Polybius / Referenced By

Reference to the Urban Legend video game Polybius in media.

In issue #1 of the New 52 run of Grant Morrison's Batman Inc., someone can be seen playing on a Polybius arcade machine in the background in a seedy bar.

Films — Live Action

A Polybius cabinet (complete with "Out of Order" sign) is seen in the background of the arcade in Summer of '84.

Armada is based around the premise that video games are secretly government training tools to prepare the world for an alien invasion. Polybius itself is mentioned as being part of this program.

In "The Age of Darkness" episode of The Goldbergs, some girls can be seen staring into a Polybius machine next to a freshly installed Punch-Out!! game in the arcade. It was also mentioned in a list of arcade games in a commercial in the episode "The Spencer's Gift", and a Polybius machine is in the background of a convenience store in the episode "Jackie Likes Star Trek".
In the RPG video game for Stranger Things, one of the arcade machines inside Hawkins' movie theater is Polybius.
In the self-titled Loki series, Loki (specifically the Variant L1130) is sent to the Void by the TVA and meets up with other Loki Variants whom were also pruned. He later ends up in a ramshackle lair owned by Kid, Classic and Boastful Lokis, the lair is an underground bowling alley and from certain shots a Polybius arcade machine can be seen in the background. Which is fitting considering all the Historical In-Joke Easter Eggs there are throughout the episode.
Dimension 404 has an episode dedicated to Polybius, where the protagonist actually manages to defeat it in the end to save himself and his friends.

A modified version of the Llamasoft interpretation of Polybius is the primary focus of the music video for the Nine Inch Nails track "Less Than".
The Lemon Demon song "Cabinet Man" is about a man who turned himself into a Wetware CPU for an arcade machine. He mentions eating a few people and driving gamers insane, but his popularity began to wane between the advents of the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Game Boy. Word of God would confirm that the song was "slightly inspired" by the urban legend.

77p egg: Eggwife has a Polybiius cabinet in the last area.
Believe it or not, Farming Simulator 17 has a broken Polybius cabinet tucked away in the woods of Goldcrest Valley.
One of the possible names for the arcade machine you can find in Death Road to Canada is Polybius.
There are several cabinets in the arcade in Receiver 2.
The Half-Life 2 Game Mod Snowdrop Escape includes a hidden playable Polybius arcade cabinet. It was made by Aperture Science.
A random event in No Delivery has The Men in Black kick everyone out of the Arcade so they can get data from the cabinets. Considering how weird the pizzeria is, a Polybius machine is the least of their worries...
The Fabulous Fear Machine: In the second campaign, a legend involving brainwashing video games can evolve into a legend about an expy of Polybius.

The game Polybius plays a major role in the plot of Arcade Spirits and its sequel, The New Challengers.

Slimebeast has referenced it in a few of his stories.
- Bonus Room focuses on an arcade tournament where the final round is played on a game called I-Boy-Plus. The name is a Significant Anagram for Polybius, and the game is shown to have mind control effects, though it only properly works on the narrator, the other players being driven to madness by it.
- The first story in the Attract Mode trilogy starts by talking about Polybius, and the effects legends suggest, specifically the inability to feel sad. The narrator plays a game called Skull and Crossbow, with a jet black cabinet, and it seems to have the aforementioned effect on him.

The Angry Video Game Nerd done an episode for Polybius for Halloween of 2017, done in the style of Found Footage Films, playing up its frightening rumors and making for an episode of undiluted Nightmare Fuel.
David Johnson had filmed a Halloween short film with his friends about Polybius in October 2021, due to his fascination with the myth, even going as far as to spend hours hand-painting a custom arcade cabinet. The project was cancelled, and replaced with an Economy Watch Halloween special. The footage still exists on David's hard drive.
The MacGuffin in the Stuart Ashen sequel Ashens and the Polybius Heist.
Similar to AVGN, Scott The Woz covers the Polybius for his Halloween 2017 special. He covers the game's rumors, and debunks them by saying how none of the stories really add up, before concluding that the whole thing is just a myth. And then a Polybius cabinet appears behind him, attempting to hunt him down.

The second episode of Glitch Techs ends on the reveal that Hinobi Games corporate is monitoring main characters and recent hires Miko and Five, believing them to be the individuals capable of finding and containing Bolypius, which is an obvious reference to the arcade urban legend Polybius. The show was cancelled before the plot thread was followed up on, however.
In Inside Job (2021), which is centered around conspiracy theories, a Polybius arcade machine can be seen in the background at the main cast's hangout bar, McUltra.
The "Please Homer, Don't Hammer 'Em" episode of The Simpsons included Polybius in an arcade of "bad games", portrayed as property of the U.S. Government.

Referenced By / Polybius