The Video Game Hoaxes and Rumors Iceberg Explained

[@elsienova4269]

For Polybius, its important to mention that youtuber and professional editor Ahoy did a private investigation and found out with undeniable proof that Plolybius was created by the owner of an arcade enthusiast archive website back in 1998. So yeah its confirmed debunked but its still insane how this giant piece of media culture came out of just one guy in the 90s trying to draft traffic to his website.

[@DONKEYKONG260]

He should totally do one on Justin Bailey.

[@Anthro_Girl101]

I watched that video, I was so invested in it

[@error4159]

@@DONKEYKONG260 The mystery of the Justin Bailey code is who originally discovered it.

[@four-en-tee]

Someone should solve the Publius Enigma

[@elsienova4269]

@@four-en-tee it is kinda? It was a Pink Floyd ARG meant to advertise The Division Bell but David Gilmore said they ran out of money for advertising the album and had to cancel it midway so the ARG is unsolvable.

[@GmNdWtchr96]

Funny thing about "Luigi as a Pokemon." The "turn the system upside-down" step would actually later be used to evolve Inkay into Malamar.

[@TuxerTuxar]

Is that a Homestar Runner PFP? Looks like a mixture between Homestar and Strong Sad

[@danieluhl1569]

@@TuxerTuxarthat’s the black-and-white Homestar. The one that appears in the episodes that are made to look like they’re from the past.

[@Drewggles]

Homestar Runner yay!!

[@MoreCheezePlease]

Fun fact about Aerith's death, relating to rumors of "revival": There does exist unused post-death dialogue for Aerith. It can even be seen in-game, if a cheat program is used to bring her back.

[@thirsty4dirt]

Pretty sure 4-8 Productions actually revived her during a playthrough using the Yuffie Warp glitch

[@Meowthiroth]

I Yuffie warped to keep her alive once, and I tried keeping her in my party as often as possible just to see how the game would handle cutscenes with her. Usually she just doesn’t show up at all, and that can cause a softlock in situations where the game expects dialogue from both of your other party members & she doesn’t have any (e.g. right before the Jenova-DEATH boss fight). Additionally, if you try warping to the next screen with encounters immediately after the death scene (the one with the giant venus-comb shell you have to climb to get to the back exit of the forgotten city), Cloud will just refuse to climb it for some reason. No dialogue or anything, he’ll just jump up all the spikes like normal but then immediately turn around and jump back down again. Super weird.

[@Veladus]

No there isn't. If you cheat in Young Cloud or Sephiroth, they use the same dialogue. It's not Aerith dialogue, it's a crash failsafe. If a party member is supposed to have dialogue and the game doesn't have any dialogue for them to pull from, it'll freeze the game. In the original Japanese release, people cheating in Aerith (or Sephiroth or Young Cloud) would get constant freeze-ups because of this. Square threw cheaters a bone and added generic failsafe dialogue in later releases so they could use these characters. Another fun fact, before FF7 the same rumors were around about FF3/6. There were tons of rumors about ridiculous ways you could resurrect General Leo. I don't remember ones about Tellah (or Galuf, but Galuf is unlikely since FF5 didn't see an official English release until the PSX era) but it wouldn't surprise me if it there were rumors about them. Rumors about previous game death being resurrectable pretty much disappeared after FF7 because the trolls all concentrated on Aerith. People cared *A LOT* more about her than about a non-party member or an old man.

[@alixthealien5490]

I vaguely remember a youtuber making a video about it. Either OddHeader or The Easter egg hunter. Ill try to find it and link the video

[@alixthealien5490]

... so i found the video. It was released on aprils fools.... here is the link if you want it kzbin.info/www/bejne/jIKocnmun9alY6c

[@davidcollinsjr4288]

Since it was kinda blown past, the myth of blowing in a cartridge was that it would fix a misbehaving cartridge. While it was often successful, the explanation is that removing and replacing the cartridge would reconnect the pins, not that you'd actually blown dust away to fix it. Also the Stop n Swap was developed to use a stored memory feature that Nintendo was preparing but then canceled late. Presumably, Rare left it in the final product as a dig at the manufacturer.

[@wadmodderschalton5763]

Speaking of Swap N Stop, the N64 was pretty much the console where all the rumors of the 5th-gen console games are well known. (1:08:33)

[@TheTundraTerror]

Yeah, the issues was the VCR mechanism causing the pins in the connector to lose contact. Though, usually the lack of a solid connection would cause issues with the lockout chip. Generally, disabling the chip would fix most instances.

[@TWLSpark]

To add some context onto the revive Aerith rumor, the reason that this rumour existed at all was because you could find several weapons and items that could only be used by her, well beyond the point she already died in-game. People took that as proof that you could revive her in some way, but it's believed to just be an oversight in the placement of items - perhaps Aerith's death was going to happen later, or maybe it was a last minute change and the developers forgot to account for that in the item placement.

[@Aurilaushe]

IIRC fans recently found that Aerith has dialog for scenes that happen after her death, so it seems very likely her death was added later in development

[@bxyxg]

@@Aurilaushealmost the other way around, there was originally a way to legitimately save her but it got cut in the official release.

[@blitzie66]

@@bxyxgsauce?

[@blitzie66]

@@bxyxg must not be common knowledge i knew about the dialogue and have done deep dives on this before but didn’t know it was confirmed you were able to save her originally edited to add; that oddheader video is fake btw i remember it from a few years ago

[@bxyxg]

@@blitzie66tbf, it is a pretty recent discovery considering the game's been out for 20 years

[@four-en-tee]

Whats insane is that with Shadow of the Collosus, there was an entire group of "secret seekers" on the Playstation forums who were digging through the game and using literary analysis to try and find clues for a secret that didnt exist, and this went on for years. It took a data miner coming in and tearing the game apart to finally convince these guys that were wasnt anymore secrets in the game, only for the developers behind the HD Remaster to later add a new secret to the game anyways. Its one of the craziest stories in gaming, these guys were almost cult-like in behavior.

