10 Secrets It Took YEARS To Find In PlayStation Games
advertisement
VOICE OVER: Mathew Arter
WRITTEN BY: Mathew Arter
There are tons of secrets in PlayStation games, though these went undiscovered for years! For this list, we'll be looking at Easter eggs and other hidden elements in PlayStation games that went unfound for a huge amount of time. Our list includes the Hidden Helpers of "Silent Hill 2" (2001), a hidden side quest in "Final Fantasy IX" (2000), the Newspaper Article from "Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception" (2011), and more!
Script written by Mathew Arter
Welcome to Mojoplays, and today we are uncovering 10 Secrets it Took Years to Find in PlayStation Games. For this list, we’ll be looking at Easter eggs and hidden elements in PlayStation games that were either intentionally hidden, or simply went unfound for a huge amount of time. Did you discover any of these on your own? Or did you find them on the internet and join the rest of us in a collective forehead slap? Let us know in the comments below.
In November 2011, when Uncharted 3 launched, players COULD have discovered very minor detail in a magazine placed atop the bar of an in-game pub. The magazine headline read “Scientists are still struggling to understand deadly fungus.” 2 years later, players found the magazine and realized that this was (at the time) supposed to be a teaser for The Last of Us, which was announced 2 months after Uncharted 3 released. It wasn’t until it was discovered by players that Naughty Dog announced that it wasn’t meant to be a teaser, but rather an Easter egg. The Last of Us was scheduled to be announced in June of 2011, a full 5 months BEFORE Uncharted 3 dropped. This makes this detail left in Uncharted 3 not a teaser, but a full blown mistake.
The video game equivalent of “I knew that band before they were cool,” a small community of gamers are adamant that they knew a seemingly hidden and minor detail of the Uncharted Series long before it was discovered. Not being officially unearthed until 2018, Jonathan Cooper on Twitter pointed out that if you look at the animations in the Uncharted games, Nathan Drake never actually takes damage. Whether he is grazed, or the bullet misses entirely, the red UI that was previously thought to be ‘damage’, is in-fact Drake’s luck. It’s not until his “luck” runs out and he is finally hit by a bullet that he dies. This was confirmed by creative director of Uncharted 1-3, Amy Hennig, and remains a very cool concept that took 10 years to be realized.
13 years after its 2000 release, players didn’t think a fairly linear game like FF9 would have many secrets left to uncover. As it turns out, FF9 had an entire sidequest that western audiences didn’t discover until 2013. Explaining the quest fully would take some time, but at the beginning of disc 4, starting at the Tantalus hideout, players can go on a ridiculously obscure collection of 17 different encounters that will eventually lead to an end goal of receiving a protect ring. The sidequest was actually detailed in FF9 ultimania, a book originally published in Japan in 2002, meaning Japanese players had been playing this quest for more than 10 years before North American players knew about it.
The much loved Half-Life had an underappreciated PS2 release which featured a cooperative mode called Half-Life: Decay. In this co-op mode, players could come across a corpse floating in some water. This corpse, unlike others, was totally indestructible and was only there as a prop… or so we thought. It wasn’t until much later that players discovered the corpse wasn’t indestructible, but simply had 3000 HP, 3 times more than a gargantua. With around 600 swings of your crowbar, the player could destroy the corpse and be rewarded for their efforts with a drop of several snarks.
The eternal question of FFVII for over 25 years has been “Can Aerith be brought back to life?” Players have scoured the game's data to try and find answers, uncovering unused dialogue for Aerith post death that has only fanned the flames of speculation. The theory that there is some major secret method to keeping her alive is as believed as a fan theory gets. In 2013, it was discovered that with a little trickery, she can be kept alive through till the end. As laid out by Gametrailer on YouTube on their show Pop Fiction, after leveling your party high early, the player must get their hands on a Chocobo, remove Aerith from their party, and before the date section of Golden Saucer and whilst on the world map, switch the first FF7 Disc for Sega Frontier on the PS1. This will glitch the map and allow players to traverse it in such a strange way that they can reach the northern part of their map, switch the disc back for the second FF7 disc, engage in a fight, the game will load normally. The players will have skipped a huge chunk of the game where they can now fight through the forgotten city without Aerith in their party, beat this section and you can throw her back in for the rest of the game.
Rockstar are out here taking the term Easter Egg very seriously. A little while after GTA Vice City was released, players discovered that after heading to a helipad north of the city, going to a corner of the helipad and jumping through a seemingly inaccessible window, there was an actual physical Easter Egg atop a plinth that read “Happy Easter”. Why a player would assume they could jump through that window is beyond us, and as for devious hiding places, Rockstar wins the grand prize.
