines such as ''Powerstation''.
** Even more widespread were rumors of the possibility of replacing [[ReplacementScrappy Raiden]] with Solid Snake during the Big Shell in ''Metal Gear Solid 2''. This one became partially true with the release of ''[[UpdatedRerelease Substance]]'', where you can play as Snake on the Big Shell in a series of non-canonical scenarios (or go skateboarding on it). There's still no way to control Snake during the actual Big Shell Incident, however.
** Also rumours of a FAMAS being available on the Tanker chapter; these are based on early trailers, and the weapon itself doesn't show up in the final game. This was further fueled by the flashback footage showing Snake using the FAMAS against the guards on the Tanker.

* The release of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' spurred a large number of rumors and alleged missing content, due to the TroubledProduction that ensued between Konami and Creator/HideoKojima. Some of the biggest include:
** That there was something planned with all the unused level space outside Camp Omega in ''Ground Zeroes''. Various videos showcase all of the buildings and terrain outside Omega itself via clipping through the gates, including detailed textures and far more space than what is normally visible inside the camp. While this may have been intended to be part of an OldSaveBonus that would have transferred to ''Phantom Pain'', nothing appears in the final version and the only remnant of Camp Omega is in a ''Metal Gear Online'' map, now cloaked in fog and called "Black Site".
** That the "Classified Intel Acquisition" tape found in a Side-Op in ''Ground Zeroes'' is actually a secret audio recording that [[https://www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/general-discussion/metal-gear-solid-5-cassette-tape contains untranslated data from the MSX game system]]. There was rampant speculation as to its true purpose, including claims that it might be a secret message from Kojima himself or used to unlock additional content in ''Phantom Pain'' (and there is an additional MSX-related tape that could be found in that game). It was eventually discovered that the MSX data is an incomplete ROM for ''VisualNovel/ThePortopiaSerialMurderCase'' (which inspired Kojima when he was younger), and that there is no hidden secret to be found.
** That there is an alleged missing chapter of the game, referred to as "Chapter 3", which was removed prior to the release of the game and was/is intended to be released as a content patch. Fans often refer to this missing content due to the unfinished nature of some plotlines (notably, Eli and the child soldiers steal Sahelanthropus from Mother Base and fly away to parts unknown). Evidence pointing to this includes a supposedly-unused entire ending detailing Mother Base celebrating global disarmament (in actuality, it's a [[GuideDangIt difficult-to-unlock ending that requires the online FOB mode]]), the existence of an unused and incomplete mission called "Kingdom of the Flies" (which appears in a pre-viz/animatic form on the Collector's Edition extras disc) and supposed hints in-game that there is more content to be discovered. This even [[http://gamingbolt.com/metal-gear-solid-5-producer-responds-to-secret-chapter-questions-as-fans-rally-to-unlock-it got the attention of producer Ken-ichiro Imaizumi]], who stoked the fires by claiming that he "couldn't tell" the fanbase what needs to be unlocked. It even inspired [[https://www.reddit.com/r/NeverBeGameOver an entire sub-Reddit forum]] dedicated to datamining its secrets. Although there are aspects of a "Chapter 3" still on-disc (namely, text files referring to a number of scrapped missions that are all HardModeFiller of missions from earlier in the game) and a "Chapter 3" title card, it appears that nothing new was intended and most people have given up on waiting for the alleged content patch.
** There were also [[https://www.reddit.com/r/metalgearsolid/comments/3kbjuq/spoilerish_somethings_coming_on_911/ rumors]] that an alleged content patch would be unlocked on September 11, 2015. This is in reference to an image of the World Trade Center towers that appears at the end of the unused "Kingdom of the Flies" mission with Liquid Snake's famous line ("It's not over yet!"), as well as a site called Ingsoc.org that referred to an unrevealed game called "Black Hound". While the "Black Hound" game is a real title (though not developed by Kojima or Konami - it's developed by an individual coasting on the uncertainty and confusion around ''Phantom Pain''), no such content patch ever arrived.
** One rumor that was later retroactively added to the game was how to [[spoiler:get Quiet back after she seemingly dies in "A Quiet Exit"]]. Everything from specific sets of missions that had to be completed, to arbitrary emblems being equipped in a specific order, to certain in-game outfits being unlocked, was all on the table, and players resorted to outlandish troll methods of seemingly bringing her back. While fanmods were later created to artificially re-add the character back into the game after completing the mission, nothing was answered until Konami, in one of the later patches, gave players a legitimate way to bring the character back, via a method that is just as outlandish and arbitrary -- [[spoiler:replay the first "Cloaked in Silence" ''seven times'', at which point Quiet and her photos reappear in Venom's chopper like nothing happened]].
** Speculation has abounded over [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YiobtqKiLo environmental appearances]] of characters like Ocelot and Code Talker at Mother Base in free-roam -- who are located in inaccessible areas and can't be spoken with. While this may have been part of an earlier version of the game (pre-release videos had developers comment that Ocelot and[=/=]or Miller may have walked beside the player and given them mission updates), nothing has ever been confirmed. The ''Infinite Heaven'' mod readds accessibility for these optional environmental encounters to Mother Base.

