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Join us as we explore the craziest, funniest, and most ridiculous reasons video games had to be changed.
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00:00Creating a video game is no easy feat, and usually changes, big and small, need to be
00:05made for understandable purposes.
00:08But not all fixes are as normal as others, because sometimes the motive behind a patch
00:13can be absolutely crazy.
00:16I'm Josh from WalkCultureGaming and today we're covering ridiculous reasons games had
00:21to be changed.
00:22First up, the devs didn't want to upset a new employee, Phantasy Star 2.
00:28Have you ever had that feeling of starting a new job and trying so hard to impress the
00:33brass that you overdo it a little bit?
00:36Well in any case it's hard to imagine the higher ups being unhappy with your work and
00:41not telling you that you're doing something wrong.
00:44Unless, of course, you're Sega, in which case some devs are more than happy to keep your
00:49work in the final product, even if they aren't too keen on it.
00:54In 1993, developer interviewed with staff who worked on the seminal sci-fi RPG Phantasy
00:59Star 2 tells such a story.
01:02According to game designer Kotaro Hayashida, the design of the game's dungeons was passed
01:07over to a new employee.
01:09This employee quote, kind of overdid it, leading to a slew of over-designed dungeons that made
01:15the game quote, more about complex dungeons than anything else, which wasn't the original
01:20plan.
01:21However, rather than scrapping the work of this new employee, the game's writer director,
01:26Chieko Aoki, decided that she didn't want to hurt their feelings and waste all their
01:31effort.
01:32Therefore, their work was kept and used, even if it was quote, with some mixed feelings,
01:38as per Hayashida.
01:39So the original plan of the game was altered because the bosses just didn't want to discourage
01:44their new employee.
01:45Now that's a wholesome work environment if I ever heard of one.
01:49The banter was too much, Forspoken.
01:54Forspoken is an absurd game that is, in a way, kind of brilliant as it exemplifies all the
02:00bad tropes of modern AAA gaming.
02:02It's got a bland open world, repetitive gameplay, convoluted combat, and of course writing that's
02:08so quippy, sardonic, and try-hard that it makes you cringe.
02:12And that last point is exactly where this entry comes into play.
02:17One of the biggest complaints people had about this action RPG was the Marvel-esque dialogue,
02:22especially the conversations between protagonist Frey and her talking bracelet cuff.
02:28Listening to these two banter back and forth with lackluster one liners and uninspired quips
02:32left many players feeling frustrated and wishing they could just mute them.
02:37The game even came with an option to adjust the frequency of their dialogue, however Forspoken
02:43had to change itself even further, as the cringe-worthy banter caught plenty of flack
02:48even with this slider involved.
02:50So a patch was released four months after the game came out as covered via Eurogamer that
02:56further reduced the frequency and content of their banter during open world activities.
03:01Now imagine your writing being so bad that people just want to mute you, can't relate.
03:08Next up, unfortunate graffiti placement, Stellarblade.
03:12Set dressing is the kind of thing most gamers won't notice, small in-world details are intended
03:18to make the environment feel alive, usually without distracting the player too much.
03:23So imagine how embarrassed the devs for Stellarblade must have felt when they realised the massive blunder
03:29that they'd made due to some awkward graffiti placement.
03:33Because yeah, nobody could ignore this.
03:35One piece of Stellarblade's elaborate visual design is the use of graffiti,
03:39with designs appearing throughout the game.
03:42It also has a selection of vendors, one of which is called Roxanne.
03:46This is all pretty innocent, but it was less so when some accidental graffiti placement,
03:51which spelled out the word hard, was placed right next to a sign for Roxanne's shop that was simply
03:58the words R shop. Yeah, the devs accidentally alluded to a racial slur by placing the word hard
04:05right next door to the letter R. Sony themselves had to comment on this mistake, as per Forbes,
04:11calling it an, quote, unintentional, objectionable phrase, and then patched it out.
04:17Next up, Puckman, Pacman.
04:19If you're a fan of the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, then you probably already know this one.
04:24However, for anyone who isn't aware, the moral of this story is that gamers cannot be trusted.
04:31Pacman, of course, is a gaming icon that the whole world knows.
04:35You could find someone living inside a cave in a distant, far off land, probably not even on this
04:41planet, and they'd probably still say, oh yeah, that's the Whacka Whacka guy.
