There are conspiracy theories for anything you can imagine. As long as you aren’t wearing a tinfoil hat and yelling that the government is tracking you through radio waves, it’s fine to enjoy them every once and a while. When I play a video game, I love getting into the nitty-gritty details of the plot and that one thing a character said. I like reading tumblr posts about someone extrapolating an entire backstory for a character in just a single sentence. When it comes to really plot-heavy games, it’s even easier to get into unknown backstory. I mean just look at Undertale or Five Nights at Freddy’s. People love coming up with their own stories or trying to ferret out secret levels. I mean who doesn’t love a secret? It’s why there are so many Easter Eggs put in games and so many gamers dedicated to completionism. When you get into a franchise as big, and old, as Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid, it’s easy to see how some people can go on for days about their own theories.

Conspiracy theories are my jam. Surprisingly, finding just Playstation ones was kind of tricky, since Microsoft and Sony share a lot of games. I also tried to stay away from too many that were “this was all a dream/mental hospital delusion/just wasn’t real” because there are tons of those out there. Plus, they end up being kind of boring. So here’s a list of some crazy and not so crazy conspiracy theories, secrets and rumors that surround the PlayStation dynasty and Sony itself.

15 Final Fantasy VIII - Squall

Via: Final Fantasy Wiki - Wikia

Back during the old days of the original PlayStation, the game discs could only hold so much data, which meant that they had to separate the game into two parts if it was particularly big. Final Fantasy VIII fits into that category, but the part in which they chose to split the game was pretty climactic. It’s when you’re fighting Edea that Squall gets impaled by a huge shard of ice and goes tumbling into the void. End of disk one. But when you pop in the second disk, Squall is perfectly fine and no one mentions him being brutally murdered/mortally wounded in front of their eyes or how he escaped the hands of death. There’s a pretty well put together theory involving the idea that Squall didn’t in fact make it, but instead the second disk is his own ‘final fantasy’ before death. It’s supported by how dream like the second disk is. If you want to fall down that rabbit hole the full theory is here.

14 Tiger Woods ‘99 and South Park?

Via: The Strong | National Museum of Play

This is another conspiracy that involves the original PlayStation and Tiger Woods. Namely, EA Sports' Tiger Woods '99. See the game was also broken up into two separate discs, but the second disc had some empty space that one developer decided to fill with the pilot episode of South Park, entitled Jesus vs. Santa. EA was hoping that Tiger Woods ‘99 would be a blockbuster hit, but instead had to do a massive recall after people began finding the secret episode, which could only be viewed by popping the disc into a computer. The real mystery is why in the world would a developer do that? Were they huge fans of South Park or maybe they desperately hated Tiger Woods. The world may never know.

13 Metal Gear Solid V

Via: VG247.com

A lot of conspiracy theories can be disproven, especially if they involve a secret level or item that no one can prove exists. Metal Gear Solid V’s ending was abrupt and pretty disappointing, and speculation says this had to do with tension between the creator and Konami. After the game was released, some dedicated players did some data mining and found that there was supposed to be a third chapter called “Peace.” There was speculation that this would come out as a DLC later on, but alas it never happened. Some players claim that the fabled third chapter is unlockable if you manage a complete nuclear disarmament in the multiplayer mode. But you’ll have to see for yourself if that’s true.

12 PlayStation 2 - A Weapon of Terror

Via: TheRichest

Back in in the late 2000s, the PlayStation 2 was just coming out and shipping all over the world. There was a pretty big scare when the American government learned that Saddam Hussein, the former terrorist leader in Iraq, was stockpiling the systems. What could anyone really do with so many consoles? Reports popped up that he was trying to use the CPU chips to create some sort of missile guidance system, well at least that’s what the rumor said. In the end, you could create a computer if you wired all those consoles together, but Iraq was no where near the technological development to be able to make a missile guidance system. Crisis Averted.

