7 Times Developers Trolled Their Own Players

Fast becoming a popular hobby among game developers is trolling their own players, through in-game pranks, passive aggressive observations, or downright lying about secrets hidden in their games for the lulz. See for yourself in these seven times videogame developers trolled their own players. Enjoy, and subscribe for a video like this every Thursday!
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#outsidexbox #7things #darksouls

[@sambridgett]

The idea of Hideo Kojima lurking outside Andy's house with an airhorn has tickled me immensely. I'd like to think he mutters "kept you awake, huh?" after every blast.

[@callumdonington2227]

Better that then Pierre Gasly coming after him with a crowbar.

[@andrewsutherland7913]

"It's a late night outside Andy's house, and you are Hideo Kojima."

[@manleychenoweth8144]

I like to imagine Kojima hiding in a cardboard box next to Andy's trash, chuckling to himself as he waits for Andy to fall asleep

[@callumdonington2227]

@@manleychenoweth8144 Who through away a box with a poster of a naked woman on it in my trash?

[@soulreapermagnum]

@@manleychenoweth8144 unfortunately the trash pick up come around before any falls asleep

[@andymcp4752]

2:24 nice to learn that Hidetaka Miyazaki actually talks like a character from Dark Souls Vague instructions punctuated with laughter

[@akiraamamiya9166]

Hehe well patches doesn't just appear in darksouls. But also in bloodborne

[@KaladinVegapunk]

He's seriously a sadistic genius. When we first played demons souls decades ago it was so goddamn unique & brutal you could just tell it was something special. And why DS2 was a janky blah fest without him and using the B team haha

[@KaladinVegapunk]

Ironically with DMC is it actually had really fun gameplay with the angel/demon toggles..it was just unfortunately wrapped in the lame design of him and Vergil, if it had kept the character the same honestly would have been fine

[@bellarmire]

I'd like to add how in No More Heroes, the most universally hated minigame was the scorpion extermination game. It proceeded to be the only minigame to return in the sequel.

[@flyinbrian1739]

The whole NMH series is the absolute essence of trolling the fans and expectations, the whole thing is a meta joke about action games while also being a fun action game

[@KaladinVegapunk]

Hahah well it wasn't quite as brutal, but yeah. Those games are all an excersize in intentionally tedious mini games while somehow still being incredibly awesome in every way

[@KaladinVegapunk]

The funniest thing about DMC trolling everyone with a lame hipster Dante is the actual game was solid, the combat is precise and varied, the angel and demon powers on L2/R2 gave a lot of variety...but they decided to annoy the entire fan base and act like the original Dante was some lame washed up has been haha And it wasn't even like MGS2 where its new protag tied perfectly to the narrative

[@espurrseyes42]

@@KaladinVegapunk Gameplay's aight. Mid compared to 4 and now 5, only better than 3 because the only version of 3 that has active Style Switching is the Switch version, with none of the prior releases of it after 4 getting that addition not counting mods on PC.

[@dindapriska]

I guess you can put Hollow Knight here, when you have completed Hunter's Journal and bring it back to The Hunter in Greenpath. He led you to an area big enough to fight a boss. He jumped down from above, standing tall against you as he roared like a boss. There's a boss fight theme playing on the background right after that. And then .... He gave you an item.

[@sararavenday7333]

An item that was probably a disappointment to anyone who didn't care about the lore at that.

[@gentlemandog4985]

You mentioned the pendant for trolling, but you forgot that in DS3 there's an Ash called "Dream Chasers Ash" which not only can be seen holding the useless pendent, but when you turn it in, are treated to the only unique dialogue from the handmaiden, berating the "poor fool" for their lofty dreaming and basically adding salt to the wound of all those secret hunters feelings

[@LunarMuphinz]

Wow

[@PhantomJavelin]

Another troll item is the Calamity Ring, which doubles all damage taken while worn. It reappears in DS3 as well, and its item description says it was "quietly passed down amongst its most fervent adherents, some of whom become convinced the task has been bestowed upon them as a sacred duty" to, well, poke fun at all of the crazy players who were convinced that it unlocked a secret somewhere in the game.

[@biggrayalien4791]

That is diabolical and fucking fantastic lol

[@sortasour2964]

in exclusion to the story behind sirris, hodrick, and the handmaiden

[@akiraamamiya9166]

@@PhantomJavelin the calamity ring isn't exactly a troll item as it actually does something. I think it's more a nod to those people who say darksouls is easy. Kinda like saying "you think it's easy? Well here's hard mode for you"

[@PLAYER_42069]

Hideo Kojima's most recent troll was at Summer Games Fest 2021, when he revealed Death Stranding: Director's Cut. He did everything in his power to make it look like a Metal Gear crossover, complete with having Sam (Norman Reedus) get in a card board box. I remember Andy's stunned reaction when it turned out to have absolutely NOTHING to do with MGS - lol.

[@olpika]

His best trolling was when he released Death Stranding, an entire "game" based on the horrendous concept of the fetch quest.

[@elatrocidad5953]

@@olpika there's nothing quite like making an entire game based on something gamers are actively avoiding. Going outside and walking.

[@olpika]

@@elatrocidad5953 ha ha, true! He's really the troll in chief

[@gamerito100]

@@olpika The game was pretty good, but not for everyone

[@xXCursedWorgenXx]

@@elatrocidad5953 I mean, look at the games we get today: farming simulator, power wash simulator, LAWN MOWER simulator... and there's a lot more like car mechanic simulator, etc.

[@RidireOiche]

Yoko Taro has made a career out of crafting emotionally taxing and complex existential issues simulators and trolling gamers, and amassing a cult following along the way. The realization near one of the many beginnings of Nier:Replicant that the joke ending of Drakengard 3 is actually the canon inciting incident of the series is maybe one of the most magnificent troll moves in gaming history.