[@vedanttripathi9925]

Jacob Geller has an amazing video going through it

[@arthurfleck629]

@@vedanttripathi9925Bloody hell haha, people can really become pretty obsessed lol

[@themoongateofficial]

Shadow of the colossus is just that good

[@PeeperSnail]

I actually know a little bit more about the Webkinz Killer rumor. Another version of the myth was of a rogue pet popping up in your virtual home from a mysterious black gift box. Rumor had it that, if you saw a black gift box in one of your rooms, you had to exit as quickly as possible, else the box would open, revealing a mangy street pet that would brutally murder your webkinz. Thing is, this second version of the rumor was built on some kernel of truth. Sometimes when placing down furniture in a room, the assets would glitch and display a greyed out random item, which sometimes meant you'd get a "black" gift box (really a greyed out gift box of another color). Obviously this real version of the black gift box didn't do anything, but it caused players that knew about the rumor a bit of a scare. There was also yet ANOTHER version, where instead of some rabid street animal the creature that would pop out of the black gift box would be a neopet from Neopets. Accompanying this version was another rumor that, on Neopets, there was a special page where you could input a Webkinz username to send them a black gift box to hopefully kill their webkinz with your neopet.

[@256NatLiz]

@@chazzywazEspecially with the amount of similar games out there.

[@naomii_star]

@@chazzywazthatd be funny

[@AugustQ-p1w]

I remember when I was like, 12 I was struggling to catch Giratina in Pokemon Platinum. My brother came up and said "You know, there's a button combo that increases your chances of catching pokemon." I rolled my eyes cause I knew that wasn't true but I handed him my DS anyways to let him give it a shot... he caught it with the first ultra ball he threw. I know it was just a coincidence but that had me questioning everything for a minute lol

[@BigJackMack]

No skills 😂

[@altozecter]

i struggled too, considering 'tina's catch rate in platinum is 3%

[@rachelmayes3064]

Everyone knows you have to draw circles on the bottom screen....right?

[@trintalis]

@@rachelmayes3064like from rangers LOL

[@cricketandgraham8644]

chill they were around 12, y'all stop giving them slack

[@SwaggyG_2102]

Watching videos that revolve around icebergs containing certain topics of mine is definitely one of the many favorite pastime activities of mine.

[@lobaandrade7172]

One of the activities of all time

[@cesurtheguy3807]

I do it while doing Homework

[@garfieldcat1140]

@@cesurtheguy3807 i do it in school

[@cyanidepizza]

nice eb64 claus pfp

[@pyroke6909]

Same bro, listen to iceberg vids when working on art, school, cleaning.

[@approachingetterath9959]

honestly surprised Nintendogs (the first one. the good one) wasn't on this. as an avid player back in the day i remember especially the rumors/hoaxes around dogs dying if you neglect them for too long, that there would be skeletons laying around; and the ability to have puppies.

[@kimzee59]

I also remember the dog breeding rumours. I tried for MONTHS to get 2 of my dogs to have a puppy. I was so gullible as a kid.

[@SleepyLuigi]

I was always a afraid my nintendogs would die, so I constantly played to “keep them alive”

[@coltgun876]

Yeah I rememeber that rumor. It's pretty dissapointing he didn't cover that in the video.

[@ShakedownDreams]

God...I fell hook line and sinker for the puppies hoax, I also thought the Creepypasta "Noodles" was real and was scared to leave my game sitting for longer than two days without checking on my dogs

[@luckyducky7819]

"There would be skeletons of the dogs you neglected laying around; also, you could have puppies". That gave me emotional whiplash, lmao.

[@michaelfalcone7110]

A lot of these “methods” of unlocking secret characters and items are just SpongeBob’s bubble blowing technique.

[@anonecki]

I think some of the "reviving X" rumors might've originated from Chrono Trigger, where reviving one of your party members is an important point of the main quest

[@BlackxExorcistitsyaboi]

It actually made sense with the plot of Chrono Trigger and time travel.

[@assassinofkeyblades]

This was my thinking when watching this too especially since the two games brought up were released after chrono trigger

[@Fellipe2k5]

10:28 In the case of blowing the cartridge, it works when the game is not booting. But this is harmful, because saliva damages the contacts. I use isopropyl alcohol About the toothpaste, it works on discs because you are removing the scratches. It's like waxing the car. But it can also damage the CD.

[@thrownsofaraway9978]

Yes! Canned compressed air(or very lightly using an air compressor, but use at own risk as they are strong enough to cause damage) and ISOP. Blowing into the carts would technically "help" in the short term but you are adding saliva to the components of not only your game but the console itself(i.e. rust/corrosion). You could also remove and reinsert the game into the console and it would most likely work as if there was dust in the way it would be pushed off and if it needed a better "seating", well... you would be doing that...

[@CassiusStelar]

It only damages it if you use the wrong kind of toothpaste

[@Deadgirl97]

I specifically remember GameStop selling these waxing kits for games

[@HoldenEsck]

@Greepa blowing in the cartridge in my opinion it was because it was ancient and there was dust in the terminals. it 100% worked like everytime

[@zoltanz288]

blowing is just to remove any stuff that might have gotten in there and preventing contact. also you can blow just air out without spit. old carts do have to be cleaned with alcohol or something but back in the day the carts were not old and usually didnt have a layer of accumulated gunk on them, so just blowing whatever had gotten in there was much easier and faster.

[@TheAdmantArchvile]

For the Columbine one, this rumor stems from the fact that Eric Harris did make doom maps. On his website, he teased an unreleased mapset. It's believed that this was supposed to be the school, but it could have been anything.

[@ContendCreators]

I heard about the big doom thing the bad students were making before they attacked the school

[@thatguy1593]

Yeah - the fact they had made wads is pretty well documented, and information for that can be found on most major doom was pages.

[@wadmodderschalton5763]

If the journals of both shooters, the dates of Harris' WADs and the infamous "Basement Tapes" is anything to go by, if i had to speculate, it's possible that the rumored Columbine Doom WAD only existed somewhere between September 1996 to mid-April 1999 before being permanently deleted by one of the perpetrators on their computer.

[@Hexie094]

This Iceberg feels like it was writen by someone who also spent a lot of time watching the old 'pop fiction' show on game trailers back in the day

[@renbiscotti1514]

I loved pop fiction so much and this whole video made me very nostalgic for it

[@novathefallenstarwarrior]

Man, I miss pop fiction

[@iprobablysuck9107]

Guy who made the iceberg here. Can confirm!

