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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.
00:27Have 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.
00:53A 1993 developer interview with staff who worked on the seminal sci-fi RPG Phantasy Star 2 tells
01:00such 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.
01:20However, 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,
01:37as per Hayashida.
01:39So the original plan of the game was altered because the bosses just didn't want to discourage
01:43their new employee.
01:45Now, that's a wholesome work environment if I ever heard of one.
01:49Next up, the banter was too much.
01:52Forspoken.
01:532023's Forspoken is an absurd game that is, in a way, kind of brilliant as it exemplifies
01:59all the bad 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.
02:13And that last point is exactly where this entry comes into play.
02:16One of the biggest complaints people had about this action RPG was the Marvel-esque dialogue,
02:21especially the conversations between protagonist Frey and her talking bracelet cuff.
02:27Listening 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 cringeworthy banter caught plenty of flack even with this
02:49slider involved.
02:50So a patch was released four months after the game came out, as covered via Eurogamer,
02:56that further 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
03:28blunder that 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, with designs
03:40appearing throughout the game.
03:42It also has a selection of vendors, one of which is called Roxanne.
03:45This 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
03:57was simply the words R-shop.
04:00Yeah, the devs accidentally alluded to a racial slur by placing the word hard right next door
04:06to the letter R.
04:08Sony themselves had a comment on this mistake, as per Forbes, calling it an, quote, unintentional,
04:14objectionable phrase and then patched it out.
04:16Next up, Puckman, Pacman.
04:19If you're a fan of the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, then you probably already know
04:23this 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
04:40on this planet, 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,
04:52Shakira.
04:53I 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.
05:02The original name came from the Japanese phrase Apaku-Paku-Taburu, which is used to describe
05:07the sounds and action of gobbling things up.
05:11However, this moniker was abandoned when the game was released in North America, as there
05:15was concern, naturally, that his name would be vandalized, with the P being replaced with
05:21an F.
05:21And 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.
05:29It is fascinating to know that a fear of arcade hooliganism, though, led to such an iconic
05:34name being born.
05:36Next up, the studio was afraid of Sean Connery, GoldenEye.
05:40Gaming myths were rampant in the pre-internet era, with a particularly popular one being
05:46the All Bonds cheat.
05:48This urban legend claimed that the N64 classic shoot at GoldenEye featured a cheat that would
05:53unlock models for nearly every iteration of Bond, letting you and your friends juke it
05:59out to see which one was the best.
06:01This was, naturally, false.
06:03However, while the rumor itself was a hoax, it's surprising to know how close to reality
06:09it actually was.
06:10That's because there were plans to include a four Bond mode, including Sean Connery, Roger
06:15Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Piers Brosnan.
06:18And tough luck for George Lazenby.
06:21However, this concept was scrapped, and during an interview with The Independent, the game's
06:26director, Martin Hollis, revealed that the reason the mode was removed was because the
06:30company was afraid of what cinema's first Bond would do to them.
06:35I think they were worried about him getting litigious, Hollis claimed.
06:39While the idea would have been amazing, it seems incurring the wrath of the original 007
06:44wasn't a risk worth taking.
06:46Next up, many unexpected results, Dwarf Fortress.
06:50For those unfamiliar with Dwarf Fortress, this is a bonkers management and construction simulator
06:56game with uncompromising levels of complexity.
06:59As such, it has some of the funniest patch notes, as collected by PC Gamer, that you'll
07:05find in any game ever.
07:07Some of the things the devs had to fix due to unexpected outcomes, I swear down will leave
07:12you in stitches.
07:12I mean, just look at some of these highlights, there's one that says fixed a bugs where animals
07:17could rent rooms, fixed a bugs with mule shitting luggage, stopped children from buying
07:23shops, weasels probably shouldn't be found on glaciers, rodent man has no teeth,
07:29and the iconic added cat butchery.
07:32I don't even know what that last one means, I mean, I can kinda get it, but I kinda don't
07:37wanna get it, you know what I mean?
07:38Another particularly amusing alteration the game needed to make was for the sake of saving
07:43the Dwarf kids.
07:45It turns out that forgetting to dress them once they turned two years old was leading
07:49to them dying of embarrassment, literally.
07:52Unlike other entries on this list, the thrill of this game is in its unpredictability and
07:57weirdness though.