[@hiei248]

The joke ending of both Drakengard 1 and Drakengard 3 lead to neir. Huge troll vibes. Love the Taroverse

[@efu2046]

I don't play Nier and Drakengard, care to elaborate?

[@efu2046]

@@ichijofestival2576 Ah so it's that kind of joke boss, not an actual "joke" boss. Got it. Seems complicated and on character for Yoko Taro too. Thanks for explaining it to me. I really appreciated it

[@krusher181]

Can someone explain it to me? I’m not gunna go play all his games, sorry. Plz explain

[@DFloyd84]

​@@krusher181 Drakengard's Ending E sees the protagonist and his dragon get sucked through a rift to modern-day Tokyo. They fight the final boss in a rhythm minigame with no room for error. Once the final boss is dead, JDF fighter jets blow the dragon out of the sky. The boss's ashes cause a weird disease called "White Chlorination Syndrome," which either kills you or turns you into a zombie hive mind monster: Legion. Humans remove their souls and create artificial bodies immune to WCS to fight the Legion, with the intent of recombining soul (the Gestalt) with body (the Replicant) when it's safe. Everything goes horribly wrong: the Gestalts break down and go nuts while the Replicants become self-aware and resist reintegration. They basically go to war with each other until Nier's Replicant kills his Gestalt and destroys any possibility of saving humanity.

[@xtifr]

A super-early example: in the ancient dungeon crawler Rogue (granddaddy of the "Roguelike" genre), if you ate an apple, the game would respond by printing "core dumped". While this _could_ be interpreted as meaning that you'd thrown away the apple's core after eating it, it _happened_ to be exactly what the early Unix systems that Rogue ran on would print when a program crashed. (For more info, see the Wikipedia article "Core dump".)

[@treetheoak8313]

I mean the guy literally said he'd take nothing or the pendant. 😂

[@johnwrath3612]

In retrospect, it was obvious. At the time, I remember thinking it must have some obscure use and kept trying weird things like random gestures in random places to see if anything responded to the pendant. The joke was on me and I’m not even mad because it’s hilarious.

[@MikayaAkyo]

@@johnwrath3612 Well the thing is. In the Unused Data there's an Item Effect that seemingly belongs to no item in the game, used or unused. Like you have Unused Items but they have an effect dedicated to them, there's a single one appearently that leads to nothing. So it's believed that this is the original effect of the Pendant in DS1. But funny enough, said unused effect... would still do nothing in the actual game iirc xD

[@marhawkman303]

@@MikayaAkyo so the devs also trolled code divers? :D

[@cericat]

@@johnwrath3612 with Miyazaki it should have been obvious, dude is the most masochistic person I've ever encountered.

[@maneatingmare]

Saying the pixel secret isn't trolling is exactly what you'd say to throw us off the scent Andy! Well its not going to work, I WILL FIND THE SECRET PIXEL!

[@DraconicDuelist]

Tab is your friend.

[@kieranclarges2514]

You forgot the ultimate troll, Where developers say a game is ready for release, Then spend the next two year releasing patches to fix the endless bugs, Only to give up and leave you with a broken product and an empty wallet.

[@ASLTheatre]

That is mostly on the side of the publishers who say this.

[@CondorCalabasas]

Or journalists that give a game 10/10 that can't hit 30fps on 4 of the 7 platforms it's on.

[@kieranclarges2514]

@@ASLTheatre With respect, I disagree entirely. If you go to a restaurant and you receive an uncooked meal, Do you blame the waiting staff or the chef? A game must be released to the publisher for them to release it. If the game is not completed in the agreed time frame, It is the fault of the developer that agreed to the terms not the publisher and if it "IS" released to the publisher incomplete. Then its the developer that did so.

[@ASLTheatre]

@@kieranclarges2514 Often the publishers don’t give enough time to the developers. “Strong arming” developers to put out a game the developers know is not done yet. We can agree to disagree.

[@PyranoTheDev]

@@ASLTheatre It's also really hard to negotiate with a publisher for more time.

[@Chris_Sizemore]

Lets be honest here, Andy would totally fangirl all over Hideo Kojima if he decided to personally troll Andy.

[@josephrankin9406]

Re: Korok seeds ... when I maxed out my inventory and saw how many seeds were left to collect ... I noped all the way out of continuing my collecting (unless I stumbled across any) ... one of my better decisions. 😜

[@azuredragoon2054]

Collecting all of them just gets you a pile of poop as well. So... You're not missing out.

[@MagTheMercenary]

Ahh the Korok seeds. Jane's memorable line in a previous list video, "Twee*beep*hee" pretty much sums it up best I'd say 😂

[@sohairtayyabbutt1456]

I remember following The Phantom Pain antics when it was first revealed before it officially came to be known as MGS V. It was wild. People online were making all sorts of deductions and eventually figured out what the game actually was and that "Joakim" was actually Kojima. I had my doubts initially but was quickly proven wrong.

[@highspotplays]

It sounds like players trolled themselves over the pendant in Dark Souls. In the original interview Miyazaki says he'd pick "nothing or the pendant" for the roleplay aspect of starting out. When I read that, I think he's saying he doesn't want any advantages to start the game, so the pendant is equivalent to starting with nothing. Seems clear to me. Then when he saw people going nuts trying to figure out what the pendant does, he thought it was funny and let them keep at it with intentionally cryptic responses. I don't think his first comments were cryptic at all though.

[@VioletMaeve]

I mean that's how alot of Soulsborne fans discovered secrets that weren't ever explained or discovered within the first few years of launch. Bloodborne's lore is still being deciphered and dissected to this day with more discovery. So I say over-dedication, but great execution.