[@EternalChamp]

😂

[@blitzie66]

@@iprobablysuck9107you did awesome! love these topics

[@hellspawnmotel]

im surprised the mossdeep rocket is on such a low (high?) tier, but maybe that's just because it was the big one i personally fell for as a kid. i heard it as "if you have 100 hours on the in-game clock, you can board the rocket and go catch jirachi on the moon". i remember leaving my old copy of emerald open and running overnight for days, and was so disappointed when it didn't work, lol

[@KanaKonpaku]

Yes, it is kinda odd that it's so far down the iceberg, as I know at least four people from elementary that fell for the rocket rumors. I myself fell for the beat the elite four until rocket launches reach 100 one. When that failed I did exactly what you did and just left game running as I was a separate supercheats post for the absurd number of hours. I was really disappointed I never got my jirachi or deoxys.

[@iprobablysuck9107]

I had never heard it talked about much,, so I assumed it was lesser known than the RBY ones

[@KanaKonpaku]

@@iprobablysuck9107 That's likely just because the Gen III rumors spread moreso via cheat websites than word of mouth. I don't recall many people claiming they knew someone else who did it personally, and moreso the people I knew that fell for it found it the same way I did. It also could be that red and blue weren't relevant to us at the point that this rumor was being spread. I found most of the RBY rumors through KZbin and don't recall anyone ever telling me them in person.

[@Andrew-ww1hz]

You also have to click on the white rock 100 times

[@shinespriteditto]

For the Houlihan room, I think the hoax or rumor could come from the fact that in the Japanese version of the game, the room has no text or dialogue and is a glitch room that was discovered by the staff that couldn’t be patched out, so they decided to make it seem intentional with the Nintendo power contest- hence the bizarre and random nature of the contest

[@memememe609]

The Houlihan room is an anti-crash feature. The room is loaded if the game is unable to detect what room Link is supposed to fall into, which is why people need to trick the game in order to access it. There is no actual hoax surrounding it. The contest was completely legitimate, though I believe the Houlihan room was meant to appear in an earlier Zelda title, but was eventually added as the anti-crash room it is today.

[@DioBrandoWRYYYYYY]

It's a bit surprising how many FF related entries the iceberg has but it didn't feature the Zack in a pipe hoax from FF7 when it was like the second most famous rumor after reviving Aerith.

[@ChrisNeilMusic]

That guy are sick.

[@bugpocket]

About the Houlihan room, it wasnt a Link to the Past that the room was intended to be in, but an earlier NES game, Zelda 2, I believe. It never got added so instead, they added it to Link to the Past as a room that the game would put you in if it didnt know where to place you due to an error when transitioning rooms. It's very possible to reach this room in normal gameplay and isnt even that hard.

[@Eligames2009]

it wasn't even zelda 2 it just said "an upcoming nes game"

[@NostalgiaDemon]

6:13 Football guy here and I'll be able to explain each individual curse from the corresponding game Madden 01: Eddie George In 2001 following a trip to the Super Bowl in 1999 and a deep run in 2000 narrowly losing to the great 2000 Ravens defense Tennessee Titans RB Eddie George produced yet another outstanding season bringing close to Offensive Player of The Year honors (Marshall Faulk (LAR) would win) However, he would begin to suffer serious injuries following 2001 and by 2007 was on his way out for good. 2002: Daunte Culpepper Not exactly a guy to suffer this curse minus the fact that in 2003 the Vikings suffered one of the worst collapses in regular season history capped off by a 17-18 loss in a must win game to the 3-12 Arizona Cardinals. 2003: Marshall Faulk It's hard to say for Marshall, it seems that all the cursing happened more to the organization than him individually. Following their loss in Super Bowl 36 to the upstart New England Patriots Los Angeles (then still the St. Louis Rams) Hadn't exactly had much success following evident by their 15 year playoff drought 2004: Michael Vick Simply put, this guy was a illegal dogfighter and served 23 months in prison in the prime of his NFL career. He did have a worthy stint with the Philadelphia Eagles following his release but the team moved on by 2013 with the drafting of QB Nick Foles 2005: Ray Lewis One of the few athletes to never fall victim to this curse. He had a national trial for murder early in his career but following his release he continued being a staple of a sturdy Ravens defense all the way until his retirement in 2013 following the Ravens 34-31 Super Bowl XLVII victory over the San Francisco 49ers 2006: Donovan McNabb McNabbs case is a bit different, he began to severely digress in play following 2007 leading to his eventual trade to the Washington Commanders which effectively ended his elite status for his career. 2007: Shaun Alexander After an MVP performance the year prior Alexander began to suffer injuries and never recaptured his MVP form following 2008: Vince Young Vince Young was actually a promising talent but after years of repeated injury and lackluster play he was eventually canned. 2009: Brett Favre Following the harrowing end to his Green Bay Packers career Favre joined the New York Jets in 2008 and had a catastrophic collapse that saw the Jets divisional rival Dolphins led by former Jets QB Chad Pennington, in 2009 he joined the Packers sworn enemy in the Minnesota Vikings and threw a costly interception in the 2009 NFC Championship Game vs the New Orleans Saints. 2010: Troy Polamalu and Larry Fitzgerald Both of these legends didn't suffer a supposed curse although Polamalu's Steelers would lose Super Bowl XLV to Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers 31-25. Larry on the other hand was just stuck on lowly Arizona teams until his eventual retirement in 2022 2011: Drew Brees Brees would continue to produce outstanding numbers but couldn't win games because of the lackluster defenses he had throughout his career. 2012: Peyton Hillis Hillis was a one year wonder and had his best season in 2011 with the Cleveland Browns. He is a true hero though although it doesn't change his NFL legacy. 2013: Calvin Johnson Megatron suffered serious back injuries throughout his career (From carrying the terrible Detroit Lions to any forms of relevance 2014: Barry Sanders/Adrian Peterson Sanders could not suffer the curse as he retired prior to the 2001 season following disputes with Detroits front office, however AP would go on to tear his ACL and be arrested on child abuse charges. 2015: Richard Sherman Super Bowl XLIX.... 2016: Odell Beckham Jr. DONT TAKE PHOTOS ON A BOAT! 2017: Rob Gronkowski Although Gronk is always "hurt" he still went on to win more Championships following his cover apperance 2018: Tom Brady Its hard to suffer a curse when you're the most decorated player in the modern era of the game but for Brady it seems his career has taken a nosedive into oblivion as he's retired for the second time 2019: Antonio Brown Suffering from the ever present CTE caused by an illegal hit in a 2015 Wild Card Playoff game between the Steelers and Bengals 2020: Patrick Mahomes This guy is one of the few to not be anywhere close to cursed and hes well on his way to Super Bowl 57 2021: Lamar Jackson Pay The Man... 2022: Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes Worst cover ever made 2023: John Madden No curse, rest in peace to the legendary Raiders head coach 🙏

