Before the internet became a reliable fact-checking tool, video game myths spread like wildfire. A friend of a friend had unlocked a secret character. A classmate swore blind they'd witnessed something impossible in a forest. A magazine printed a fake guide and thousands of players followed it faithfully for weeks.
These rumors were shared gospel, passed around playgrounds and early gaming forums with absolute conviction. Some emerged from mistranslations and some were deliberate hoaxes. Some grew from genuine glitches that spiraled wildly out of control. All of them fooled us completely, and honestly, every single one of them deserved to.
10
Mew Is Hiding Under The Truck In Pokemon Red And Blue
Few rumors in gaming history traveled as far as the one about the truck. Near Vermilion City, past the SS Anne, sits a solitary lorry with no in-game purpose. The myth: Mew, the 151st Pokemon, was hidden underneath it, accessible if you kept the ship from departing before obtaining HM Strength and returned to move the truck.
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None of it works. The truck cannot be moved. The cruelty is that Mew exists in the game's code — obtainable through the MissingNo glitch — just nowhere near Vermilion City. The rumor wasn't invented so much as catastrophically misdirected.
This has gone on to become one of the most iconic 'video game rumors' of all time as a result.
9
Aerith's Ghost Haunts The Sector 5 Church In Final Fantasy 7
Aerith's death in the Forgotten City is gaming's most famous tragedy, and players were never entirely ready to leave it alone. In the months and years following Final Fantasy 7's release, reports circulated of a ghostly figure visible in the Sector 5 church — the place where Aerith had tended her flowers — that resembled her silhouette. Approach it, and it vanished. Stand still, and it lingered.
Unlike most entries on this list, the truth here remains quietly ambiguous. A sprite does appear in the church under specific conditions. Whether it is intentional — a deliberate memorial, a trace of Aerith's presence embedded in the world — or simply an artefact of the game's code is something Square has never officially confirmed either way. The myth endured not because it was easy to believe, but because it was never cleanly disproved. It remains exactly what it always was: a question without a definitive answer, tucked inside a game that was already full of grief.
8
There's A Nude Lara Cheat Code In Tomb Raider
The 'Nude Raider' cheat was gaming's worst-kept non-secret: a button combination — which varied depending on who was telling you — that would supposedly remove Lara Croft's clothing entirely. It circulated on forums and school playgrounds with the urgency of contraband.
No such code has ever existed. The rumor rested on wishful thinking and the mid-'90s discourse surrounding Lara, in which her appearance was treated as a constant source of speculation. The closest it came to reality was a third-party PC modification Core Design had nothing to do with. The legend outlived it by decades.
7
Sheng Long Is Street Fighter 2's Hidden Master
Ryu's win quote in Street Fighter 2 reads: “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.” For players unaware that “Sheng Long” referred to Ryu's own Shouryuken — Rising Dragon Fist — it read as a direct challenge: find Sheng Long, defeat Sheng Long.
In April 1992, Electronic Gaming Monthly answered with an April Fools guide outlining the exact conditions under which a hidden master character would appear. Thousands attempted it. None succeeded.
The myth ran deep enough that Capcom eventually created Gouken — Ryu and Ken's master — to fill the gap. A mistranslated win quote gave birth to a canonical character.
6
Pikablu Is A Secret Pokemon You Can Unlock
Before Pokemon Gold and Silver reached Western shores, the rumour mill produced Pikablu: a secret blue evolution or counterpart to Pikachu, obtainable through specific and conveniently unverifiable methods. It spread with total conviction. Players claimed to have it. Others swore they knew someone who did.
Pikablu was just Marill — a Water-type Pokemon briefly visible in promotional material for the Pokémon movie, introduced in Gold and Silver and not yet officially named in the West. There was no code. There was no hidden encounter. The name 'Pikablu' was invented wholesale by a player base that saw a small blue spherical Pokemon and landed on an entirely logical portmanteau.
The myth worked because it had something most playground rumors lacked: photographic evidence. Marill quietly existed, had been glimpsed publicly, and had simply not yet been explained. The space between “this Pokemon is real” and “here is how you obtain it” was wide enough to fill with almost anything, and players filled it enthusiastically and incorrectly.
5
Herobrine Is Stalking You In Minecraft
Herobrine looks like Steve. Same blocky proportions — except his eyes are blank white voids, and he is watching you from the treeline. He builds strange structures in worlds you have never shared.
He has never been there. The original screenshot was fabricated. Minecraft's procedural generation and low-resolution textures make it easy to convince yourself something is moving at the edge of your vision.
Mojang's response sustained it: periodically including “Removed Herobrine” in official patch notes — a joke that functioned, perversely, as confirmation. You do not patch out something that was never there.
4
There's A Secret Cow Level In Diablo
So many players clicked on the cows in Tristram — repeatedly and with purpose, convinced some precise number of clicks would open a portal to a hidden level. The myth spread far enough that Blizzard addressed it directly: “there is no cow level” was added as a cheat code in StarCraft, letting players skip the current mission outright.
There was no cow level. And then Blizzard created a cow level for Diablo 2.
Populated entirely by bipedal, halberd-wielding Hell Bovines, the Secret Cow Level came with its own loading screen rejoinder: “Citizens of Sanctuary, please remain calm. There is no cow level.” The denial had followed the myth into the very game that made it real.
San Andreas is enormous, and its rural stretches are eerie in a way the series' cities never manage. Screenshots circulated: blurry, grainy images of something large and bipedal in the treeline.
Bigfoot was never in the game. The screenshots were manipulated or mod-produced. But the creature became the centrepiece of a cluster of myths that gave San Andreas an almost folkloric quality — UFO sightings near Area 69, ghost cars drifting through Bone County, a Loch Ness Monster glimpsed in the reservoir.
When Bigfoot appeared in GTA 5 as part of a story mission, Rockstar gave the community exactly what it had spent years insisting was already there.
2
Ermac Is A Hidden Fighter In Mortal Kombat
The original Mortal Kombat arcade cabinet showed a diagnostic counter on its attract screen: ERMACS — Error Macros, a technician's shorthand meaning nothing to anyone who played. Players decided it was a character name.
The logic wasn't unsound: Mortal Kombat truly hid content — Reptile could be unlocked through obscure conditions — so a second secret fighter wasn't implausible. The myth held that a red-clad ninja lurked somewhere in the code, accessible through methods nobody could agree on.
Midway denied it for years, and then they made Ermac real — an error counter became a canonical fighter. Kinda cool.
1
You Can Save General Leo In Final Fantasy 6
General Leo is one of Final Fantasy 6's finest creations: honorable, conflicted, and powerful enough to feel like a permanent party member. He has a unique ability — Shock — available to no other character.
Kefka kills him. Players spent years refusing to accept it as final. Rumors circulated of dialogue choices that could alter the outcome, of flags in earlier scenes that would change the Floating Continent sequence, of a path that let Leo join the permanent roster. Final Fantasy 6 is full of obscure optional content — if it could hide Gogo in a monster's belly, it could plausibly hide a surviving Leo.
It could not. Leo's death is hardcoded. The myth endured not because it was credible, but because the alternative felt like a waste. Leo died because he had to, it wasn't reversible, and that was the point, I suppose.
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