11 Silent Hill 2

Via: Giant Bomb

Silent Hill is already a pretty creepy game and I still jump every time I see Pyramid Head at a convention. This conspiracy theory makes the game even worse. The theory states that James not only murdered his wife, but that he keeps her body in the trunk of his car. It’s supported, or maybe just made more disturbing, by the fact that this would fulfill her wish of being returned to Silent Hill. In one of the endings of the game, James commits suicide by driving his car into a lake. While doing so, he says that he and his wife can finally be together. Now that could just mean that they can be together in death, but it takes on a whole new spin if you think that maybe his wife is dead in his trunk.

10 Metal Gear Solid 3

Metal Gear Solid 3 gets pretty crazy, between the guy who shoots bees out of his fingertips and another who can photosynthesize (can I just say, jealous? I would love to be able to do that!) but some said that it went a bit too far. This theory says that it went crazy because none of it was real, meaning it was all a virtual simulation that Snake was participating in. It’s corroborated by the fact that if you fail a mission in a specific way, you get a ‘time paradox’ alert and Colonel Campbell starts yelling at you. Yet Campbell isn’t even in the game, unless he’s outside of the VR headset and making Snake redo the simulation, of course. The other spark that gave this theory life was the fact that Major Zero mentions ‘a virtuous mission’ which Snake mishears as ‘virtual mission.’ Cue intense music. It’s just one word, but still, I wouldn’t put it past the creators.

9 Lara Croft Nude

Via: Stella's Tomb Raider

Apparently, in the original version of Tomb Raider, there was a super secret code that you could plug in that would make Lara Croft nude. There was a flood of fake codes, but none revealed the truth. It turns out the code never existed, which kind of makes sense considering a developer would have had to sit there and make a nude Lara for it to exist. In fact, the developers have taken people to court over making such mods.

But there was certainly a frenzy at the time to find that fabled code, which kind of sounds like the search for the Holy Grail, just with a really pixelated nude woman. Nowadays there are plenty of weird people out there that can create any mod you want, including Lara naked. Just imagine the chafing that would happen if you ran around a jungle naked? No thanks.

8 Resident Evil 7

Via: IGN.com

This game is still pretty new and yet it already has fan theories behind it. Resident Evil has a history of basing the games off of fears that are present in current society. For the first game, it was the idea of a virus and if you know anything about the 90s, you'd remember the terror that people felt when discussing viral infection. This is only a decade after the AIDS epidemic as well. Now, some gamers are theorizing about what Resident Evil 7: Biohazard tells us about today’s fears. It isn’t so much the viral infection, but instead the corruption of good people, how outside forces can make normal families become evil. The theory suggests that RE7 is playing off of peoples' fears in this 'Fake News' world and how government corruption is affecting the masses. Now this is just one person’s theory and in no way represents our political opinions here at TheGamer.

7 Bloodborne

Via: Bloodborne Wiki

Okay, this one is HILARIOUS. I mean, at least I think it is. See Bloodborne, for obvious reasons, has a lot to do with blood. I mean it’s in the very title. But the healing items are blood vials, given to you by 'women' of the church, chosen by the church to serve as “blood vessels” and who are groomed as “blood saints.” Can you see what we're getting at here?

Well, the theory is further backed by the fact that two women who don’t give you blood are pregnant or have dealt with menopause. That's not even to mention that moon cycles are a big thing in the game. Plus there is a penchant for naming things “Mensis,” which is really close to menses, which is Latin for menstruation. I think this is my favorite theory so far and it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m a woman and the thought of how squeamish some guys are about periods. Not feeling well, take some period blood. HA!

6 Fallout 3

via youtube.com

Bethesda is well known for its Fallout series, a post-apocalyptic tale set in the 1950s. Well in Fallout 3 there was a numbers station and some Morse code that was brodcasted over your Pipboy, via radio broadcast. Apparently one of those Morse codes actually translated to, "nine-four-five-four-two-zero-

two-zero-one-zero. Accident in the gulf, several dead. Oil spill apparently averted.” Which most believe to be in association with the BP Gulf Oil Spill, which happened years after this game was released. Obviously, Bethesda denied all claims of them being able to read the future, but some dedicated people are still suspicious. Although, their morse code also claimed that the Queen of England would die in 2014 and obviously she's still alive and kicking. Another of the codes said, "I can’t believe Britney’s actually won an Oscar! - 21:33 February 27, 2023." So maybe by 2023, we'll know definitely. Good luck finding that fabled code! It's notoriously difficult to find, which onlu adds to the spookiness level.

