Video Game Theories That’ll Ruin Your Childhood

Let's investigate some creepy video game theories that'll ruin your childhood!

November 7, 2023・

18 min read

Gamers are a seriously passionate bunch. After spending hours, days, or even weeks playing a single game, some seriously hardcore fans will seek out tiny in-game details left behind by the developers. Anything left unexplained can have a fan base spinning theories that point to a much darker picture off-screen.

Disturbingly, not even your favorite childhood games are safe! From Mario’s insatiable hunger for souls to people eating Pokémon, it’s time to shatter the fourth wall and take a dive into a few theories that’ll ruin your favorite video games forever.

Fall Guys Anatomy Lore

When the platform battle royale game Fall Guys was released in 2020, the gaming world quickly fell in love with the battling beans. They race through a glorified mini golf course, knocking out competitors as they go, all while dressed in a wonderful wardrobe of costumes.

But some players noticed that the costumes didn’t fit the way they expected. The image in the post below, for example, revealed the slim shape of the bean’s head through the face opening. Most people assume the bodies of those beans fill out their suits, but this revelation indicated they’re more stick-like!

With that in mind, fans started to wonder what was going on underneath the onesies! Are Fall Guys squishy, stick-like beings that can stretch out of their suits at will? Or maybe the bulk is made up of extra body parts so that they can crawl out of their face holes like true-to-life nightmares?

Horrifying as that was, it turns out that what actually lies beneath the suit is much worse than any fan could have imagined. To one up the community, the game’s senior artist mocked up the flesh-crawling interior view of a classic bean!

The head is suspiciously human, but the neck, legs, and torso are so distorted that it’s hard to tell where humanity ends and where the nightmare begins! Nothing about it makes sense. How does that bent spine support all its weight? How do its hips move without sockets? How does its mouth work inside its body? And to make it worse, they also confirmed the beans are all about 6 feet tall!

Among Us Anatomy

In 2020, a year when a worldwide pandemic left a lot of people craving social interaction, one game rose into the limelight. Not because it connected people, but because it let them kill each other, in space! The game's name is Among Us.

It's a social deduction game released in 2018 where each player completes tasks on a spaceship through their brightly colored astronaut avatar. However, there’s an imposter Among Us, who kills off crewmates before the tasks are complete. As they fall to the ground though, their bodies expose a single bone at their core.

The brilliantly bizarre anatomical feature has led some fans to theorize that those aren’t human astronauts. Instead, they’re alien creatures that contain just one long bone, like a sentient leg of ham!

However, not every fan buys into the lone-bone theory. Some have pointed out that the characters have little oxygen packs, so they must have a rib cage to support their lungs. But in an update from January 2021, one of the new maps had a small detail pinned to the wall. It was the lone bone, hung up like an anatomy chart.

While that is literally the backbone of the internet’s understanding of the crewmate’s skeleton, the rest of their anatomy is a total mystery. Considering what happened last time fans questioned a bean-shaped being’s anatomy, it's better to leave this unanswered!

Lavender Town Pokémon Theory

Nintendo’s popular Pokémon game series started as an 8-bit adventure that, over the years, has exploded into a world of vibrant colors and warm characters. But several fans believe that might all be a smokescreen for a world that’s much darker.

For those who’ve never played, you collect some adorable little monsters and battle them out, ordering attacks that make the opposition Pokémon faint. Although, the word faint here is just a very nice way of saying you’ve beaten them unconscious. That, on its own, is pretty horrifying when you think about it.

Though it’s no big deal, you can always heal your own Pokémon at a nearby Pokémon Center! But "always" might be the wrong word if the infamous Lavender Town scene is anything to go by. In the first generation of internationally released games, Pokémon Red and Blue, you, the player, enter a town that’s accompanied by a very sinister tune.

While suppressing your goosebumps, you have to climb Pokémon Tower, a skyscraper packed with hundreds of Pokémon gravestones. It’s there that you meet your long-time rival, Gary or Blue! He immediately asks why you’re there if none of your Pokémon are dead, which is strange because that would indicate he’s there because one of his Pokémon has passed on.

In every battle you’ve had before, he sends out a Rattata that’s evolved into a Raticate. But this time the Raticate in his party is missing. The last battle you had was aboard the S.S. Anne, a ship without a Pokémon Center on board. In theory, that could mean that after losing the fight on the ship, your rival rushed to the nearest Pokémon Center but was too late to save his Raticate!

Then, does that make you a Pokémon killer? That theory is pretty upsetting, to say the least, almost as upsetting as burying hundreds of Pokémon in a skyscraper! But it’s not the only disturbing detail in the first generation Pokémon games.