07:58As such, these goofy changes are part of the broader appeal of this absolutely absurd title.
08:05Next up, the drunken princess, Super Mario Kart.
08:08The bright, fun, inviting world of Mario Kart is about as controversial as a butterfly resting
08:14on a flower.
08:15This series is renowned worldwide for its family friendly content and wholesome overall
08:20vibe.
08:21That's what makes it so funny then to learn that the first game in the series had to make
08:25a controversial change when bringing the game to America, and it was all down to the villainous
08:30Bowser and the charming Princess Peach.
08:33After achieving victory in Super Mario Kart, each character performs a unique animation while
08:39holding a bottle of champagne.
08:41While most characters just toy about with it, the original Japanese release saw two characters
08:46crack it open and neck it to their heart's content.
08:49Those figures, as you might have guessed, were Bowser and Peach.
08:53Now Bowser's messy chugging does feel pretty fitting, but seeing the affable Princess Peach
08:59get all flushed upon drowning champagne was a little less familiar.
09:04As such, Nintendo America saw it fit to change these animations when localizing to the west,
09:09switching to Bowser cheering, and Peach throwing the bottle up and down like it was a football.
09:14Bring it back I say though, though knowing Nintendo they'll probably charge extra for it, wouldn't
09:19they?
09:21The original name was less than PG, Dark Souls.
09:25It's hard to think of a franchise that has had a bigger impact on modern gaming than Dark
09:30Souls.
09:31Damn near every gamer has an opinion on it one way or another, whether it be decrying it as
09:37a 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
09:46very close to being something else, with a last minute alteration saving FromSoft some
09:51major embarrassment.
09:53That's because the game went through a few names, as per the gamer, with one of the original
09:58ideas being Dark Race, a name that obviously was better left by the wayside.
10:03Its firmest moniker, however, was Dark Ring.
10:07Now that seems innocent enough, but a decision was made at the last minute to change the name
10:13as the British devs stepped in to inform FromSoft that this title might be interpreted as something
10:19else in the UK.
10:21And if you don't know, that's because the term is often used as a slang term in the UK
10:26for, you know, the bum, the butt, the arse, the backside, the rear, the cheeks.
10:35But more specifically, the butthole, referred to in the UK by wronguns everywhere as the ring.
10:40As such, something about the name Dark Ring just felt a little off.
10:45And rings lights, rings born, rings lights, yeah, I don't think any of these quite have
10:50the same ring to them either, even though if Elden Ring came out first, they probably would.
10:57Elden Ring was good, wasn't it, it was a good title that, yeah, definitely.
11:00Imagine 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.
11:13There's his oversized headpiece, the tendency to chase you, the Berserk style sword, and
11:20more.
11:20However, 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, y'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, his early
11:38promotional 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.
11:59Posterior.
12:00Posterior.
12:05Posterior.
12:05Posterior.
12:06Posterior.
12:07This is certainly 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.
12:16Thankfully the 5.1.1 update brought the bakery back with a patchnote reading, quote, fixed
12:22an issue that caused the Executioner's rear to be too flat.
12:26So yeah, what a victory for gaming.
12:29While the developers have claimed the butt reduction was due to a technical issue, it's
12:33It's notable that his flatness was listed under known issues in the patch notes, so
12:39it seems that Behaviour Interactive is more than aware of what the fans are worried about.
12:44Up next, it needed to be hornier, Baldur's Gate 3.
12:47If you've played Baldur's Gate 3, which everyone in the world should do by the way,
12:52then 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
13:00being a massive part of the game.
13:02Hell, 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, it was
13:10actually 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 playerbase, quote,
13:21they're all horny, end quote.
13:23Baldur's Gate 3 went through an extensive early access period, refining the game's
13:27theme, story, and more, with player opinions always in mind.
13:31Well, this feedback, as per IGN, led the team to realise they needed to up the amount of
13:37romance in the game.
13:38According to the same developer, only about 1% of players were uninterested in actually
13:43having a romance, and as such, BG3 became what it is.
13:47So that's right, the players brought this on themselves.
13:50Now, this is the end of the list, go and chat up those frog people, go and talk to the
13:56hot
13:56vampires, and get ravaged by the guy who turns into a bear.
14:02Now, this is the end of the game.
14:10You
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