[@krspykreame1]

Very detailed you should drop a video about it you'd probably get a million views this weekend lol

[@NostalgiaDemon]

@@krspykreame1 right😂

[@kennyzia2795]

@@NostalgiaDemon wasn't Michael Vick sentenced around two years for dog fighting?

[@NostalgiaDemon]

@@kennyzia2795 He did 7 years total

[@kennyzia2795]

@@NostalgiaDemon sorry, but I couldn't find anything that said he did seven years total, only served prison from 2007 to 2009. Or maybe we can include him being injured as a prison sentence. ;P

[@KingFluffs]

The Viva Pinata 2 Trouble in Paradise Wild/Unwild rumour isn't on this list, but it's one that can happen ingame. For those who have never played, you basically run a garden and try to make it inviting to wild pinatas who you can then breed and send to parties. When a new pinata is unlocked, you see a small video showing it off. The pinatas are wild at this point and their colours are just black and white paper mache. When attracted to your garden though they go full colour. There was a way to exploit within the game and get Wild Unwilds, Garden resident pinatas who still kept their wild colouration. I can't remember the precise steps, but I know it involved catching it in a crate then sending it to a seperate account whom hadn't unlocked that pinatas intro video ingame yet, and then sending it back a few times.

[@slightlyuncomfortable]

OOH, I'll keep this in mind when I want to play TiP again!

[@anerrorhasoccurred8727]

“Who you can then breed and send to parties” jesus christ that’s dark 💀

[@KingFluffs]

@@slightlyuncomfortable I'm doubtful if it works anymore.

[@KingFluffs]

@@anerrorhasoccurred8727 The show is darker. Lol

[@user-gl1ls1jx3h]

My guess for why the Houlihan room is on this list: From what I've heard, people came up with different methods to access the room, and nobody understood exactly how it worked since all of the methods were extremely different. But it turns out it is just a failsafe for when the game glitches out and doesn't know what room to load; the player gets sent to this room instead.

[@Jacob-Sophia]

I’m pretty sure the Houlihan room was on the list because know one knows who Chris Houlihan was or if they even existed. There a lot of rumors that they were a fake person and the contest was never meant to be won or they had to cover up the real winner for some reason.

[@mmiov]

I remember there being several Myths and Hoaxes regarding Undertale back in it's early days, though they were forgotten to time. Most of them were done by a Tumblr user named Scarodactyl, which included: >A halloween event >Unlocking Quote from Cavestory >And even a secret boss fight of Grillby, an npc featured in snowdin. Those weren't the only ones, though, but they're the most notable examples, others include having a Temmie one shot you in an encounter after making the shop owner Temmie mad at you, other secret bosses, etc. There are even some for Deltarune, but yeah.

[@anerrorhasoccurred8727]

I remember hearing rumours about a secret Gaster bossfight.

[@mmiov]

@@anerrorhasoccurred8727 Me too! I remember an animation made of it with a reverse Megalovania for the theme, did not even know who Gaster was supposed to be back then and I just thought it was present in the actual game, since I did not play Undertale yet back then.

[@PanzerTank_]

The Halloween event probably refers to the character "so sorry." You can fight them in hot lands on Halloween. The reason why this boss exists is because during the undertale's kickstarter, one of the tiers was able to get you your own boss in the game.

[@w.b.s.]

@@PanzerTank_ No, you fight him October 10th, not Halloween, but close

[@catgirlweed0420]

Fuck, I remember seeing the Grillby fight back in the day and believing it was true for a hot second 😭

[@blockomaniac]

Holy crap I didn’t expect to see Blockland in this list. What happened was that the dev for the game made it so a creepy face (which was just a texture) would appear on dark maps during Halloween. I think it was called “prepper” in the files. The community then went a step further and created the hoax called “renderman” (probably as a parody of Minecraft, which blockland was often compared to back in the day, and obviously as a slender man spoof). The idea was that if you took a screenshot on a dark map, a creepy black figure would “render” into the background of it. The figure has the same face as the prepper, which is the connection between the two.

[@Julian7469]

I think I can explain the GTA 5 Mount Chilliad mystery. The mural was supposed to be a cross DLC thing between each of the playabale characters, Trevor's was going to have him be a secret spy agent for the FIB or IAA, Franklin's was set in the zombie apocalypse, and Michael's was going to be the answer to the mystery which included Mount Chilliad to split in half hatching thousands of aliens to invade the city and Michael has a HUGE fear of aliens while also having to protect his family. Sadly... assets from these DLC's were repurposed into GTA Online because it made more money. :( For example: The Arena Wars update includes heavily modified cars & textures from the zombie DLC. EDIT: Apparently, it's a debate on which DLC was who's between Michael and Franklin.

[@henriquebraganca123]

And Trevor's secret agent story was reworked into The Doomsday Heist.

[@gaming_tim]

So does that mean the jetpack from online is from Michael's single player DLC or am i trippin?

[@Julian7469]

@@gaming_tim I realized I didn't make it clear initially, the mural was supposed to be a cross DLC thing between ALL 3. It's believed to be in Trevor's DLC with the unlock process going unknown. The location to acquire the jetpack was Rex's Diner but it could've been a placeholder because it went unfinished after a lot of it went to GTA Online.

[@gaming_tim]

@@Julian7469 oh ok my bad.