Pokémon War Theory

In Vermillion City, the Pokémon Gym battleground is run by the military-mad Lieutenant Surge. When you approach him, he makes a one-off comment that electric Pokémon saved him during the war and that they zapped his enemies into paralysis. It sounds like something your crazy uncle would blurt out at Christmas.

However, that means that Pokémon were once used as weapons in an actual war. And Lieutenant Surge is only middle-aged, if his hairdo and high-waisted trousers are anything to go by, so it must have been a fairly recent war at that.

That would indicate that the Pokémon games are set in a post-war world, where the Kanto region suffered a huge number of casualties. It’d go a long way to explaining why there are so many Pokémon centers and a lack of older male characters throughout the game.

That might be why your character only has a mother and no father, and why there’s no mention of your rival's parents at any point in the game. In order to wipe out an entire generation of adult Pokémon users, the theory follows that that war must have been huge!

Although it’s unclear who the enemy was. Another region, perhaps? Maybe an untamable legendary Pokémon?

While Nintendo has kept quiet about this mysterious conflict, we can only wonder if they’ve got plans to release a game that’ll let you play as part of the Pokémon War. How cool would a Pokémon crossover with games like Call of Duty or Battlefield be?

Is Koffing A Failed Clone Of Gastly?

While you can find many Pokémon in the wild, not all of them are natural. Porygon, for example, is a first generation Pokémon made entirely out of computer code, proving Pokémon can be created artificially.

However, what happens when those artificial creations go wrong? One theory has an answer in the form of the poison Pokémon Koffing. The happy ball of toxic gas is a favorite of the evil Team Rocket throughout the original games.

But that bunch of thieves would be much better suited to ghost-type Pokémon, seeing as they can slip through walls, disappear instantly, and really frighten their victims. There are only three ghost Pokémon in the original games though Ghastly, Haunter and Gengar and they’re not easy to catch.

Unable to get their hands on them, what if Team Rocket had attempted to create their own Ghost-type Pokémon? By genetically engineering gas particles from poison Pokémon and forcing them into bulging balloon constructs similar to Ghastly shape, they brought the floating Koffing creature to life!

It clearly worked at first, but when they tried to evolve their creation into a Haunter shape, their plan went sideways. Instead of growing a set of hands like Haunter, the resulting Wheezing grew more heads! The smile of that tumor-ridden terror was replaced by a look of constant pain and misery, and as its name suggests, it was even struggling to breathe!

Faced with the menacing monstrosity they’d created; Team Rocket admins abandoned the project and gave the poor Pokémon to their grunts to use as cannon fodder. That theory’s so evil, we wouldn’t put it past Team Rocket to try!

Is Gengar the Ghost of Clefable?

It’s no secret that all Pokémon are identified by their elemental properties, ranging from Fire and Water to Dragon and Steel. But it’s Ghost Pokémon that stand out as some of the oddest. Because if the 3 original Ghost Pokémon Ghastly, Haunter, and Gengar really are ghosts, then what Pokémon are they the ghosts of?

One theory argues that the answer is lurking on the other end of the spectrum, in the realms of the original Fairy Pokémon. Fairy types are a mystery, with moves and abilities more magical than any other. While little is known about them, there’s a striking similarity between the fairy Pokémon Clefable and the ghost Pokémon Gengar.

From their pointy ears, stubby limbs, and three-fingered hands, their silhouettes are unnervingly similar. Not only that but Gengar is also known as the “Shadow Pokémon”. A shadow of what? But if you flip it around, you get this:

Could that mean that Gengar is the dark spirit of a very sweet, but very dead, Clefable? If so, then what about the Fairy Pokémon before Clefable’s evolution, do they also have ghost-type counterparts? Upsettingly, the theory follows that the adorably tiny, ball-like Cleffa perishes into the ghostly sphere of Gastly, and the cute-eared Clefairy is trapped in the form of Haunter!

Do People Eat Pokémon?

Since the Pokémon games debuted, fans all over the world have wondered if normal animals exist in its universe. If they don’t, then what do the people there eat? It isn’t addressed in the earlier games, though in "Pokémon: Sword and Shield", you can cook up a delicious range of curries and share them with your Pokémon.

All that seems innocent enough, until you cook up a sausage curry. There hasn’t been any mention of regular old pigs in that universe at all. So, are those sausages made from pork or Pork-émon? Maybe they’re just a good-looking vegetarian alternative?