In 2018, 17 years after the game’s release, a Twitter user by the name of punk7890 discovered a seemingly impossible secret about Silent Hill 2 that has amazed fans of the series and gamers all over the world. After getting the secret dog ending of Silent Hill 2, an ending that requires the player already have gotten the 3 main endings of the game, and after following a set of encounters through the game, players can hold down Start, L2, Square and L3 to get access to an incredibly helpful minimap. Even crazier than that, players can press left on the d-pad, left on the left analog stick, left on the right analog stick, L1, L2 and L3 at the same time, and bring up the save menu. This is a save menu that the player can use anywhere at any time, WOWZA.
It’s easy to keep a hidden detail secret when players aren’t aware there even is a secret. It’s much harder to keep a secret hidden when players all over the world are trying to hunt it down like it’s the holy grail. Arkham Asylum was well known for having a secret room that took players a year to find. The room had a map that gave clues for the next installment of the game. When Arkham City dropped, you can imagine how much fans were clambering to find a possible secret and teaser for the next installment in the series. Still, it took 3 years for players to discover that if you set your console to the day the game developer ‘Rocksteady’ were formed, you would get a message from “Calendar Man” who would drop hints about the next game, Arkham Knight.
Umm... who the heck is that? 12 years after its release, a player discovered that in Resident Evil 4, after getting the enhanced scope for the rifle, going to a specific platform, facing a specific direction (which by the way was in the total opposite direction the player was traveling), and looking down the scope, you will see the cardboard cutout of a modern looking person dressed in a green jacket and a dark scarf. A Twitter user later pointed out that it was the games art director Naoki Katakai. What the heck are you doing out there, Naoki? Are you making some extra scratch on the side? What are you sellin’?
Trials: Evolution should have been renamed Trials: National Treasure, because it features one of the most intriguing Easter eggs of all time. The game released in 2012, had some EXTREMELY well hidden inscriptions which needed to be decrypted. After they were, the player would unlock a new song in the game. YAY, new song. BUT WAIT, there’s more. The song had hidden morse code in its sound waves - its sound waves, for god sakes. The morse code sent players to a website which featured coordinates for 4 major cities, San Francisco (USA), Bath (England), Helsinki (Finland), and Sydney (Australia). At these locations were hidden chests with keys, the keys each had a keyring of the Eiffel Tower, and at each was a plaque that read “Midday in the year 2113, 1st Saturday in August, one of the five keys will open the box underneath the Eiffel Tower.” Looks like we’re gonna be waiting a long time to resolve this secret.
Welcome to Mojoplays, and today we are uncovering 10 Secrets it Took Years to Find in PlayStation Games. For this list, we’ll be looking at Easter eggs and hidden elements in PlayStation games that were either intentionally hidden, or simply went unfound for a huge amount of time. Did you discover any of these on your own? Or did you find them on the internet and join the rest of us in a collective forehead slap? Let us know in the comments below.
Newspaper Article
In November 2011, when Uncharted 3 launched, players COULD have discovered very minor detail in a magazine placed atop the bar of an in-game pub. The magazine headline read “Scientists are still struggling to understand deadly fungus.” 2 years later, players found the magazine and realized that this was (at the time) supposed to be a teaser for The Last of Us, which was announced 2 months after Uncharted 3 released. It wasn’t until it was discovered by players that Naughty Dog announced that it wasn’t meant to be a teaser, but rather an Easter egg. The Last of Us was scheduled to be announced in June of 2011, a full 5 months BEFORE Uncharted 3 dropped. This makes this detail left in Uncharted 3 not a teaser, but a full blown mistake.
Drake Doesn’t Take Damage
The video game equivalent of “I knew that band before they were cool,” a small community of gamers are adamant that they knew a seemingly hidden and minor detail of the Uncharted Series long before it was discovered. Not being officially unearthed until 2018, Jonathan Cooper on Twitter pointed out that if you look at the animations in the Uncharted games, Nathan Drake never actually takes damage. Whether he is grazed, or the bullet misses entirely, the red UI that was previously thought to be ‘damage’, is in-fact Drake’s luck. It’s not until his “luck” runs out and he is finally hit by a bullet that he dies. This was confirmed by creative director of Uncharted 1-3, Amy Hennig, and remains a very cool concept that took 10 years to be realized.
Japan is #1
13 years after its 2000 release, players didn’t think a fairly linear game like FF9 would have many secrets left to uncover. As it turns out, FF9 had an entire sidequest that western audiences didn’t discover until 2013. Explaining the quest fully would take some time, but at the beginning of disc 4, starting at the Tantalus hideout, players can go on a ridiculously obscure collection of 17 different encounters that will eventually lead to an end goal of receiving a protect ring. The sidequest was actually detailed in FF9 ultimania, a book originally published in Japan in 2002, meaning Japanese players had been playing this quest for more than 10 years before North American players knew about it.