--->'''Mario''': It'sa me! Mario!

*** Of course, it was only a matter of time before the PC GameMod community [[VideoGamePerversityPotential made the dream]] [[UncannyValley reality(?)]].

* In ''VideoGame/MonsterRancher 2,'' anything concerning ??? monsters, especially the Enemy monsters. To put it simply, the enemy monsters are a Boss monster that is unable to be unlocked for yourself, with the exception of Japan-only White Mocchi. Didn't stop thousands of rumors about them, though.

* The UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 Expansion Pack was not required for ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'' solely to fix a last-minute GameBreakingBug. Mark Stevenson, one of the chief designers of the game, [[https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/11/feature_donkey_kong_64_devs_on_bugs_boxing_and_20_years_of_the_dk_rap would state in an interview]] celebrating the game's 20th anniversary, who share his theory that the myth was possibly two actual facts about the development being conflated. The Expansion Pack was necessary, but purely because it was an executive mandate given early in production ([[https://imgur.com/a/ENjggIj they used it to improve the lighting]]). And there was a game-breaking bug discovered late in development, but they managed to fix it in time.

* The UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 Expansion Pack was not required for ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'' solely to fix a last-minute GameBreakingBug. Mark Stevenson, one of the chief designers of the game, says that: "The decision to use the Expansion Pack happened a long time before the game shipped. In fact, we were called in by management and told we were going to use the Expansion Pack and we needed to find ways to do stuff in the game that justified its use and made it a selling point. I think the bug story somehow got amalgamated into the Expansion Pack use and became urban myth. There ''was'' a game-breaking bug right at the end of development that we were struggling with, but the Expansion Pack wasn't introduced to deal with this and wasn't the solution to the problem. My memory is that, like all consoles, the hardware is constantly revised over its lifetime to take advantage of ongoing improvements in technology and manufacture methods to essentially make the manufacture more cost-effective and eventually profitable. I think there were something like three different revisions of the internal hardware by this point and the bug was unique to only one of these versions. We did eventually find it and fix it, but very late in the day."

* An often-cited "fact" about ''[[VideoGame/{{Bubsy}} Bubsy 3D]]'' is that the "Gold X Award" it claimed to have won was either a non-existent award or {{Quote Min|ing}}ed in order to PolishTheTurd. It actually did, in fact, ''somehow'' get that along with a 93% overall score [[https://retrovolve.com/those-faked-bubsy-3d-pull-quotes-were-actually-real/ from PS Extreme magazine in 1996]] and actually [[https://web.archive.org/web/19970601104334/http://www.psextreme.com/ratings.htm scored on par]] with ''VideoGame/{{Tekken 1}}'' and ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal''. Its claimed review quotes were also actually taken fully in context, albeit from the only glowing review for the game from PS Extreme magazine.