However, it’s hard to rationalize how another dish, the bluntly named Bone Curry, could be made without any kind of meat! Maybe normal animals do exist in that universe but we just haven’t seen them. Surely the developers at Nintendo wouldn’t be sadistic enough to make you eat the creatures you’ve befriended in that game, would they?

Maybe not in the international versions, but in the Japanese release they made no secret of the main ingredient in one depressing dish. That iconic claw definitely belongs to the crab Pokémon Kingler!

Nintendo hasn’t officially confirmed people eat Pokémon in-game, but for one horrifying moment, let’s work on the assumption that they do. Would the farming process work like normal, where battery farms raise and breed Pokémon as livestock? Maybe certain Pokémon species, like those close to cows and pigs are bred to be food!

What if after they’ve been harvested farmers save on the costs of raising new Pokémon and restore them through Pokémon Center technology? That would mean they go through the entire, gut-wrenching harvesting process every time someone starts craving steak, seafood, or sausages!

Portal Theory

The physics-defying video game Portal is a puzzle lover's dream, no matter their age. It starts innocently enough, where you play as a test subject in a research facility with access to a shiny new portal gun.

After ripping holes in reality to solve a series of innocuous challenges, the story takes a turn for the worse. The spotlight shifts onto the homicidal villain GlaDOS, a rogue AI who has a love of testing and a hatred of you.

But before she goes completely haywire, she introduces you to Companion Cubes. Those weighted boxes help you complete some of the more complex tasks that would otherwise require you to be in two places at once. What’s inside them is never revealed, but when you’re instructed to incinerate that cube, you unlock an achievement called Fratricide.

That’s the act of slaying your brother or sister. Almost like the cube was alive. And that’s not all. During one test sequence, GlaDOS lets slip a vital hint, saying that: "I think that one was about to say I love you. And they are sentient, of course. We just have a lot of them."

So, it means that the cubes are sentient and can talk. That means there might be actual humans trapped inside them! In-game, GlaDOS has no regard for human life, so it’s not too farfetched to assume she’d force the player to unwittingly kill someone, just to antagonize them.

GLaDos Woman

To the unassuming eye, Portal’s maniacal mechanical villain hanging from the ceiling looks like the furthest thing from a human. However, a developer's commentary of the game revealed that GLaDOS’ arm was inspired by human traits. She was originally going to have a floating brain or resemble Botticelli’s Rise of Venus made out of mechanical parts.

Eventually, they settled on that sleek curved design to make her look fatally feminine. They were so successful in that though, one fan believed they could actually see the shape of a woman in the arm’s outline. It wasn’t Botticelli’s Venus though, but a woman that had been bound and strung up from the ceiling by her feet!

The two forms certainly look similar, and considering GLaDOS’ madness is restricted to the facility, the bound form gives the shape of the villain a lot more meaning. Maybe the developers couldn’t admit that sort of risqué influence in the commentary, and so kept it out of their description?

Sonic’s Shoes

When Nintendo released Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, fans noticed something strange about the surfing event. While Mario got to ride his board barefoot like a regular person, Sonic still sported his sneakers.

That got fans wondering why Sega’s favorite blue hedgehog was never seen in any game without his trademark red running shoes. Although, the better question here might be what are his shoes hiding? Does Sonic have little clawed paws like a hedgehog? Maybe they’re as equally large as his hands? Or perhaps he has fully formed, four-toed feet?

It’s a question that’s haunted Sonic fans for almost 30 years, thanks to the inconsistencies in comics and animations from the 1990s. While one cartoon shows he has little blue paws, another reveals a pale-footed, three-toed creature and a separate comic strip displayed some freakishly human feet!

So, what’s the truth? According to Sonic the Hedgehog game producer Takashi Iizuka, Sonic just never takes his shoes off in canon. Frankly, that leaves us with more questions than we started with. Maybe the answer can be found in other characters that don’t remove their shoes, like Kirby! This cute little pink blob is a Nintendo creation that sports similar red shoes to Sonic.

But just like Sonic, Kirby’s creator refuses to divulge what his feet look like beneath. While some believe they’re smooth pink blobs like his arms, others theorize that to be able to run and walk as he does, there are five-toed feet hidden beneath!

Kirby Theory: Shiver Star Is a Post-Nuclear Winter Earth

All feet aside, Kirby is an innocent series of action platform games that are as adorable as they are wholesome! That is, except for one, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. It was the first Kirby game to boast 3D graphics, which gave fans a good look at the worlds Kirby could play on. It turned out to be too good.

One of the available worlds, called Shiver Star, featured a geography similar to Earth’s. All 7 continents were clearly visible, but obscured by a cold, foggy haze. When Kirby visits the planet, you can see the terrain is also similar to Earth’s, though most of it is covered in several feet of snow.

