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Video game development is full of strange hurdles. Join us as we count down the most ridiculous reasons games had to be changed, including the infamous dialogue of Forspoken, an accidental racial slur in Stellar Blade, and the original name of Pac-Man.
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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 Walk Culture Gaming 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
00:49your work 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 plan.
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 effort.
01:32Therefore, their work was kept and used, even if it was, quote,
01:36with some mixed feelings, as 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, Forspoken.
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,
02:08writing that's so 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,
02:22especially 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 left
02:32many 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.
02:41However, Forspoken had to change itself even further, as the cringeworthy banter caught
02:47plenty of flack even with this slider 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.
03:05Can't relate!
03:08Next up, unfortunate graffiti placement, Stellarblade.
03:12Set dressing is the kind of thing most gamers won't notice.
03:16Small, in-world details are intended to make the environment feel alive,
03:20usually without distracting the player too much.
03:23So imagine how embarrassed the devs for Stellarblade must have felt when they realized 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,
03:57that was 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 to comment on this mistake, as per Forbes,
04:11calling it an, quote, unintentional, objectional 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,
04:39probably not even on this planet, and they'd probably still say,
04:43oh yeah, that's the Whacka Whacka guy.
04:45And if you're wondering, the Whacka Whacka woman, of course, is not Miss Pacman,
04:51but rather, Shakira.
04:53I was proud of that joke.
04:54The point is, his name has undergone a slight transformation,
04:58as his original Japanese iteration was known as Puckman.
05:02The original name came from the Japanese phrase,
05:05Apaku-Paku-Taburu, which 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,
05:19with the P being replaced with an F.
05:21And yeah, it wouldn't look great on Namco to see the words,
05:25well, you can imagine them on their machines, so you can see the concern.
05:29It is fascinating to know that a fear of arcade hooliganism, though,
05:33led to such an iconic name being born.
05:36Next up, the studio was afraid of Sean Connery, Goldeneye.
05:40Gaming myths were rampant in the pre-internet era,
05:44with a particularly popular one being the All Bonds cheat.
05:48This urban legend claimed that the N64 classic shoot at Goldeneye
05:52featured a cheat that would unlock models for nearly every iteration of Bond,
05:57letting you and your friends juke it out to see which one was the best.
06:01This was naturally false, however, while the rumour itself was a hoax,
06:06it's surprising to know how close to reality it actually was.
06:10That's because there were plans to include a Thor Bond mode,
06:14including Sean Connery, Roger Moore, 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,
06:25the game's director, Martin Hollis, revealed that the reason the mode was removed
06:29was 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.
06:39While the idea would have been amazing, it seems incurring the wrath of the original 007
06:44wasn't a risk worth taking.
06:47Next up, many unexpected results.
06:49Dwarf Fortress
06:50For those unfamiliar with Dwarf Fortress, this is a bonkers management and construction simulator
06:56game with uncompromising levels of complexity.
07:00As such, it has some of the funniest patch notes, as collected by PC Gamer,
07:04that you'll find in any game ever.
07:07Some of the things the devs had to fix due to unexpected outcomes,
07:10I swear down we'll leave you in stitches.
07:13I mean, just look at some of these highlights.
07:14There's one that says,
07:16Fixed bugs where animals could rent rooms,
07:18Fixed bugs with mule shitting luggage,
07:22Stopped children from buying shops,
07:24Weasels probably shouldn't be found on glaciers,
07:27Rodent man has no teeth,
07:29and the iconic added cat butchery.
07:32I don't even know what that last one means.
07:34I 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
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,
07:54the thrill of this game is in its unpredictability and weirdness 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 on a flower.
08:15This series is renowned worldwide for its family friendly content and wholesome overall vibe.
08:20That'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.
08:29And it was all down to the villainous Bowser 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 crack it
08:47open and neck it to their heart's content.
08:50Those 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 get all
08:59flushed 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 they?
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 Souls.
09:31Damn near every gamer has an opinion on it one way or another, whether it be decrying it as a
09:37masterpiece or lamenting its punishing difficulty. But, and that is a choice word as you'll soon see,
09:43the iconic name of Dark Souls came very close to being something else, with a last minute alteration
09:50saving FromSoft some major embarrassment. That's because the game went through a few names,
09:56as per the gamer, with one of the original ideas being Dark Race, a name that obviously was better
10:02left by the wayside. Its firmest moniker, however, was Dark Ring. Now that seems innocent enough,
10:09but a decision was made at the last minute to change the name as the British devs stepped in
10:15to inform FromSoft that this title might be interpreted as something else 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 for,
10:27you know, the bum, the bot, the arse, the backside, the rear, the cheeks. But more specifically,
10:35the butthole, referred to in the UK by wrongans everywhere as The Ring. As such, something about
10:42the name Dark Ring just felt a little off. And Rings Lights, Ringsborn, Rings Lights, yeah,
10:49I don't think any of these quite have the same ring to them either. Even though if Elden Ring came
10:54out
10:55first, they probably would. Elden Ring was good, wasn't it? It was a good title that, yeah,
11:00definitely. Imagine if that was called Dark Ring as well. Doesn't bear thinking about.
11:04Next up, the fans demanded cake, Dead by Daylight. When thinking about the monstrous Silent Hill
11:10villain Pyramid Head, a lot of things probably come to mind. There's his oversized headpiece,
11:15the tendency to chase you, the berserk style sword, and more. However, if you're a Dead by Daylight fan,
11:22you might instead think of cake. But not the bakery kind, the one I was just on about. You know,
11:28the bum, the bot, the arse, the... Yeah, 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. Fans, naturally,
11:45were overjoyed to see their monstrous villain so well caked up. Sadly, this excitement was marred
11:50by controversy when the character finally appeared in-game with a noticeable nerf to his posterior.
11:58Posterior. Posterior. Posterior. Posterior. I don't know how to pronounce it,
12:02you know what I mean. The bum, the arse, the poster. This 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
12:31butt 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 more than aware of what
12:42the fans are worried about. Up 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. There's barely any companions who aren't
12:57looking to pounce on the player, with romances being a massive part of the game. Hell, at times
13:03it even feels like a straight up dating sim. However, while you might assume this was a path the devs
13:08always planned to walk, it was actually a deliberate change in the direction that was prompted
13:13by player feedback. Because, in the words of one of the developers, when discussing the BG3 player base,
13:20quote, they'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. Well, this feedback,
13:33as per IGN, led the team to realise they needed to up the amount of romance in the game. According
13:39to the
13:39same developer, only about one percent of players were uninterested in actually having a romance,
13:44and as such, BG3 became what it is. So that's right, the players brought this on themselves. Now,
13:51this is the end of the list, go and chat up those frog people, go and talk to the hot
13:56vampires,
13:57and get ravaged by the guy who turns into a bear. But before you go, let me know if you
14:03have any similar
14:04stories down in the comments below, and if you want more content like this, click one of the videos on
14:09screen right now.