[@blitzie66]

this hurts me so much Gta V single player had so much potential

[@DevilSpider_]

48:14 I can actually add to this entry: The entity, originally based upon a creepypasta (The Renderman creepypasta) inspired by a creepypasta (Slenderman), can actually appear in-game via modding the game. Renderman used to be a very favorite gamemode a few years back. The Prepper refers to an event in the mod where a floating image of one of two Renderman's faces appears for a split second.

[@sydneypoulin6779]

Love sourcebrew going off on a tangent for a few seconds over how wild it was that guys were attracted to Lara Croft when she "looks like Minecraft" lol.

[@Kirbman]

The contest won by Chris Hoolihan wasn't specifically for a hidden room in a Link to the Past. It was just to have your name featured in a future Nintendo game. The reason it's on this list is most likely because the room is not actually accessible normally. It requires glitching the game somehow to load a room that doesn't exist, which will load the Hoolihan room as a failsafe. For years it wasn't even known that the room existed. It also begs the question why Nintendo decided to include the winner of the contest in a room that wasn't even meant to be accessible in the first place.

[@not_anymore]

42:25 to clarify, the hoax didn't spread because of the Markiplier meme, that meme is from the fourth game (almost a year after the first game came out). "the bite of '87" was first mentioned by Phone Guy in FNaF 1, the character who calls you each night to give you tips and drop some lore

[@AluminumFusion22]

Yeah, we didn't know that FNAF 4 took place in 1983, even though the TV blatantly says "Fazbear and Friends 1983". The Bite of '87 was so shrouded in mystery that fans were connecting dots in places Scott never intended. It sucks to say this, but as of this comment, The Bite of '87 is purely an off-screen event. It wasn't even FNAF 4 anyway, as Phone Guy mentions in FNAF 1 that the victim managed to survive the bite, hence "It's amazing that someone can live without their frontal lobe, y'know?"

[@MrsIggyKirkland]

Just a note: There's a SotC fanproject in the works called Beyond the Forbidden Land that's looking to recreate all of the known cut colossi from the game. They've made some seriously cool progress iwth the boar Sirrius, there's interviews on KZbin about it. Looks very promissing

[@rompevuevitos222]

iirc, the devs not only provided the codes to have Lara nude But the code was actually coded in game. The thing is that instead of making her nude, she would just blow up and have her body parts scattered about

[@yoshikatsu_kira]

30:56 In Smash Ultimate, Master Hand is playable during World of Light. You have to keep both sides balanced and defeat Master Hand and Crazy Hand in the Final Battle realm. Once you've done that, Master Hand and Crazy Hand should appear to make a rift, when entered, will allow you to play as Master Hand.

[@RealHyperHedgehog]

I love video games rumors and hoaxes. They’re always interesting.

[@ARDIZsq]

31:46 WELL ACKSHUALLY 🤓... Yeah, they DID make a playable Master Hand eventually. At the end of the World of Light in Smash Ultimate, there's a section where you get to play as Master Hand. It's really cool that after all this time they made him playable, even if only briefly.

[@kaylac8449]

I’m so glad the Webkinz one was on this list. I remember being eight or nine and everyone gossiping about how to save our pets on the playground lol.

[@captainweekend5276]

Toothpaste is a mild abrasive that basically buffs out big scratches into smaller ones which can make the disc readable again. I remember discovering it as a bit of trivia and telling my parents, only for my dad to immediately get mad at me and tell me to never put a disc I had cleansed with toothpaste in the computer. I'm not sure if he thought I meant to put a disc with toothpaste on into the disc drive, or whether he thought just having put a disc in that had been cleaned with toothpaste would somehow short circuit the computer.

[@foxyguy1008]

9:25 I know a lot about this one so allow me to explain it a bit. So as we all probably know in the first Mortal Kombat there was a hidden fight with Reptile with him also leaving clues on how to fight him sometimes. I bring this up because in the games audits menu under "Reptile battles" was "Ermacs" which led people to believe that there was another hidden fight which led to a bunch of rumors which led to the the EGM article. The rumor was probably so widespread that the developers had to confirm that it was fake and even took jabs at it in Mortal Kombat 2. For one Smoke and Jade (two characters in MK2 that had secret battles like Reptile) both had clues that said "Ermac who?", secondly after beating Shao Kahn there would be a word scramble that when unscrambled says "Ermac does not exist". This saga would finally come to a close when Ermac would be added as a playable character in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

[@SheparDox]

ERMACS stood for "error macros", basically a report of how many times errors occurred.

[@michaelfalcone7110]

4:57 We knew Luigi was always meant to be in the game even before the gigaleak. The gigaleak only just gave the model.

[@yoshiiyanishimura1244]

I would LOVE a video on PokeGods man I was SO into all the discussion about these back in the day, it really brings back memories : ' )

[@craigcaldwell2966]

I remember growing up there was a rumor about a game that focused around Silver the Hedgehog similar to Shadow the Hedgehog. Looking back on it, it was totally bogus but given how Sega was treating the franchise around the time it wasn't totally unbelievable. I'd say the part that really clued me in that it was a hoax back then was the "fact" that the game was rated M and that the game would have side content that related to relationships between certain characters. Which is all especially funny given how Silver as a character has been characterized nowadays.

[@brandonburch1447]

Great video! Thanks for not including stupid creepy music or jumpscares, definetly helps the watch time!

[@casperplaysgames_9459]

If I remember correctly, the whole L is real thing turned out to be more true than just the fact that Luigi was in the leak. Now, I’m not 100% sure but the leak came out on April 1st, 2020. 4/1/20. Which is just a reworking of the number on the original sign, 2401.

[@HyperrealisticLuigi]

He was leaked on that day on purpose

[@aspen34]

it’s not really a reworking, 2.4.01 is just how it would be written outside of america !

[@neuralthief7082]

Once you play the Stanley Parable make sure you get the Broom closet ending. The Broom closet ending is my favourite.

[@Real_Life_Killjoy]

"hAvE yOu GoT tHe BrOoOoM cLoSeT eNdInG?!?! tHe BrOoM cLoSeT eNdInG iS mY fAvoRiTe!!!"

[@Fatherblahaj]

Wasn’t that a fake Roblox thingy? Sorry idk.

[@Zombie_Trooper]

"I remember my dad doing this..." Welp...guess I'm officially old...