[@inugi]

He did truely troll everyone of those people with the dream chaser ash though. Damn. XD

[@CowKirbo]

Yeah I agree. he clearly meant he wanted to make the game decently harder by weakening his start.

[@ledumpsterfire6474]

@@VioletMaeve I think that's part of the trolling tbh. There's no tangible, fleshed out world and story there, just random little bites of information that people make Olympian stretches to connect. I'm sure that's either endearing or fucking hilarious to the developers (maybe both), which is why they continued doing it in later games: just to see the insane fan theories people are breaking their backs stretching to come up with lol

[@VioletMaeve]

@@ledumpsterfire6474 Even so, just discovering what's in the game is more fun than putting it together. Like the theory of the hollowed tree trunks in the Dream of Bloodborne being the same connecting the Soulsborne universe. Its all speculation and they refuse to elaborate. I'm just the type of gal to like Discoveries.

[@melodysymphonystar]

The cherry on top of the double humiliation Geralt suffers is that, of all people, he gets lectured by the one and only serial skirt-chaser Dandelion. The shade is real.

[@cearnicus]

Wasn't there a cocktail in Hitman where they trolled not just players in general, but oxboxtra specifically?

[@marhawkman303]

Well... Andy Farrant specifically. One of the devs even asked Andy what to put in it... sort of. :D kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2fRfKKnncx1jpI

[@quincebielka8843]

Contains celery

[@quincebielka8843]

Better than the one with nutmeg though

[@phuzz00]

@@marhawkman303 Thank you for pointing me towards that video. I've been laughing so hard I was almost sick.

[@metallord6960]

Personally, I consider it a pretty dickish move in the fractured but whole that if you save up 5,000 dollars to pay off the city ninja service in the first encounter they then say "It only counts for this battle though."

[@kleinejanneman1]

I mean it’s South Park, what’d you expect

[@JayHog1992]

If anything, I like the fact that it's a possibility. Some games give you annoying requests that nobody thinks it's possible because at the time, it really isn't. In older games, even if you meet the requirements somehow, you still get noped because the developers didn't think people would actually bother to try. Games like South Park are an example that players are persistent enough to achieve anything if possible. Except paying one million dollars for a bike in Pokémon.

[@davidhigdon794]

I'm kinda surprised none of Scott Cawthon's trolls made the list. My personal favorite was when he released an early version of Sister Location and called it the "Mature Edition," claiming it had gone off the rails and become much darker than he intended. It turned out to be a barely reskinned version of his old mobile game Sit 'N Survive.

[@PyranoTheDev]

My favorite was the "Early demo'" to Ultimate Custom Night.

[@davidhigdon794]

@@PyranoTheDev I hadn't seen that one. Just looked it up, and it's hilarious! Thank you for pointing it out!

[@PyranoTheDev]

@@davidhigdon794 No problem. Edit: Admittedly I was excited when Scott announced the demo that I fell for his trick when it came out. Still smile at the memory.

[@ChillingCloud]

I would definitely add those goddamn sunset sasparilla bottle caps to this list

[@manleychenoweth8144]

That's only a troll if dislike laser pistols that can one shot most enemies. Pew Pew is pretty sweet loot

[@alenrodriguez8211]

Pew Pew was worth every cap

[@Dreadjaws]

I guess I'm the only one who interpreted Dante's wig scene differently. To me it wasn't trolling the players, but actually trolling _Dante,_ you know, showing him his future at a time where he wouldn't be into it. Sort of like the "Next thing you know I'll be going bald" line from Xavier in X-Men - First Class.

[@BigPanda096]

Exactly, especially when he says "not in a million years," then goes white hair by the end of the game.

[@violentvixen592]

I think its a bit of both. A cheeky moment for the devs but also in character Dante (and Xavier, ofc n_n)

[@akiraamamiya9166]

Tbh I wouldn't have minded the design change half as much if they didn't also make his personality completely change for the worse

[@tibsie]

I must be the only one who enjoyed the real world parts of the Assassin's Creed series. I feel that being brought back to reality once in a while grounded the experience and put it into context in the wider storyline. E.g. You're not really a pirate, you are an Assassin trying to prevent Abstergo/Templars from taking over the world. It helps to remind you that the struggle is happening in the present.

[@marklehuray1091]

With you :)

[@motodog242]

Yep, you are.

[@roflshield]

I think it's less that people wanted just those segments removed but more they would prefer a game set entirely in the past without a sci-fi fantasy framing device

[@marklehuray1091]

@@roflshield Well no offence but i'm not agreeing with a forsaken.

[@rjfrost7090]

Yeah, I wanted more of the modern day stuff focused on sadly.

[@jackson14431]

I'd like to add accounting+ the VR game, which had an entire ARG they left half finished, all about a secret level they never made, and infact they made a secret level, but that was talking to a clown character who had a conspiracy over the secret level with all of the ARG content written about and strewn across a public pool backroom

[@GamerRMT]

Wow, I'm so glad I found the secret pixel; that was really amazing. The video is unlisted, so I never would have found it otherwise.

[@majesticbbqsauce727]

One troll that still goes on to this day is the destiny 2 quest for the 15th wish. With the most trolling thing being the "complete this dungeon with 999 light" troll.

[@kyuubinaruto17]

Haven't played it. How hard is it to get 999 light?

[@majesticbbqsauce727]

@@kyuubinaruto17 with how light caps work, it was impossible, they raised the cap and then it was possible, now the light minimum is so high it's impossible again.

[@motodog242]

Another one is the deletion of paid content. Still laughing my sides out at that troll, lol.