04:45And if you're wondering, the Whacka Whacka woman, of course, is not Miss Pacman, but rather,
04:51Shakira. I was proud of that joke.
04:54The point is, his name has undergone a slight transformation, as his original Japanese iteration
05:00was known as Puckman. The original name came from the Japanese phrase Apaku-Paku-Taburu,
05:06which is used to describe the sounds and action of gobbling things up.
05:10However, this moniker was abandoned when the game was released in North America,
05:15as there was concern, naturally, that his name would be vandalized, with the P being replaced
05:20with an F. And yeah, it wouldn't look great on Namco to see the words, well, you can imagine them
05:26on their machines, so you can see the concern. It is fascinating to know that a fear of arcade
05:32hooliganism, though, led to such an iconic name being born. Next up, the studio was afraid of Sean
05:38Connery, GoldenEye. Gaming myths were rampant in the pre-internet era, with a particularly popular one
05:45being the All Bonds cheat. This urban legend claimed that the N64 classic shooter GoldenEye featured a
05:53cheat that would unlock models for nearly every iteration of Bond, letting you and your friends
05:58juke it out to see which one was the best. This was naturally false, however, while the rumor itself
06:05was a hoax, it's surprising to know how close to reality it actually was. That's because there
06:11were plans to include a four Bond mode, including Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and
06:17Pierce Brosnan, and tough luck for George Lazenby. However, this concept was scrapped, and during an
06:24interview with The Independent, the game's director, Martin Hollis, revealed that the reason the mode was
06:29removed was because the company was afraid of what cinema's first Bond would do to them.
06:35I think they were worried about him getting litigious, Hollis claimed. While the idea would
06:40have been amazing, it seems incurring the wrath of the original 007 wasn't a risk worth taking.
06:46Next up, many unexpected results, Dwarf Fortress. For those unfamiliar with Dwarf Fortress, this is a
06:53bonkers management and construction simulator game with uncompromising levels of complexity. As such,
07:00it has some of the funniest patch notes, as collected by PC Gamer, that you'll find in any game ever.
07:07Some of the things the devs had to fix due to unexpected outcomes, I swear down will leave you
07:12in stitches. I mean, just look at some of these highlights. There's one that says fixed bugs where
07:16animals could rent rooms, fixed bugs with mule shitting luggage, stopped children from buying
07:23shops, weasels probably shouldn't be found on glaciers, rodent man has no teeth, and the iconic
07:30added cat butchery. I don't even know what that last one means. I mean, I can kind of get it,
07:36but I kind of don't want to get it, you know what I mean?
07:38Another particularly amusing alteration the game needed to make was for the sake of saving the
07:44dwarf kids. It turns out that forgetting to dress them once they turned two years old was leading to
07:49them dying of embarrassment, literally. Unlike other entries on this list, the thrill of this game is
07:55in its unpredictability and weirdness though. As such, these goofy changes are part of the broader
08:01appeal of this absolutely absurd title. Next up, the drunken princess, Super Mario Kart. The bright,
08:09fun, inviting world of Mario Kart is about as controversial as a butterfly resting on a flower.
08:15This series is renowned worldwide for its family friendly content and wholesome overall vibe.
08:21That's what makes it so funny then to learn that the first game in the series had to make a
08:26controversial change when bringing the game to America, and it was all down to the villainous
08:30Bowser and the charming Princess Peach. After achieving victory in Super Mario Kart, each character
08:36performs a unique animation while holding a bottle of champagne. While most characters just toy about
08:43with it, the original Japanese release saw two characters crack it open and neck it to their
08:48heart's content. Those figures, as you might have guessed, were Bowser and Peach. Now, Bowser's messy
08:54chugging does feel pretty fitting, but seeing the affable Princess Peach get all flushed upon drowning
09:01champagne was a little less familiar. As such, Nintendo America saw it fit to change these animations when
09:08localizing to the west, switching to Bowser cheering, and Peach throwing the bottle up and down like it
09:14was a football. Bring it back I say though, though knowing Nintendo they'll probably charge extra for
09:19it, wouldn't they? The original name was less than PG, Dark Souls. It's hard to think of a franchise that
09:27has had a bigger impact on modern gaming than Dark Souls. Damn near every gamer has an opinion on it,
09:34one way or another, whether it be decrying it as a masterpiece or lamenting its punishing difficulty.