[@sourgreendolly7685]

The pain I feel 😭

[@krspykreame1]

B r u h

[@tendoukiryu6989]

Yeah I didn’t think SourceBrew was that young, 90s kids were the last cartridge generation with the N64 and Game Boy. None of us would have kids as old as he is.

[@DetectiveJones]

I remember the toothpaste thing! I had to use it to fix my Oblivion because the Shivering Isles disc was scratched up and that shit works

[@thewhiterabbit133]

10:43 the reason toothpaste works on game discs is because is basically just polishing out scratches on it since its abrasive

[@Joel-oy5zc]

I wont spoil anything, but the reason the Stanley Parable entry is so vague is because the game intenionally defies expections for videogame mechanics, which includes endings. As such, some objectives can only be accomplished by doing things that either make no sense, would be impossible for a real human playing, or require actions in real life outside of the game. One in particular requires you to play a minigame in a certain room for 4 continuous hours without failing even once. About halfway through, the narrator suspects that you've setup a cheating program and left your pc/console idle. He then amps up the difficulty to mess it up.

[@MisterMistea]

Disappointed he didn't mention how the '2401' part of L is real was also true because the leak happened 24 years and one month after the game's release date

[@wadmodderschalton5763]

Now what's next, Wario in Super Mario 64? Because the Wario "You Want Fun?" hoax looks like a low-budget animation. (1:08:33)

[@Fatherblahaj]

The 2401 actually refers to the release of a game that was Luigi only. can’t remember the game tho. I will try and update this.

[@MisterMistea]

@@Fatherblahaj that's actually incorrect. It was a common rumor, but it was not true

[@cauliflowerconnoisseur2710]

I have this distinct memory of reading in either a handbook or on a YT comment that in RE4 if you shot every single portrait of Osmund Saddler you would get a secret weapon and ending. I told my friend at school and we discussed what the ending would be. We both tried for so long to get it but of course it was all nonsense.

[@cchickenpasta]

not so distinct if it's either a book or yt comment mate xD

[@punstartracer]

58:00 I think what the Chris Houlihan room hoax entry talks about where it's actually located in the game. In the American and European copies the room is used as a failsafe if you go in a room with an invalid number, but there were many posts and even articles in Club Nintendo theorizing that it could be acceded via a hidden house, the top of a pyramid or by talking to an NPC that would teleport you there

[@absinthemakestheheart]

These videos have unironically gotten me through my exams because they're interesting enough that I'm paying attention but also informational enough that I can do my work while listening to it so thank you

[@Silverheart575]

From what I remember in regards to the Houlihan Room one, while the Nintendo Power competition was real, it was never stated who won the contest, and the Houlihan room is a room the game sends link when it detects an error in links placing. To quote the Zelda Wiki: “It is believed that Chris Houlihan was the winner of a Nintendo Power contest held during September and October of 1990, where the winner would have their name programmed into a future NES game. This was first stated in the December 1994 issue of Club Nintendo, the official Nintendo magazine for Latin America. *However, the winner of the contest was never revealed by Nintendo Power and Chris Houlihan has never been confirmed to even be a real person.”*

[@frostare]

It's always a great day when sourcebrew covers an iceberg video.

[@i.l.l.l.l.]

I can never get enough of these. Perfect background listening

[@exterminator9676]

48:42 The "prepper" actually was in Blockland for a short amount of time during a secret halloween update by Badspot, which spawned particle effects of one of the games faces, called "ascii_terror". It was secretly included in a halloween bricks add-on and then removed later on.

[@bloodblues85]

The PokeGods rumors came about because people hacked Pokemon past the original 151 in the game. It seemed to lend credibility when the first Pokemon movie came out and it featured more Pokemon. Back then we didn't know there were going to be more games after Red/Blue, so it all seemed very mysterious.

[@TheDigitalApple]

Herobrine, L is real, Mew under the truck. The holy trinity of gaming hoaxes

[@Buddhistsocialist]

Man you’re killin it with the content lately

[@CaptainAkward]

despite constantly trying to prevent it, i always find myself leaning left or right while playing racing games

[@fzxfzxfzx]

fr

[@pelvist]

Theres more to the Aerith revivable theory. Most notable is the data dump of the games code that revealed Aerith has dialogue as far into the game as the final battle in the crater. Couple that with "Aeriths ghost" a real bug that exists in the original game that causes Aerith to appear after her death as a single frame as you enter the chappel where you first met her in sector 7.

[@Sunburst_No]

I guess the shadow of the colossus legend is TECHNICALLY somewhat true. The colossal enemies were basically guarding pieces of the colossus shadow (from what I understand) hence the name... Shadow of the colossus (singular) so you become the colossus at the end having absorbed it's shadow. You're technically the last colossus, maybe the only real colossus.

[@Mr.SnekMeister]

I've been watching a lot of Iceberg deep dives lately and each one warrants me subscribing to the user, which you sir have earned. In terms of gaming mysteries that impacted me, it was definitely Waluigi being in SM64DS and the Hanging Luigi shadow. The former one is that I've wasted many hours doing nonsensical stuff to unlock the myth himself and the latter one heavily impacted my childhood mind as I was going through a "dark" period of my life.

[@GarryDumblowski]

I remember a *very* long time ago, while watching videos on Ocarina of Time, i found a poor quality video explaining how to activate God Mode in OoT, which included a cool black tunic and the ability to fly. To trigger the mode you had to use the infinite bomb hover glitch to exit out the upper-right corner of the door to the Temple of Time as adult Link, which would magically turn the game into Super Mario 64. From there, you had to do something in Bob-omb Battlefield to change the game back to OoT with god mode enabled.

[@saraceaser]

One hoax I'm actually super surprised didn't get on the list while the Mossdeep Rocket did is the Lavender Town myth; I remember that being a massive one for Red/Blue/Yellow along with the Mew under the Truck. Besides that I love Polybius, it's my favorite video game myth of all time for just how wild it is.