[@TheRedAvenger100]

One of my favourite bits of Trolling came in the Assassin’s Creed series where when the movie was released many sensitive souls immediately disassociated it as non-canon but I wonder how they felt when reading Layla’s emails in Origins that not only does Layla want to be on Sofia Rikken’s team in Madrid but there are schematics and drawings for the Animus armature device from the movie and other movie related emails thus making the movie canon and trolling all those sensitive souls. 😂

[@mousepariah3884]

Maybe it's because I started with Unity and Black Flag and haven't done the OG games but I always thought the armature made a hell of a lot more sense than ...Laying on a bed or sitting at a desk playing VR? Like the movie wasn't gold or anything but neither are all the games so meh.

[@ChristophBrinkmann]

Literally zero fans of the games care about the movie being canon

[@kriscynical]

I got my then 72yo mother into playing BotW after she watched me play during my umpteenth playthrough. Her absolute favorite thing in the entire game is the Koroks. I taught her the controls by letting her run around the Plateau on my 100% file and once she was comfortable with it, she started her own game file (it's been a bit of a co-op playthrough with her playing about 90% of the time with me as her guide and her handing me the controller for certain things that are still just a little bit too difficult for her, like the Blights). The first time she found a Korok in her own game she let out this shriek of unbridled joy like I've never heard before, giddily saying, _"I found one!!"_ in a way that made me WISH I had been filming her because it was one of the most _wholesome_ things I've ever seen. She decided that she wanted to be in the 900 Club like I am not long after that, knowing full well that all you get for it is a golden shit but she didn't care. She wanted the title. The followers of my art blog now know her as "Mom of the Wild" since the first post I made about her unexpectedly blew up because apparently everybody else finds it just as wholesome as I do. It's been a few months since we last played so we need to get back into it (she's been obsessed with Animal Crossing New Horizons), but we have over 100 hours logged, three divine beasts liberated, and 700 Korok seeds collected so far. She's actually going to do it. And you can bet your ass I'm going to have my phone ready to film when she collects that 900th seed.

[@Trekmaster47]

As evidenced by every April Fool's Day, there is a very fine line between funny pranks and cruel ones. Additional to the golden poop in Breath of the Wild, do you know what you get when you 100% the game? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Not even a fanfare.

[@motodog242]

And it's hailed as one of, if not THE, best LoZ game.

[@mewmew8932]

@@motodog242 Well, you do get a motorbike.

[@mattBLACKpunk]

Tbf they didn't lie about the pendant in ds1, it straight up says that it does nothing

[@JamesStocks]

It's believed by some to be a reference to a much older From game

[@xstarsystemsx]

I remember laughing at the outrage about Dante's look in dmc when it was happening. People were super mad about it. And then his hair turns white anyway. It was so funny.

[@LegendStormcrow]

It wasn't just the hair. He was just some edgelord. I had a friend EXACTLY like him in high school, sans the half angel thing.

[@dtczyk8976]

But not sans have the demon thing??

[@LegendStormcrow]

@@dtczyk8976 i said what I said. Well, he had good parents. Granted only his dad was his biological. His mother said screw having a half white son.

[@shadowwolf550]

Oldschool Runescape comes to mind. There was a scavenger hunt for a set of clue hunter armor that you had to dig at certain spots to find it. The first 4 pieces were easy to find when the clues came out. Because of this, Jagex decided to make the helmet a very hard one to find. They also made it so the first person to find it gets a special shout out. It took a whole year for some random person to find it due to the very cryptic and sometimes false clues that were given in forums by developers.

[@medauberpwnr6348]

The sr152 Reward from Halo 5, that was supposed to unlock a unique item in Infinite, is about the biggest troll I've ever seen. You spend almost 2 months of IN GAME playtime, so people spent years to get to that level. All to get a couple skins on Infinite that literally look like stock skins. Please do something on that.

[@NoPrefect]

Oh god, is that for real? That's f*cked, bro. I never played 5, reeeeeeeealy glad I didn't, now.

[@Simte]

"The purpose of the pendant is not what is important, it's the friends we made along the way." Miyazaki probably, idk.

[@shadowkhan422]

7:11 Well... Considering this game had kinda low sells and they had to go back to older model in DMC 5 I would say the prank kinda sorta maybe ... Backfired? Sides , the look wasnt even the main issue. The way he acted in game was . They wanted fans to beleave that cool af killing machine from prev instalments started out as some kind of a goth drop out regect at teens . Didnt really work out

[@WraithReaper09]

They were also trying to retcon his origin.

[@mousepariah3884]

@@WraithReaper09 Worse for those of us who read more of the lore like the books where there was actually a solid enough backstory and even a reason for him to have dark hair. I remember when they first showed his 'new look' I thought "Oh are they gonna go with the Tony Redgrave story*?" ANd then more and more came out and it just went from "huh Different." to "Yeah someone launch that abomination into the sun please." *It's referenced on his Guns Ebony&Ivory so game canon not just novels

[@RecyllandHyde]

Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies’ title was genuinely a brilliant troll. To the extent where any new Bravely Default game leads to theories about what secrets they have hidden this time. XD

[@davidmcgill1000]

Best part is when you progress far enough for the title screen to change.

