Everyone loves a good mystery, and that’s no different when it comes to video games. With gaming being around long enough now, it has spawned a number of mysteries, both in-game and out that are yet to be solved.
In this list we are going to jump into a number of video game mysteries that people have yet to get answers to. These can range from pretty mundane things all the way to some dark implications about our favorite video game series.
Let’s get into the fun and look at five unsolved video game mysteries!
- . Death‘s Calling Card (California Speed)
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Racing games are all about speed and fun. Midway were masters of the arcade racers in the 90s and 2000s with a number of series, but in California Speed for the N64, the team got a bit too dark for a kid’s racing game. It not uncommon to find secrets in these types of racers, and many bank on having them for players to find.
But for reasons that are still unknown to this day, someone on the California Speed team inserted a lone billboard in a single stage that didn’t feature the traditional Midway promotion or generic fake add. Instead, what they added was simple black text on a white billboard that get pretty damn dark.
If you drive just off the main road and switch into first-person mode you can just make out what ‘s written:
“Sometimes God takes mommies and puppies away…”
“And sometimes, just sometimes…”
“I do.”
There’s no indication why something like this got past those testing and working on the game, but it did and it’s dark. All the billboards in the game should be pulled from a defined image pool, and all of them do expect for this one. Some suggest it’s simply a placeholder, but that doesn’t quite work as all the other billboards register correctly and use predefined assets.
We may never know the truth and our best guess is a developer who decide to hide a dark message for some unknown reason. Let’s just hope this was a dark joke and not someone venting their frustrations…
- . Key To Nowhere (Army Men 3D)
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Army Men 3D is a fun little action game that pits plastic army men against each other. It’s not the greatest thing ever, but it has its fans and had more sequels and spinoffs than you can shake a stick at. But one thing about the game sticks out for those that jumped into the multiplayer portion of the game.
In the multiplayer map “Clean Up This Mess” these is a key that you can collect. This isn’t weird as keys are used to unlock things, but the only issue is that this key doesn’t open anything in the game. Or at the very least not something that players have been able to figure out over the years.
Over the years players and cheat sites have given all sorts of details regarding this specific key and how to use it. The issue is that none of the tricks mentioned actually work and the key remains useless in the game. You can find videos from the early days of YouTube of players trading stories on how to use the key, or that they used it and got some super-secret ending.
The developers have never weighed in on the mystery and chances are that the key is simply a leftover asset that was at one point intended to open some secret area. We know that the developers had intended to have the multiplayer maps be much larger but didn’t for whatever reason. Or, just maybe, this key opens something that players have yet to find after all these years.
- . Hell Valley Sky Trees (Super Mario Galaxy)
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The Super Mario Galaxy series was a fantastic experience that added a lot to mix up the standard 3D Mario gameplay while also adding a whole new story and characters that have quickly become iconic. It’s a great game that is colorful and lighthearted, at least for the most part.
While the galactic adventure is mostly upbeat, there is something dark hiding in the game. Something that managed to freak out a number of players when they came across it by total accident. You see, the developers, for whatever reason, decided to add a little surprise in Super Mario Galaxy 2’s Shiverburn galaxy.
If you look to the mountains that surround you, there are times when you will be able to spot a series of figures that seem to be peering down at you for some unknown reason. Datamining the gamer files shows that these creatures are called “HellValleySkyTrees,” which seems to be quite dark for a Mario game.
Sure, maybe these things are nothing more than trees looking down on Mario, but there’s something about them that leave you feeling a bit uneasy, something that the Mario series stays clear of. Heck, these dudes are scarier that anything that Luigi’s Mansion ever tried to do. Maybe one day we’ll get some answers if a Galaxy 3 ever comes around.
- . Giant Rat (Bloodrayne 2)
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The Bloodrayne series was something. It was never all that great but it came out during the era when teenage boys ruled the gaming scene and having a hot chick on your cover would instantly sell copies. And to be fair, I sort of get it. It’s hard to hate the premise of a hot vampire chick killing Nazi’s. The games themselves were pretty standard action games but one weird thing does happen in the second game.
Near the start of the “Sewers: Smuggling Route” stage in Bloodrayne 2, the player has the option of doing a bit of backtracking to the start of the stage just before where the intro cutscene left you. If you do, you can then tilt the camera up and see a pretty weird line of text appear above Rayne.
“BEWARE THE GIANT RAT” will scroll above your head seeming to give that player a hint about something coming up in the stage, or, at the very least, alert you so some sort of silly death for being someplace you shouldn’t be. The problem is that there is no giant rat anywhere in stage, let alone the entire game.
Players are still wondering about the giant rat and what it could mean. Perhaps it’s just a few developers having a laugh at an inside joke, or even the remnants of a possible rat encounter in the area and some code got left in the game after the axed it. We may never know the answer, but players are still keeping an eye out for a giant rat to this day.
- . The Mirai Console (Atari)
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Atari was once the biggest video game company on the planet only to lose it all and become nothing more than a joke in the modern age outside of weird 50-year-old men who host video game podcasts instead of spending time with their families. When the company had gone under and liquidation was in the process, people found something really interesting turned up that set off a mystery that endures to this day. That mystery was the Mirai.
The Mirai appears to be a video game console that Atari were working on at some point. This isn’t weird as Atari were working on all manner of consoles (one of the reasons that they went bankrupt) but Mirai was special as what was found was only a shell for a potential console. There were no parts, no documentation, and most interesting, the fact that nobody at Atari has anything to say about it.
It’s strange that those possibly involved in the project have kept quiet, almost as if it was such a secret project that it getting out would end the world. Okay, so maybe it’s not that intense but it’s some government levels of coverup considering those old farts at Atari love talking about the old days. We may never know what Mirai was supposed to be as the Atari people are now dead, to old to remember, or want nothing to do with those with questions.
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