[@Wafel_Ijzer]

about Polybius, a band called Nine Inch Nails which has been around since the 80's used Polybius as a concept for the music video they did for one of their songs called "Less Than"

[@arstulex]

The Mount Chiliad Mystery is widely considered to be 'solved'. I say 'solved' like that because it's not solved in the sense that the mystery's puzzle itself has actually been solved, but more in the sense that it's been determined that there is no solution to the mystery in the game. There are two main theories behind the Mount Chiliad Mystery: 1). It's already been solved in its entirely and people are just looking too deeply into it, expecting there to be more to the mystery than is actually there. The clues were only ever intended to lead to the UFO that appears at Chiliad after 100% story completion and there is nothing more after that. 2). The puzzle itself was left unfinished. It was intended to be continued with the singleplayer DLC that was originally planned but then scrapped when Rockstar chose to switch their focus to creating multiplayer content instead. The puzzle was therefore abandoned by the devs, similarly to Banjo Kazooie's "Stop N Swap". I personally lean more towards the latter of the two.

[@mysryuza]

As a Zelda fan, I remember some people talking about accessing some temple or something as adult Link below the frozen ice in Zora’s domain. It was around the time I was hearing about the Unicorn Fountain and Sky Temple when I was a teen.

[@ElSandwich777]

I have two possible answers for this This one kzbin.info/www/bejne/aKnCoaSvp8tsoqM And this one kzbin.info/www/bejne/hn_FnKmVea9jnJI Apologies if they’re the same video but I think one has a bit more detail than the other.

[@funsizedbeans]

i still think it’s so cool how the sparky the dog hoax got so popular that he was included in the fnaf movie

[@cgimichaelmyers2806]

The Chilliad Mystery has been solved for a while, the three symbols on the drawing resemble Michael, Franklin, and Trevor. You are required to complete all the missions, once you do that the UFO will spawn on top of Mtn Chilliad, that is it. The stuff in Doomsday Heist and beyond were just added for the fans.

[@Fatherblahaj]

nuh uh

[@Vince_ExE]

Yuh uh

[@Acro_YT]

9/10 iceberg video. All topics are interesting, no boring parts, and overall I loved this one.

[@JustAPrinnyDood]

I remember someone suggesting Brutus the Bulldog should become a real villager in the future but have him introduced as someone who's just misunderstood.

[@KnownOnlyAsDM]

during the undertale demo, there was a rumor going around about a "real knife" counterpart to the toy/fake knife. this did not exist at the time but may have inspired the actual item, which existed in the final release

[@ivarberkman8907]

Awesome. Your content is so underrated, it’s always a great time!!

[@nrh]

yoooo

[@Batnano]

not so underrated anymore

[@rooknizan2923]

47:00 Fun fact, Baldi's third question actually would in theory be answerable if NULL did not exist. In the game, it is revealed in the Classic Remastered edition that NULL has been pulling the strings in an attempt to force the game to die by making it unbeatable, however, when his first trick did not kill the game (which was scrambling the third question on all 6 notebooks past the first one, a good theory explaining the delay is that NULL takes a minute to "boot up" and register a player as playing the game, just long enough for them to finish the first set of questions and get the Quarter) he resorted to more direct approaches, scrambling the player's game entirely, giving the player cryptic messages in person, and when all else failed, he replaced Baldi in an attempt to end the game himself, which ended in him deleting himself from the game.

[@nulls5408]

Interestingly enough, for ocarina of time their is an speedrun category that is for triforce%. Where through the use of a lot of arbitrary code execution allows the player to actually complete multiple oot hoaxes in game like that of the running man. With it ending with the player not only getting the triforce but also getting an cutscene of botw link in oot. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend you do - it’s honestly pretty cool.

[@natestea3613]

One hour. TIME TO GET THE POPCORN BECAUSE THIS IS GONNA BE A GOOD ONE!

[@ZorotheGallade]

I love that Sora ltd acknowledged the playable Master Hand rumor and actually added a level in Smash Bros Ultimate where you actually get to play as it.

[@drethom087]

The tomb raider code reminds me of something, back when I was a kid, games like that did look real to us, just as real as new games when you got immersed. It’s weird. Outside of bad games, PlayStation games and beyond felt like the graphics were amazing and you could get lost in them. Angelina Jolie is exactly what we pictured so the movie added to it

[@verylostdoommarauder]

I don't know if anyone else remembers this, but back around Portal 2's release, there was a hoax video that claimed that if you did a series of very specific actions, you would find a massive secret room where a giant screen would "reveal" that Half Life 3 would release in 2014.

[@guhuhh]

Surprised the 2nd bus route in Tranzit wasn't talked about. Me nd my friend spent months looking. Listened to every single audio dialogue file. The game devs were definitely messing with all of us so hard. Every bus accessory had a 2nd use outside the bus..except the ladder. This is important because there an audio file from the female character 'Misty' where she eludes to a treehouse being somewhere. This treehouse would be the 2nd use for the ladder although it was never found. Plus the 15 other things that pointed to a 2nd route throughout the map

[@keysorsomething]

26:26 When the first game came out I was super little and I was sooo sure that sparky the dog was real and I had fan art of him as my phone's wallpaper lmao

[@badrumioli]

addressing the jumbled math in the room (46:48): this rumor is pretty funny, but none of the versions of classic (og and remastered) have the third problem considered as solvable at any point, og classic's code even has a mode which activates when you have more than two books labelled as the "impossible" one. so, it was pretty funny seeing the attempts at solving the by definition unsolvable thing.

[@nicks4802]

I was an active hoax chaser when i was a kid. I didn’t have internet at home until 2010, So when something suddenly came to mind in a game, or you remembered to look for something a friend told you about, You had ZERO ways to confirm it other than trial and error, Until i later discovered other people online looking for a confirming/debunking things in games. The san andreas sasquatch chase brings me back…. Many, MANY weekends spent at my friend Marcus’ house. We’d stay up all night, until his parents woke up and sent us to bed. We searched every pixel of the rural areas of san andreas. When we finally found out the myth was started because somebody made a mod for PC we couldn’t even play for ourselves…. We were sooooo cheesed lol Y’all kids need to start telling your friends in the school yard that you unlocked something fake in a game, Just to keep the spirit of this stuff alive haha

[@huntercoleherr]

Recent events have made it possible to revive Aerith through an extremely convoluted series of glitches that was clearly never intended.