[@RecyllandHyde]

@@davidmcgill1000 yes that was such a genius move :D

[@nighttiger314]

My personal favorite is the semi-ongoing Wish 15 in Destiny 2. When the Last Wish raid released there were 14 hidden wishes (basically codes of pictograms) hidden around the world that you could input into a "Wish Wall" in the raid to do various things, and there was a lore book with 15 empty pages to track the wishes you've input. It took players about 6 months to find them all, but the last one, #15, hasn't been found to this day. The troll comes with an in-game lore book that says "Achieve Light level 999 and defeat Dûl Incaru (the boss of the Shattered Theone dungeon) in a one-person fireteam to unlock the true ending of the Dreaming City." A year after the raid came out when this was completed the max level was 953 so getting to 999 required a MASSIVE grind on the seasonal item to boost up the 46 levels above cap. To the hype of the entire community, a player streamed the dungeon to complete this challenge to.....absolutely nothing happening. The Last Wish raid came out in 2018, and I'm decently sure that the last wish is...Last Wish. Good job Bungie

[@cptdumplin]

MGS2 did a genius job with the Raiden/Snake identity crisis though. All the time along the game's story, Raiden would carry a name tag with the name you chose for your file at the beginning, and he would repeatedly look at it while reminiscing about how Snake was his hero, drawing a parallel between the player wanting to be Snake as much as Raiden does. That identity crisis went as far as making Raiden throw away the dogtag with the player file name on it the very moment he abandons his ideas of becoming like Snake. That entire subtext was genius in both setup and execution and to this day remains unreplicated.

[@Drako999x]

Why does "standing outside of your home with an air horn", sounds like a thing Hideo Kojima would totaly do... I kinda do love this man.

[@nathanokeefe7063]

"Wow, if I had a nickel for every time I was doomed by a puppet, I'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice." - Dr. Doofenshmirtz

[@mrdude88]

Whoa! Collecting the Hestu seedling is not a troll. The adventure you get, the place you get to see and experience is the true reward. The turd is just a consolation prize.

[@lordwisehammer]

The Dante thing was more about how he was now an edgelord prick but the fact he looked like Edward Cullens less intimidating cousin didn't help.

[@manili5453]

What about Hideo Kojima proving to the world that none of us learned our lesson and ended falling for the same bloody trick again?! Play as the actual Big Boss in Ground Zeroes and then as not Big Boss in Phantom Pain. The clues were there but the big reveal at the end was like a Kojima pie in the face.

[@sergentboucherie9813]

When I was a GM for an old MMORPG I had 2 NPC created. The way NPCs worked is that they would answer if you said keywords close enough to them. It was how you find out about quest lines or lore from the world. One NPC answered to some keywords, hinting at stuff, but nothing he said meant anything in game. Players would search for landmarks that did not exist, some tried rotating the map, filtering colours. It was fun. The other was a NPC who would give rank XP for gold (rank meant nothing, it would upgrade with enough rank XP, but it was just used for roleplaying by the players who were really roleplaying) it was just a way we created for players to burn their gold. The NPC would hint at some things when you would give him specific amounts of gold, so players spent hours trying to give him various amounts of gold, but there was absolutely no reward other than the rank XP. They also spent hours trying to figure out what he said. We found a bug, if a GM placed a chest on a specific spot it could not be unlocked by lock picking (the best thieves had maybe level 15 or 16 in lockpicking, we created a character with lock picking 100 and created a macro to attempt unlocking the chest, we let it run for a whole week and it never unlocked), we made a video of one of the GM dropping Grand Master level weapons, armour, rings and rare quest items in the chest and posted it on the forum. The items were really in the chest and it was never opened. In Ephemeral Fantasia you can collect 100 Death Hiyoko eggs, they can be hatched and be used as a party member who cannot be healed by magic or items. If you get 100 you get to meet the DH King who gives you a manju, not sure if you can even eat it. The game is in a time loop and 1 egg can be missed. Forcing you to restart or load a previous save if you miss it.

[@notoriousbmc1]

"7 times Kojima pissed me off, and I really hope he does it for many, many years to come"

[@MrFutago87]

Anyone remember when Square Enix announced Final Fantasy VII on PS4 which disappointed everyone as they presented it as if they were announcing a remake, only for then to actually announce the remake at E3 a few months later. Likely to obfuscate any leaks, which honestly was extremely clever of them.

[@Ishnula]

Gotta say my favorite troll was a short one in borderlands 3: To be continued in 4! 3... 2... 1... really had me good!

[@ShadowTheEdgehog]

I love the Phineas and Ferb reference at the start of the video, Andy. 😂

[@TransmitHim]

You could probably make a whole sequel video on this just on the Mortal Kombat dev team messing with their fans. Also, kudos to Andy and Luke for holding the fort recently.

[@joffcallaghan]

I was gonna mention troll bombs and mega troll bombs in The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, but that's less Edmund McMillan trolling the players and more him designing a game that just hates the player (in a fun way).

[@artlessauthorite]

Now u can absolutely mention the April fools challenge, the ??? Pill (which removes the map and looks exactly like an unidentified pill after you use it), and likely all of the keeper unlock arg

[@joffcallaghan]

@@artlessauthorite Oh man, I'd completely forgotten about the April Fools Challenge. Yeah, that deserves to be on the next one of these lists

[@jardex2275]

The Black Flag email has more to it. The final location mentioned was during the Summer of Love. This is a reference to the 5th episode of the 23rd season of The Simpsons, which depicts the cover of that game, alongside Medal of Duty, Guts of War II, and Marching Band.

[@0PercentImagination]

Sometimes things that aren't meant to be a troll can feel like a bit like one, an example being Pomello Juice in Star Ocean: Til the End of Time. The gimmick is that it starts off expensive and continues to sharply increase in price throughout the game so not only does it mean effectively needing to grind at the start of the game to get one but using it for its effect (100% healing for 1 person) will never be worth it, only reason its not actually a troll is its sale value also goes up alongside its buy price so its profitable af if you spent the time to get one.