[[folder:Puzzle Game]]

* In ''Videogame/ManiacMansion'', in the library there's an out-of-order staircase, as well as Chuck the Plant -- a completely ordinary potted plant who inexplicably has a name. There is no way to access the second floor of the library -- it was never programmed in. However, there were persistant rumors back in the day about a way to make Chuck the Plant grow and then climb him to reach the second floor.

** There were rumors that you could catch a whale in the original Gamecube game. There actually is an extremely rare chance of seeing an enormous fish shadow when riding the boat to the island, but it's only possible to catch it with cheats and glitches... However, if you manage to pull it off, you don't actually get a whale, but an ordinary araipima with a glitched message.

*** VideoGame/{{Bomberman}} was rumored to be in ''Brawl''; it was so pervasive that [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]] removed a legitimate screenshot (at least in terms of roster) of the select screen [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Super_Smash_Bros./Archive_9#Japanse_screen_shot_of_Charcter_Select because Bomberman wasn't on it.]] Bomberman did not appear in ''Brawl'' or ''Smash 4'' at all, though he would later appear as an Assist Trophy in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate Ultimate]]''.

** There's been a long standing rumor/myth that in beta the zone Lake Rathetear had a megalodon/kraken/sea serpent/ some other underwater monster in beta that was removed for whatever reason (the most common ones cited are it was too high level for the zone or it kept getting bugged and getting stuck on terrain features because it was so big.) However it supposedly still spawned occasionally and/or you could do something to make it show up. One rumor was that if you swam all the way to the end of this really long underwater tunnel in the lake you could flip a lever down there to make it show up. Alas, there was no such lever. Perhaps [[MythologyGag as a result of such rumors]] the Veil of Alaris expansion has a water based zone with both a kraken and a megalodon as rare monsters.

** Beating the first six nights in the original ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' unlocks a customizable seventh night that allows the player to set the difficulty of the Animatronics from "1" to "20". Naturally, this kickstarted a rumor that entering the numbers "1-9-8-7" will trigger either a cutscene, or will unlock a supposed "8th night". Neither are true, and putting in the "1987 code" causes Golden Freddy to jumpscare the player and crash the game. It turns out developer Creator/ScottCawthon was well-aware that people would attempt this and added in the "1987 code" as a joke on the players.

* In the original ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'', the normally peace-loving Gandhi was noted to start threatening players that "our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!" around the time democracy and uranium became available, which was put down to an interaction of his Aggressiveness rating of 1 with the Democracy government lowering it further, causing an [[OverflowError underflow glitch]] that "lowered" his Aggressiveness to 255. Years later, "Nuclear Gandhi" became a meme that was even acknowledged in ''Civilization V'' and ''VI'' by making the leader's AI fond of nukes. But when ''Civ'' creator Sid Meier released his memoirs in 2020, he explained the whole thing was bupkis - there was no underflow glitch (the game's programming language did not allow for underflowing to begin with), and Gandhi's threats were the same as other nuclear-powered civs in the first game, and making them was his AI's way of deterring war. That whole "glitch" story only got started in 2012, a quarter-century after ''Civilization I''[='s=] release, and stemmed from edits to [[https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Gandhi_(Civ5)?diff=prev&oldid=36524 the series' wiki]] and TV Tropes itself.

* Rumors in arcades in the early 80s convinced several teens that [=NORAD=] [[IKnowMortalKombat kept track of high scorers]] of ''VideoGame/MissileCommand'', just in case of UsefulNotes/WorldWarThree.

* Alcohol in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' does not ''explode'' upon contact with a source of fire (e.g. a [[ManOnFire burning]], [[TooDumbToLive oblivious]] dwarf [[INeedAFreakingDrink going for a pint]]), but it's a common misconception in both the fandom and on Wiki/ThisVeryWiki. Alcohol does, however, ''boil'', leading to a visible cloud of alcohol vapor erupting from the barrel (easily mistaken for an explosion in the ASCII graphics of the game), and the loss of the fortress' vital alcohol stocks.