5 Uncharted 3/ The Last of Us

Via: Rebrn.com

So there are a lot of conspiracy theories that revolve around different games by a particular developer being in the same universe. For this o,ne Naughty Dog gave us a pretty blatant hint/easter egg that says that the world of Uncharted 3 and The Last of Us actually are in the same universe. In Uncharted 3, there's a newspaper with the big title, "Scientists are still struggling to understand deadly fungus." Of course, The Last of Us came out two years after Uncharted 3, so we know Naughty Dog had this cooking in their brains for a while. This also means that you can probably find Nate, or anyone else from the game, as a fungal infected zombie. Hey, maybe we’ll get a crossover in the future!

4 Final Fantasy VII

via anispace.com

Of course Final Fantasy makes it onto this list again, but this one has to do with number seven in the series and that someone didn’t die. That person being Aeris. Now, she was pretty obviously stabbed right through the back, but there was a key part missing and by that I mean copious amounts of blood. The developers probably kept that part out because it was already gruesome enough to see a character you grew to love brutally murdered in front of you. However, some fans theorize that Aeris didn’t actually die right then, instead she was totally paralyzed by being cut through the spine. Instead of death, she is trapped in her body. It makes the scene where Cloud lets her go into the water a lot less touching and more terrifying, though.

3 Twisted Metal: Harbour City

Via: Youtube

Back in 2003, the developers at Incognito were working on a follow up to Twisted Metal: Black, named Harbour City. The first four levels were made and then the entire game was dropped. Why? Because six of the developers died in a plane crash. A lot of hardcore fans begged them to release the four levels anyway. Then Sony HQ got a note that pleaded for the release, but it was signed by the six dead developers. It read, "We are disappointed to hear of your decision to keep the world from seeing the last of work. We beg of you, show them what we have done, and show them the last of our earthly deeds. If you doubt our existence look to 'The Dark Past'."

Was it just a sick joke by a fan? Sony actually used the note in Twisted Metal: Head-on: Extreme Twisted Edition and you could unlock it. Did Sony make the note as a publicity stunt? Or were they just making the best of a bad situation. Either way, it’s pretty creepy.

2 Sony Kill Switch

There are some rumors floating around the internet that Sony had put a kill switch in every one of their consoles, as well as their games. There are two parts to this idea, one is that once the product reaches its warranty expiration date, the game will basically self-destruct. The other part is that Sony can shut down any console it wants, at any time. This rumor was ablaze when the PlayStation 3 ‘Jailbreak’ fiasco went down. Sony has said that they have no such kill switch, but that doesn’t stop people from thinking it’s true.

And I mean, not to sound like I should be wearing a tinfoil hat and raving about the government, but it would make sense that Sony could shut down a console. I mean all it would take is an internet uplink and a bug?

1 P.T.

Via: Youtube

Now if you want to be scared to tears by a video game go play PT. This was a short game put out by Hideo Kojima (known for Metal Gear Solid) and one of my favorite directors Guillermo Del Toro (know for Pan’s Labyrinth, Crimson Peak and a bunch of horror movies). It stood for “Playable Teaser” and was supposed to just be a taste of the future game to come. Spoiler: we never got the game. And Norman Reedus, from The Walking Dead, was supposed to be in it! Anyway, the theory suggests that each part of the game represents Kojima, his work with Metal Gear Solid and Konami itself. The fetus in the sink (if that didn’t make any sense, seriously go watch the game, there are TONS of let’s plays on it) represents Kojima himself, a young talent that was prematurely killed, since he could only work on Metal Gear Solid games. The ghost is the Metal Gear Solid series, a thing that just will not die and keeps coming back to haunt him. Finally the player/killer is actually Konami itself and how it ‘killed’ Kojima’s career. And then P.T. never actually got finished...ouch.