[@Conor2400]

8. Ubisoft trolling you guys the other DAY with THE awful Trivial Purshit live! 2.

[@Gigawood]

I’m glad DmC was the first devil may cry game I played. When I saw the “not in a million years,” I just kind of smirked and thought, “wasn’t that his original hair?” 😆 I’m finally playing DMC 1 and 3.

[@najibzulkafli5820]

Glad you appreciated the trolling. As for me, I just felt insulted from that white hair remark, being a fan of the original series. Definitely didn’t help either when one person (the voice actor of Dante, I believe) of the game gave the middle finger during the end credits roll. That’s my opinion

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Here's hoping you go forward towards 4 and 5 eventually.

[@RLplusabunchofdumbnumbers]

I get the whole "big change" issue, but I always found any of the "He was a badass, now he's a poseur" stuff hilarious, since the original design 100% looked like he was in a My Chemical Romance coverband.

[@wisewolftony]

@@RLplusabunchofdumbnumbers Honestly all I ever cared about with the series was the gameplay. So I loved DMC and didn't give two shits about the character design just as long as the gameplay was good.

[@najibzulkafli5820]

The gameplay was pretty solid, I can honestly say that

[@oafkad]

The dragon tail I did figure out on my own. Not by being clever, I just figured I'd be able to kill him. So once the tail fell off I thought "Huh." Nice sword too early game.

[@FLITT]

I remember laughing so hard playing through the ole switcheroo in MGS 2, just at the thought of how angry people would be 😂

[@beckfenn5559]

Did Andy deliberately quote Heinz Doofenshmirtz or was it just a happy coincidence? Because either way, I love it!

[@jtmax24]

9 effing years later and Rockstar Games have been still trolling their players with Mt Chillad! It means nothing!

[@LadyOnikara]

It's a great place to try and get several non-mountain climbing vehicles up to the top. Also a great place to see how long your character can roll and stay alive.

[@whitezombie10]

No they repeatedly said it's nothing. People just want something to do. Like trying to destroy the train or the dam

[@daviddo658]

Andy, I would like to personally thank you for that Phineas and Ferb reference in the intro.

[@LaNextNotchPoisonoak]

"Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice!"

[@daviddo658]

@@LaNextNotchPoisonoak EXACTLY!

[@GenLiu]

Ironically, the romantic ending for seducing both Yen and triss is arguably one the most improbable outcome if you take the book as a reference. Yennefer and Triss being the last persons to team up with one another and Dandelion being a jerk with women to a point where it would be laughable to hear him lecture you about such a thing. Now, to be fair, that cutscene kinda feels like a good ending compared to what would truly happen, should you date two women and get discovered by both in real life.

[@TheDanishGuyReviews]

"She talks about fidelity, then throws another man's trousers at me."

[@leadpaintchips9461]

Honestly, that one felt pretty realistic. Two extremely powerful women who are being played by Geralt deciding to put their own issues aside to teach him a lesson about pissing off Sorceress' (while still keeping a useful tool around), while Dandelion being so clueless about himself that he lectures Geralt about womanizing sounds like exactly the type of thing that would happen.

[@ShadowDemon_4]

I'm surprised The Blackout Club wasn't on this list. Even with limited knowledge I know of this game I do know that one of the main things this game has to offer was that in the lore of the game the developers are gods and can literally freely enter anyone's game, talk to them and even teleport them onto an alien planet. The fact that they can just pop in and talk to you to spook you is trolly enough but completely messing with your gameplay live is next level.

[@JachAnen]

Luke: "What is going on over there at Nintendo" I mean, look at any of their 1st party games. That question has been increasingly more relevant as time passes, both because they keep their increasingly weird ideas alive and keep thinking of new weird ideas

[@ArclinusCastoral]

Kojima was my first troll. I'll never forget him.

[@_MysticEntity_]

Apex Legends Season 4. They release a new legend every 90 days and leaks ruin the surprise. For season 4, they put in diversions and when every data miner found Forge in the files, they assumed he was the next legend, to which later on Respawn confirmed, and even released info on the new legend. In one of the Legend trailers they released after that, they killed off Forge and replaced him with his killer Revenant. Everyone was fooled.

[@bemasaberwyn55]

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING on this list will EVER compare to the BS of Princess Toadstool telling you "your Princess is in another castle" after beating King Koopa in SMB 3

[@LaNextNotchPoisonoak]

Your castle is in another Princess! Wait......

[@insaincaldo]

I always loved the Mario Land version, where it was enemies disguised as Daisy.

[@KingBasewyn]

You can trade the pendant when with Snuggly the Crow for an Ear of Reprisal, so it isn’t totally useless, the same with rubbish.

[@brits3728]

the fact that the korrok at 10:57 is literally the korrok that put me at 900 and had alluded me 4 times when checking in guides... I feel the pain all over again.

[@joshmakarenko5809]

Oof

[@sharpfang]

allude - make a veiled reference; suggest indirectly elude - escape from, or avoid

[@JadeStone00]

Does the entire plot of Fallout 4 count? "Go find your kidnapped baby! jk he's old now and is going to die in a week."

[@incredibleflameboy]

That's not a troll it's the point of the story.

[@joshmakarenko5809]

@@incredibleflameboy it is a troll when you find out the story sucks

[@And3rs88]

I somehow missed mgs2, probably because I was 12... But played every other mgs before finally playing through, when it finally made sense who the hell raiden was, I was just relieved. My perspective on mgs2 is different coz of that, it was an awesome entry and completely trippy in 2020! (when I played)

[@Fr33dan]

I found the hidden pixel and the video it links to is so good!

[@truesoulghost2777]

I love how the first person you mentioned and show was Lord British. That’s the most classic one I can think of.

[@rockstar93795]

The pendent thing was also a reference to one of their older games called Shadow tower abyss. In the game it has a pendent with the discription of "with no obvious value" so the pendent in darksouls is a reference to that game.