The Resilient Corpse
The much loved Half-Life had an underappreciated PS2 release which featured a cooperative mode called Half-Life: Decay. In this co-op mode, players could come across a corpse floating in some water. This corpse, unlike others, was totally indestructible and was only there as a prop… or so we thought. It wasn’t until much later that players discovered the corpse wasn’t indestructible, but simply had 3000 HP, 3 times more than a gargantua. With around 600 swings of your crowbar, the player could destroy the corpse and be rewarded for their efforts with a drop of several snarks.
Keeping Aerith Alive
The eternal question of FFVII for over 25 years has been “Can Aerith be brought back to life?” Players have scoured the game's data to try and find answers, uncovering unused dialogue for Aerith post death that has only fanned the flames of speculation. The theory that there is some major secret method to keeping her alive is as believed as a fan theory gets. In 2013, it was discovered that with a little trickery, she can be kept alive through till the end. As laid out by Gametrailer on YouTube on their show Pop Fiction, after leveling your party high early, the player must get their hands on a Chocobo, remove Aerith from their party, and before the date section of Golden Saucer and whilst on the world map, switch the first FF7 Disc for Sega Frontier on the PS1. This will glitch the map and allow players to traverse it in such a strange way that they can reach the northern part of their map, switch the disc back for the second FF7 disc, engage in a fight, the game will load normally. The players will have skipped a huge chunk of the game where they can now fight through the forgotten city without Aerith in their party, beat this section and you can throw her back in for the rest of the game.
Easter Egg
Rockstar are out here taking the term Easter Egg very seriously. A little while after GTA Vice City was released, players discovered that after heading to a helipad north of the city, going to a corner of the helipad and jumping through a seemingly inaccessible window, there was an actual physical Easter Egg atop a plinth that read “Happy Easter”. Why a player would assume they could jump through that window is beyond us, and as for devious hiding places, Rockstar wins the grand prize.
Hidden Helpers
In 2018, 17 years after the game’s release, a Twitter user by the name of punk7890 discovered a seemingly impossible secret about Silent Hill 2 that has amazed fans of the series and gamers all over the world. After getting the secret dog ending of Silent Hill 2, an ending that requires the player already have gotten the 3 main endings of the game, and after following a set of encounters through the game, players can hold down Start, L2, Square and L3 to get access to an incredibly helpful minimap. Even crazier than that, players can press left on the d-pad, left on the left analog stick, left on the right analog stick, L1, L2 and L3 at the same time, and bring up the save menu. This is a save menu that the player can use anywhere at any time, WOWZA.
Arkham’s Hidden Teasers
It’s easy to keep a hidden detail secret when players aren’t aware there even is a secret. It’s much harder to keep a secret hidden when players all over the world are trying to hunt it down like it’s the holy grail. Arkham Asylum was well known for having a secret room that took players a year to find. The room had a map that gave clues for the next installment of the game. When Arkham City dropped, you can imagine how much fans were clambering to find a possible secret and teaser for the next installment in the series. Still, it took 3 years for players to discover that if you set your console to the day the game developer ‘Rocksteady’ were formed, you would get a message from “Calendar Man” who would drop hints about the next game, Arkham Knight.
The Cardboard Man
Umm... who the heck is that? 12 years after its release, a player discovered that in Resident Evil 4, after getting the enhanced scope for the rifle, going to a specific platform, facing a specific direction (which by the way was in the total opposite direction the player was traveling), and looking down the scope, you will see the cardboard cutout of a modern looking person dressed in a green jacket and a dark scarf. A Twitter user later pointed out that it was the games art director Naoki Katakai. What the heck are you doing out there, Naoki? Are you making some extra scratch on the side? What are you sellin’?
The Greatest Easter Egg
Trials: Evolution should have been renamed Trials: National Treasure, because it features one of the most intriguing Easter eggs of all time. The game released in 2012, had some EXTREMELY well hidden inscriptions which needed to be decrypted. After they were, the player would unlock a new song in the game. YAY, new song. BUT WAIT, there’s more. The song had hidden morse code in its sound waves - its sound waves, for god sakes. The morse code sent players to a website which featured coordinates for 4 major cities, San Francisco (USA), Bath (England), Helsinki (Finland), and Sydney (Australia). At these locations were hidden chests with keys, the keys each had a keyring of the Eiffel Tower, and at each was a plaque that read “Midday in the year 2113, 1st Saturday in August, one of the five keys will open the box underneath the Eiffel Tower.” Looks like we’re gonna be waiting a long time to resolve this secret.
Send