[@damalona]

with the blowing into the cartridge one many people notice there old nes games were not working when inserting them on their nes. they thought it was because they were full of dust hence why they would blow on it. however, this was actually not the case. the truth is the resion why it does not work is because the pins in the nes would constantly be push down and be bent any time you insert the nes cartridge. the only way to solve this is to use a top loader

[@tiramika]

The Roblox hacker one is true, actually, although it wasn't 1x1x1x1. In 2012 a user called Ellernate gained access to an admin account on a Roblox-adjacent site used for testing site features called SiteTest3. Ellernate had the ability to do things like change the website warning banner [a bar at the top of the site that normally had stuff like server shutdowns in] and making other users admin. They also made the face item "c:" amongst other things, which is now pretty infamous. But yeah, it was real, i remember it happening. Fun times.

[@NostalgicMorsels]

we have officially reached a point where people dont know what blowing in the game cartridge is for

[@TruthInc]

The toothpaste was essentially waxing the DVDs or CDs to fill in the gaps that would keep the game from working correctly. We blew out our 8 & 16-bit carts to clear dust or debris from the connection points.

[@TruthInc]

Oh and that Ermac pic is from Mortal Kombat X, not EGM

[@Modusiticate]

i think evil otto was partly to blame for that heart attack victim. not for any supernatural reason, but because it is legitimately terrifying. get an emulator and try it for yourself, it's crazy how scary ~16 pixels can be in the right context.

[@ProdByPvssword]

28:26 28:26

[@BeyondBaito]

It was stated though that the player who had the heart attack did have a heart defect at the time

[@Modusiticate]

@@BeyondBaito yes i think that was the main reason, but i still think otto contributed... like an enzyme in a chemical reaction

[@pscl534]

This video woke up my 10-years old me. A throwback to 2012, so amazing

[@nym2717]

when Pokemon GO was popular i tried to start a rumor that rubbing the PokeBall after catching something would increase ur chances of catching it. it didnt catch on, but i still rubbed the ball up until i stopped playing lol

[@ShOscar]

I remember a long time ago, probably around 2011, i looked up a guide for Sonic Adventure 2 unlockables. I think it was on Games Radar or Cheat Planet. It listed all the powerups you can get in the game, including one called the "Black Box Sommersault" which can let you break indestructible crates in the game. It said you can get this for Sonic at Cannons Core, but this isnt true. My brother and I debunked it by using Action Replay to explore every nook and cranny of the level with a moon jump cheat lol

[@masterseal0418]

Honorable mentions: FF8: Squall is Dead Theory(traumatized me as a kid, dammit!) and Rinoa = Ultimecia Smash 4 & Ultimate: Shulk reusing Little Mac model, Rayman, and the Grinch Leak(only Piranha Plant, Ken Masters, Joker and Banjo-Kazooie were confirmed, jokingly called 'The Plant Gang') Zelda Majora’s Mask: Ben Drowned Creepypasta(like with the first mention, internet video game hoaxes/urban legends are truly the subject for childhood trauma) Super Mario 64: Yoshi Commits Suicide, Wet Dry World Negative Aura Earthbound(Mother)/Undertale: Ness is Sans, Giygas Fetus Theory Petscop in general GTA San Andreas: UFO Talking Angela controversy(the title character's eye shine had a child predator in it, and parents were worried their childrens' personal information would be exposed. Thankfully the incident was just a hoax, though nowadays we live in a world where any company could solicit our personal information at any time) Sad Satan in general Smash Bros Brawl: The Forbidden 7(Plusle & Minun, Dixie Kong, Toon Zelda/Toon Sheik aka Tetra, any Bond from Goldeneye 007, Mewtwo, Roy)

[@Shadria1996]

I like how no one questioned the "catch Lickitung with a Ultra Ball" at the start of the Luigi Pokemon hoax. The only games where you can catch Lickitung in the wild is the Japanese Blue and all versions of Yellow (which wasn't out yet, looking at the screenshot in the hoax page)

[@cantankerousgoblin]

For "Secret Party Members" its more likely the creator forgot the context of what they were referring to. The only two secret party members in FF7 are Yuffie (ninja encountered in any forest after mythril mines that you must use specific dialogue to recruit) and Vincent (recruited in Nibelheim mansions basement after you crack the safe code), there obviously is no "goblin" or "chocobo" party member. BUT. Goblin & Chocobo both have unique abilities you can copy if you have a party member w/ the Enemy Skill Materia. Goblin having Goblin Punch and Chocobo having Chocobuckle, considering they stress "fighting chocobo" I assume this is what the guide they were referring to was actually about, where to find the learnable enemy skills in FF7. Although, if that's not the case, chocobos are important for the sidequests of FF7 and have to be encountered in combat so I can get assuming they could be used in battle (they cant), and goblins in FF7 are literally wearing boxing gear and look nothing like any other enemy in the game so its also fair to have assumed maybe they would be a party member.

[@iprobablysuck9107]

Creator here, nope. It was definitely purporting to have secret party members, and admitted outright it was fake. It was on some final fantasy 7 fansite if I recall

[@maccamachine]

Hell yeah new sourcebrew iceberg! All of your videos are great man especially these long ones keep up the good work, you’re one of my favorite channels!

[@SuperMarioMaker64]

For the Justin Bailey one, I just searched this up, but there are multiple Justin Baileys on Earth. For the ones I searched up, one is an ice hockey player from New York who plays for the Bakersfield Condors and another is a former professional basketball player. I don't think anyone named Justin Bailey have worked on Metroid since I never played it or even heard of it until I saw this video so I'm not sure, unless a developer was a fan of the ice hockey player Justin or the basketball player Justin.

[@chillPug39]

I remember a time where i was playing Lego Star Wars TCS, and i decided to let the credits roll, and i saw someone named Michael Jackson in the credits, so there is a chance that there could be a Justin Bailey that worked on Metroid.

[@GarryDumblowski]

It doesn't surprise me that people tried to revive Aerith and Leo considering how many dead party members you can revive in FFIV.

[@Gloomdrake]

Death is just a mild inconvenience

[@halloweenz]

I was literally wishing last night that someone would make an old internet hoax/video game rumor ice berg and I wake up to this!! Awesome video.

[@lyndelle9562]

28:22 the book was supposed to be the coin collection mission but was changed later in development I think in the files in the game the text for the mission is still there so go look it up