[@davidkatz6197]

Spider-Man 2. They have info markers all over the game. Narrated by Bruce Campbell, the very first one says: If you find all of the hint markers, they'll change to say something different. And they do, when you interact with one after collecting them all Bruce will say the sentence "Something different".

[@kodychesire]

I've done work for Ubisoft and I can confirm their offices look essentially the same as Abstergo's do

[@artechstorm]

If you wanna talk about trolling, how about borderlands 2? Thw mission proving Brick that your a badass by getting box bombs, The respawn point behind a building where alot of enemies can be spawn and kill you over and over again.

[@curtismcpsycho8212]

What about jack telling you to off yourself or him trolling you after you check on his grandma?

[@artechstorm]

Or the dlc trolling about the scientist, who is bring back Jack, is the big boss fight but instead of fighting him, his clumsiness killed him by falling down the stairs.

[@curtismcpsycho8212]

@@artechstorm that was hilarious

[@jdavid1006]

"I'd have two dollars. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice." Did you guys just slip in a Phineas and Ferb reference? Nice work!

[@LaNextNotchPoisonoak]

Surprised not to see that game-break troll from Arkham Asylum on this list

[@leonardquirm]

My favourite developer-trolling-players example is also my favourite video game puzzle of all time - big spoiler for Lair of the Clockwork God here (and I really, really would endorse going and playing the game over reading this comment): It's a puzzle-platform game where you control two characters: Dan, who does the platforming, and Ben, who insists on walking around in a Point-and-Click style. There's a bug in the game where if you land a jump as Dan on the space where Ben is, you glitch into the ground below Ben for a second before re-appearing above ground. The devs were very apologetic about not being able to fix the bug when it came out, but hoped it was benign enough to not impact players. And then, about three-quarters of the way through the game, you have to collect an item that is in the floor...which you can only do by triggering this glitch. It isn't a bug at all, it's a puzzle solution that's been hiding as a bug for literal hours of gameplay until that one moment! After getting the item, if you trigger the glitch again, the characters just go "wait, why was I even doing this? I guess I'll stop" and it never occurs again. It's absolute genius and I'm sorry that I just ruined it for anyone reading this comment.

[@dweebicusmaximus]

That’s INSANE I love that shit

[@mewmew8932]

It's not a bug, it's a feature

[@Cuiasodo]

The DmC crew didn't just troll people via the wig joke - one of the project leads kept renting about how stupid he thought Dante's old look was and how their redesign was the superior one. Jokes on them, tho, because they released a DLC skin with Dante's old look and then we got right back to the original timeline with Devil May Cry 5.

[@eggguy20]

Wasn't there also some joke added to Devil May Cry 5 where it was implied that a dante imposter died trying to be a demon hunter?

[@HattaTHEZulZILLA86]

Well joke's on you Ninja Theory, you ain't getting any more of my money by pissing me off with that game (the director even flipped a bird at us in the extras). What makes you think that people will give you their money after you piss them off?

[@FatCatCooper]

Cope

[@MsKornkitty]

I feel like being punished for not committing to one character is becoming a game trend. Persona 5 and Stardew both have cutscenes where you get confronted by your angry harum.

[@griffinraynor8425]

Petition for more games to include mechanics where you TALK to your partners and find out who's down for non-monogamy. Or literally anything to distinguish dating around from cheating. To Stardew's credit it only trolls you if you reach a certain milestone with every single eligible sweetheart in either the bachelor or bacherlorette group, so you kinda have to be going for that cutscene. I've been able to date four people with no problems ;3

[@patrickphelan279]

Liara mentions being okay with polygamy in ME1, as befits the asari stereotype as "wish fulfilment alien sex kittens". But, yeah, it never seems to be "you can talk to your partners about polygamy and one or more of them are okay with it".

[@OrangeDog20]

"Not committing to one character" is a little different to "dating all six".

[@Youre-Welcome]

It's like you all knew I was scrolling for something to watch!

[@CloudHiro]

everybody keeps dissing the modern day stuff but thats what ive always been most interested in in assassins creed games. that being said I havent played one since before origins because I seen it was becoming a microtransactioned gearscore mess and I'd rather my assasination targets not shrug off a stab to the neck like it was nothing just because my gearscore was too low.

[@incredibleflameboy]

The trouble with the modern day stuff is that there's very little assassining going on. The story element is fine but it would be nice to be given the freedom that the core element of the game gives around a modern city especially since watchdogs has alluded to it being canonically in the same universe

[@SgtSupaman]

The modern day was the true, overarching story and the linchpin holding the games together. They screwed up when they killed off Desmond.

[@spicy998]

At the end of the project zomboid tutorial, they tell you that you can heal yourself from a zombie infection by pressing "q" but it's the button to yell, attracting all the zombies in the area.

[@nategarland4413]

I found the pixel! This OxUniverse ARG is amazing!