09:40But, and that is a choice word as you'll soon see, the iconic name of Dark Souls came very close
09:47to being something else, with a last minute alteration saving FromSoft some major embarrassment.
09:53That's because the game went through a few names, as per the gamer, with one of the original ideas being
09:59Dark Race, a name that obviously was better left by the wayside. Its firmest moniker, however,
10:05was Dark Ring. Now that seems innocent enough, but a decision was made at the last minute to
10:12change the name as the British devs stepped in to inform FromSoft that this title might be interpreted
10:18as something else in the UK. And if you don't know, that's because the term is often used as a slang
10:25term in the UK for, you know, the bum, the bot, the arse, the backside, the rear, the cheeks.
10:34But more specifically, the butthole, referred to in the UK by wrongans everywhere as The Ring.
10:40As such, something about the name Dark Ring just felt a little off. And Rings Lights, Rings Born,
10:47Rings Lights, yeah, I don't think any of these quite have the same ring to them either. Even though if
10:54Elden Ring came out first, they probably would. Elden Ring was good, wasn't it? It was a good title
10:59that, yeah, definitely. Imagine if that was called Dark Ring as well. Doesn't bear thinking about.
11:04Next up, the fans demanded cake, Dead by Daylight.
11:08When thinking about the monstrous Silent Hill villain Pyramid Head, a lot of things probably
11:12come to mind. There's his oversized headpiece, the tendency to chase you, the berserk style sword,
11:19and more. However, if you're a Dead by Daylight fan, you might instead think of cake. But not the
11:25bakery kind, the one I was just on about. You know, the bum, the bot, the arse, the...
11:32Yeah, you get the joke.
11:33When Pyramid Head, known in the game as The Executioner, was announced for DBD,
11:38his early promotional work showed that he'd been given a damn rotund backside.
11:43Fans, naturally, were overjoyed to see their monstrous villain so well caked up.
11:48Sadly, this excitement was marred by controversy when the character finally appeared in-game,
11:53with a noticeable nerf to his posterior.
11:57Posterior. Posterior. Posterior.
12:01I don't know how to pronounce it, you know what I mean. The bum, the arse, the...
12:07This is gonna be loopy.
12:09The backlash to this was, while mostly ironic, pretty notable, as covered here by The Gamer,
12:14which drew the attention of the devs. Thankfully, the 5.1.1 update brought the bakery back with a
12:20patch note reading, quote, fixed an issue that caused the Executioner's rear to be too flat.
12:26So yeah, what a victory for gaming. While the developers have claimed the
12:30butt reduction was due to a technical issue, it's notable that his flatness was listed under
12:36known issues in the patch notes. So it seems that Behaviour Interactive is
12:40more than aware of what the fans are worried about. Up next, it needed to be hornier,
12:46Baldur's Gate 3. If you've played Baldur's Gate 3, which everyone in the world should do,
12:51by the way, then you'll know the game is hornier than a tiefling.
12:55There's barely any companions who aren't looking to pounce on the player, with romances being a
13:00massive part of the game. Hell, at times it even feels like a straight up dating sim.
13:06However, while you might assume this was a path the devs always planned to walk,
13:10it was actually a deliberate change in the direction that was prompted by player feedback.
13:15Because, in the words of one of the developers, when discussing the BG3 player base, quote,
13:21they're all horny, end quote. Baldur's Gate 3 went through an extensive early access period,
13:26refining the game's themes, story, and more, with player opinions always in mind.
13:32Well, this feedback, as per IGN, led the team to realise they needed to up the amount of romance
13:37in the game. According to the same developer, only about 1% of players were uninterested in
13:43actually having a romance, and as such, BG3 became what it is.
13:48So that's right, the players brought this on themselves. Now, this is the end of the list,
13:52go and chat up those frog people, go and talk to the hot vampires,
13:57and get ravaged by the guy who turns into a bear.
14:02a sort of stuff?
14:06I feel that they're not having going to be able to do this.
14:09But, once a year, I'm able to do this now.
14:11They're going to be able to get the same, the people of our people,
14:14and they're going to be able to go and see them.
14:17So we can all clean these things up.
14:19Do this now, and I'm able to bring them to the other end of the situation.
14:22So that's why, after that, we just now have to look at the ground.
14:24And I have to take anything out of the place.
14:27I'm able to bring them to the ground that comes in,
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