But it isn’t set during the ice age! As the game progresses, the player bumbles through factories and shopping malls tended to by malfunctioning robots. But why are all the robots malfunctioning? Where are all the humans? And why is there a massive robotic boss at the end decked out in a small army’s worth of missiles and lasers?

According to one theory, Shiver Star is actually a version of Earth trapped in a Nuclear Winter. Following a nuclear war, the ash from immense fires got trapped in the atmosphere, blocking out the sun and freezing the planet to its core.

The humans that survived the deadly radiation were killed off by the sub-zero temperatures, leaving the factories, malls, and robots to gather dust. That means Kirby might be rolling around a post-apocalyptic landscape, bouncing through dust that used to be billions of people.

Super Mario Coins Are Souls

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know the story of the red-capped, mustachioed plumber! In Super Mario World, Mario has to save Princess Peach from Bowser, the evil King of the Koopa, who rules over the mushroom kingdom.

Along the way, different items lend Mario the power to smash through Bowser’s minions. But as heroic as he appears, the fire flower power-up has sparked a fan theory that’s hard to ignore. Unlike other attacks, hitting an enemy with a fireball produces a coin.

Why would burning an enemy to a crisp reward you with money? Well, that theory claims that the coins aren’t made of gold but of souls. Like an 8-bit cremation, burning up the bodies releases the souls, whereas bopping or crushing a minion doesn’t destroy the vessel completely.

What’s more, collecting 100 of those soul coins grants Mario an extra life, like a soulless exchange for immortality! But, if that’s all true, why are there so many coins concealed in bricks and blocks?

In the original Super Mario Bros instruction manual, it says that the peace-loving Mushroom People, like the character Toad, were turned into stones and bricks by the Koopa! So, by headbutting the bricks, you could be shattering one of Toad's cousins and claiming the soul for yourself!

Majora's Mask And The Five Stages Of Grief

Majora’s Mask is one of the bleakest games in the iconic Legend of Zelda series. But there’s a chance it’s much darker than anyone first thought. In the game, our protagonist Link discovers he's lost his fairy friend Navi.

His quest to find her becomes so troubled that one popular fan theory claims the game actually guides Link, and the player, through the 5 stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

Clock Town represents denial, where, despite the menacing moon threatening to end the world, the townsfolk continue to plan their upcoming festival. Then there’s the Deku King representing anger, who’s blinded by rage at the disappearance of his daughter.

After that, even though Darmani is dead and has become a ghost, he embodies bargaining by trying to strike a deal to return to the land of the living. Then, maybe saddest of all, Lulu speechlessly displays depression after losing her eggs. Finally, Link’s acceptance cumulates in his ascension through the Stone Temple, where he becomes enlightened through his discovery of the light arrows!

With representations of grief packed into every pixel, other theories have pointed out that Link might not be grieving over Navi but is actually struggling to accept his own death! At the beginning of the game, Link chases the elusive Skull Kid and falls down a deep hole, accompanied by an impossible stream of visions before landing unharmed at the bottom.

But one fan pointed out there’s no way he could have survived such a long fall, let alone land without a scratch! The rest of the game serves as a quest for him to come to terms with his own deadly demise before his soul passes on to the afterlife. That’s pretty heartbreaking, though it’s not the worst theory to arise from a Legend of Zelda game.

The Troubled Map Of The Third Dungeon

Before Hyrule’s hero was given his piercing blue eyes or recognizable blonde mop, he existed as a blocky character in the original Legend of Zelda video game from 1986. The 8-bit adventure saw the now famous protagonist battle to save Princess Zelda from the evil wizard Ganon by scouring dungeons in search of pieces of the mystical Tri-Force.

Each dungeon was a unique labyrinth of rooms guarded by monsters, but the third dungeon turned out to be the worst by far. Not because it was tough, but because a top-down version of the map resembled a, freakishly fascist design.

That discovery immediately led to rumors and theories that there were fascist employees working for Nintendo and that the game was actively advocating fascism! After all, Link does go around killing everything in the land that doesn’t look like him. And to make it worse, later iterations of the character were given fascist favorite features, like blonde hair and blue eyes.

Nintendo rushed to reveal that it was actually designed after a Manji, an ancient Buddhist symbol promoting peace, unlike the horrendous hate symbol people had mistaken it for. So, it was all just an innocent error in judgment, and thankfully, not the world’s worst recruitment drive!

I hope you were amazed at these video game theories that will ruin your childhood! Thanks for reading.