[@Rakshiir]

The thing about the Dante wig sceneis: it felt less like a troll or prank, but more like a direct middle finger to fans who disliked the design. Honestly, I think the fact that there was no sequel kind of tells enough. The gameplay was pretty good actually - as was the design of the limbo, but the character just didn`t feel like Dante, not only in looks but also when you look at his behaviour - the backlash wasn`t just about the hair. Sure you can argue it was a try to recreate the franchise, but it obviously didn`t work well enough to continue it (because let`s be honest, if it would have been a hit with a broad audience, they do a sequel to make money) - that kind of happens if you upset the established fanbase. So this might not have been the best thing to do from a developement standpoint. Changing a character has to be done very carefully, when the character is beloved by fans. A good example would be how they changed Kratos in the last God of War game, he sure as hell isn`t the same as before, but you see the old Kratos, and understand how and why he changed or trys to change. They understood the character and fans - hence the game was a success, although they also changed gameplay quite a bit, but it is really good and still makes you feel like a badass. Now you can argue Kratos is supposed to be the same character, and Dante should have been a different version in an alternative universe of DMC - that IS a valid point. But as mentioned above, changing such a beloved character has to be done very carefully, and this one did miss the mark overall, it seems like. Changing Vergil from an understandable antagonist to more or less a one dimensional villain was propably also not the best idea. As a sidenote to Raiden in the Metal Gear saga: let`s just say Revengeance was actually great. You can`t take it really serious (and the game knows it very well, with alot of puns and shit), but gameplay and the soundtrack, damn that was good.

[@najibzulkafli5820]

I totally agree with you. The overall attitude of every character in the game was so.. blah.. made me went “what the f” heck, the main villain mundus was so lame

[@Rakshiir]

@@najibzulkafli5820 The sad or disappointing thing about it is that I think story and characters did have potential. There were some things if they actually thought it through, or developed them a bit further, make them more complex it really could have worked. But basically every character is missing something - some more, some less, but still somehow none of them really hit the mark. Its not like story and characters had no good things at all, so... idk either they didn`t have enough time, or they lacked some people with more ideas to polish the story script and characters. With old Dante you did get why he was on the side of humans, you understand. This one? Not so much, he goes from "I don`t care about anyone or anything" to be the most pro human dude with no real reason honestly. Besides meeting Kat, who might be pretty but... not much more tbh she does very little if you think about it. I feel like she was supposed to have a similar role Trish and/or Lady had, but she is severly lacking character history and badassery to do so. The most fun character was propably Bob Barbas for me. Just the way he was written, a bit sleazy, and his "just doing gods work" line which makes sense since he is clearly just working for Mundus but thats the guy he considers his god. And he knows humans don`t get it. He was actually entertaining. He works well in my opinion for what he is supposed to be. Side character/boss material, totally fine. But for main cast, talking about Dante, Kat, Vergil, Mundus it is rather lacking, they all feel very shallow. Not saying that the cast of the "main" Devil May Cry is always super deep, but they feel complete. They make sense overall, they are likeable and understandable in their motivations. And they really put more effort over the series into the main cast to flesh them out. Even Nero who was kind of meh in his first appereance really was polished in the last game to be a more distinguished character.

[@gNetkamiko]

Well... in RDR2, there is this drunken Bootlegger in Lemoyne who crashed his wagon of moonshine. Utterly destroyed it. And he asks Arthur Morgan to watch over what is left of the wagon's contents while he goes and gets help. Trouble is........... he never comes back.

[@jtmax24]

How is that a troll?

[@gNetkamiko]

@@jtmax24 Well because those who are not informed will sit there and wait.... and wait... and wait. Until they are eventually fed up with waiting and just loot everything around, which drops your honor.

[@sohairtayyabbutt1456]

I remember that encounter. If I remember correctly, the reason he doesn't come back is that he walks in the direction of the nearby trees, sits down next to one and quickly goes to sleep. I know that because I waited for a few minutes and when he never came back, searched in the general direction he went only to find him taking a nap.

[@gNetkamiko]

@@sohairtayyabbutt1456 Yep. And never waking up. I personally see that as a troll move by R*, roping in those that love to go around and helping people out.

[@jtmax24]

@@gNetkamiko yeah, not really a troll as the first time I ran into the guy I saw he walked off and fell asleep. Try the Bigfoot reference but don't actually find it. Or Mt Chilliad in GTA 5.

[@robstuart8474]

Oh my Christmas, that secret pixel video was a blast! Lads, it's so worth the time investment to find it!

[@commander392]

Its nice of Outside Xtra to upload their list videos with chapters

[@parabolicpanorama]

I can't believe you put the pixel THERE of all places

[@katfromthekong414]

I also got trolled by Ubisoft.......ah no wait, that was the customer service

[@OldJerzyDevil]

That bit at the end... I mean Hideo Kojima and the air horn? I think you're working too hard Andy, maybe cut back on the caffeine too! LOL

[@MarceldeJong]

Haha a Phineas and Ferb reference! Nice.

[@kenmojica]

The pendant gag reminds me of how I constantly trick people into thinking I am in a certain mood or feeling by making them think I have some sort of color theory or only use my glasses for certain moods. I still laugh at people about this to this day. They still think that way. It is so fucken funny.

[@alexgowin5585]

I did NOT know about the Witcher thing. That is hilarious!

[@blueteacup321]

i am sorry but can we talk about video game companies troll products that would be a great list

[@SethACampbellMusic]

Excellent Phineas & Ferb reference at the start there. :)

[@nyperold7530]

I'm not collecting every Korok seed. Oh, sure, I'm still collecting most of them as "I've been here" markers, but not all of them. The final reward is a big reason, but close on its heels is the part where you have to somehow hit a rock into a ring of rocks, a challenge I've spent enough time on already, given that I've maxed out all my stash capacities. And if I do find the rest of the shrines first, well. Not doing any more Korok challenges.

[@meltedmuffin]

You missed the times EA released the same game but charged everyone full price for it! Ha, got me again!

[@nickdejager8873]

Don't you mean Bethesda?

[@icereaper187]

Or rockstar?

[@ReiAyanami8]

I mean, Geralt got off easy compared to Joker during the Valentine's day event in Persona 5.

[@DJROCKSTAZ]

Oh, GOD, no... I still have PTSD from Haru demanding I eat her chocolates... (Thankfully, never played P5, but I did see a playthrough where the uploader did and he got it BAAD!)