Video game urban legends have been around since the inception of arcade cabinets and video game consoles. There’s no doubt that you’ve heard some over the years (especially if you ever spent time on a playground as a kid), and not just the “my uncle works at Nintendo” lie that some kids enjoyed tell.
Urban legends are more than just the rumor that there was a secret code to make Tomb Raider more adult-oriented. They’re usually long stories about scary things found within games or haunted playthroughs that take a turn for the worse.
Most originate on the website creepypasta while others have circulated by word of mouth, but one things for sure, they’re spooky.
So if you’re in the mood to sleep with your head under the covers in fear tonight, then here’s a list of creepy video game urban legends. Let’s take a look.
Hell Valley Sky Tree
Mario isn’t very deep on lore or full of frights, so it’s pretty crazy when something like Hell Valley Sky Tree comes out of Super Mario Galaxy 2. This creepy sighting is quite tucked away. You can play the game multiple times and miss it.
When you enter the Shiverburn Galaxy and look to your upper left, you’ll see ominous, shadowy figures that don’t resemble anything ever seen in a Mario game before.
They can never be reached nor are they ever explained, they just watch Mario as he progresses through the stage. What’s weirder is the internal code name their files are given.
The two figures are given the name “hellvalleyskytree” and their models are actually dozens of times larger than Mario. Things don’t end there though. The figures also appear in Super Mario 3D Land under strange circumstances.
In world 4-4, if you stand at the goal post for over 30 seconds, a similar figure will appear in the background briefly before disappearing. Many think that these shadows are meant to be Kodama, Japanese tree spirits, but their origin and purpose still remain a mystery.
Lavender Town Syndrome
Perhaps one of the most popular video game urban legends, the Lavender Town Syndrome legend made the rounds in the early 2010s and originated from a creepypasta.
In the first generation of Pokemon games, there was a rural area called Lavender Town. The town was small and campy, even for an early Pokemon game and the most notable location in it was a huge Pokemon graveyard.
The first thing you might notice, however, is the creepy music that seems incredibly out of place. For a game aimed at children, the theme and atmosphere of the town seemed off and unsettling.
Rumors began to spread that when the game first released, there was a spike in child suicides in Japan. Apparently, the Lavender Town Theme had extremely high frequencies that only kids could hear and these frequencies caused nausea, nosebleeds, and even suicidal thoughts.
There were apparently two hundred such cases that all had the similarity of children playing Pokemon and committing the act after they got to Lavender Town. This would be terrifying if… the whole thing wasn’t just made up.
There is absolutely no evidence that this theme caused anything like this to happen. Yeah, the song feels dark and odd, but it’s just meant to contrast the colorful world of Pokemon with the sad story of Lavender Town.
Herobrine – Minecraft
Minecraft, the most popular game in the world, is supposed to be a relaxing game where you can flex your creativity. It can be an experience shared with friends or give you time to just be alone. But what if you weren’t alone?
Imagine sitting in your room at night, starting a new Minecraft world only to realize that things are off. There are already man made structures and caves and you think you keep seeing someone off in the distance.
You double check to see if you’re in multiplayer but you’re not. You finally get a look at whoever else is in the game with you, and it’s the default player skin, but the eyes are completely white.
This apparently happened to an unnamed Minecraft player who later went on to ask others if they had any similar experiences. When he tried to reach out on some forums, his posts were immediately taken down.
The player got a direct message from someone named Herobrine that said one word,
“stop”
Another forum user eventually messaged the player and told them about a small directory of people who have had similar experiences.
Upon further research, the player found out that the name Herobrine was Swedish, and that Notch, Minecraft’s creator, had a dead brother named Herobrine.
The player emailed Notch and asked him if he did in fact, have a brother, and Notch eventually replied,
“I did, but he is no longer with us”
From here, the story of the mysterious player ends, but the tale of Herobrine goes viral. Countless others have claimed to see Herobrine and have even recorded him in the game.
Mojang has even put in their patch notes that they have removed him from the game over twenty times.
But Notch apparently never had a brother named Herobrine, and if you ask some higher-ups at Mojang about this rumor, you’ll get varying responses of its authenticity. So it’s up to you to determine if you believe it or not.
Ben Drowned
It would be impossible to sum up the entire story of Ben Drowned, so I suggest you go read the creepypasta, or watch one of the fantastic readings.
It’s the story of a distressed college student named Alex who slowly questions his sanity due to a haunted video game, a now common trope in video game creepypastas.
After picking up a N64 and a copy of The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask from a strange old man, Alex soon realized the game was not what he remembered from his childhood.
What follows is a series of haunting events that lead to Alex’s life being taken over by the spirit of a dead child who haunts his old Majora’s Mask cartridge.
There are a lot of factors that go into making Ben Drowned so full of dread and guttural anguish. Perhaps it’s easy to imagine an innocent college student, so scared he’s spends multiple nights laying awake in his dorm room.
Or maybe it’s just watching gleeful nostalgia being taken away from someone and being replaced with terror, hysteria, and paranoia.
Just re-reading the story to write this has me creeped out, and I’ve read this story multiple times by now. It just goes to show you how wonderfully scary and well-written this urban legend is.
Polybius
In the early days of gaming, there was no 4K, no streaming services, and no microtransactions, but there were arcades and arcade cabinets. And they were no stranger to rumors, secrets, and all kinds of urban legends.
Perhaps one of the first video game urban legends, Polybius was apparently a government-run experiment during the 1980s in Portland Oregon, done through an arcade cabinet.
The Polybius game apparently was highly addictive and caused insomnia and amnesia. Rumor has it that the cabinets were watched by men dressed in black suits who would then break open the cabinets and collect data from them.
If you think this sounds like a government conspiracy right out of Stranger Things, that’s because it does.
A month after its supposed release, Polybius vanished from existence, with no one able to verify if it even really existed. The ’80s were a strange time, so maybe the government really was trying to control us with video games. Or, like many other urban legends, it’s just a tall tale.
So in the end, do you believe in haunted video game cartridges? Or arcade cabinets used for government experiments? Maybe you’ll think of these stories next time you play game alone in the middle of the night.
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