10 RIDICULOUS Reasons Games Had To Be Changed

Creating a video game is no easy feat and usually changes big and small need to be made for

understandable purposes. But not all fixes are as normal as others because sometimes the motive

behind a patch can be absolutely crazy. I'm Josh from Walk Culture Gaming and today we're covering

ridiculous reasons games had to be changed. First up the devs didn't want to upset a new employee

Phantasy Star 2. Have you ever had that feeling of starting a new job and trying so hard to impress

the brass that you overdo it a little bit? Well in any case it's hard to imagine the higher ups

being unhappy with your work and not telling you that you're doing something wrong. Unless of course

you're Sega, in which case some devs are more than happy to keep your work in the final product

even if they aren't too keen on it. In 1993, developer interview with staff who worked on

the seminal sci-fi RPG, Phantasy Star 2, tells such a story. According to game designer Kotaro

Hayashida, the design of the game's dungeons was passed over to a new employee. This employee

quote, kind of overdid it, leading to a slew of over-designed dungeons that made the game, quote

more about complex dungeons than anything else which wasn't the original plan however rather

than scrapping the work of this new employee the game's writer director chieko aoki decided that

she didn't want to hurt their feelings and waste all their effort therefore their work was kept

and used even if it was quote with some mixed feelings as per hayashida so the original plan

of the game was altered because the bosses just didn't want to discourage their new employee now

That's a wholesome work environment if I ever heard of one. Next up, the banter was too much, Forspoken

2023's Forspoken is an absurd game that is, in a way, kind of brilliant

as it exemplifies all the bad tropes of modern AAA gaming. It's got a bland open world, repetitive gameplay, convoluted combat

and of course, writing that's so quippy, sardonic, and try-hard that it makes you cringe

And that last point is exactly where this entry comes into play

One of the biggest complaints people had about this action RPG was the Marvel-esque dialogue

especially the conversations between protagonist Frey and her talking bracelet cough. Listening to these two banter back and forth with lackluster one-liners and uninspired quips

left many players feeling frustrated and wishing they could just mute them

The game even came with an option to adjust the frequency of their dialogue

However, Forspoken had to change itself even further as the cringe-worthy banter caught plenty of flack even with this slider involved

So a patch was released four months after the game came out as covered via Eurogamer that further reduced the frequency and content of their banter during open world activities

Now imagine your writing being so bad that people just want to mute you

Can't relate. Next up, unfortunate graffiti placement, Stellar Blade. Set dressing is the kind of thing most gamers won't notice

Small in-world details are intended to make the environment feel alive, usually without distracting the player too much

So imagine how embarrassed the devs for Stellar Blade must have felt when they realised the massive blunder that they made due to some awkward graffiti placement Because yeah nobody could ignore this One piece of Stellar Blade elaborate visual design is the use of graffiti

with designs appearing throughout the game. It also has a selection of vendors, one of which is called Roxanne

This is all pretty innocent, but it was less so when some accidental graffiti placement

which spelled out the word hard, was placed right next to a sign for Roxanne's shop

that was simply the words R-Shop. Yeah, the devs accidentally alluded to a racial slur

by placing the word hard right next door to the letter R

Sony themselves had a comment on this mistake, as per Forbes, calling it an, quote

unintentional, objectionable phrase, and then patched it out. Next up, Puckman, Pac-Man

If you're a fan of the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, then you probably already know this one

However, for anyone who isn't aware, the moral of this story is that gamers cannot be trusted

Pac-Man, of course, is a gaming icon that the whole world knows

You could find someone living inside a cave in a distant, far-off land

probably not even on this planet, and they'd probably still say, oh yeah, that's the Wacka Wacka guy

And if you're wondering, the Wacka Wacka woman, of course, is not Miss Pac-Man, but rather Shakira

I was proud of that joke. The point is, his name has undergone a slight transformation as his original Japanese iteration was known as Puckman

The original name came from the Japanese phrase Apaku-Paku-Taburu, which is used to describe the sounds and action of gobbling things up

However, this moniker was abandoned when the game was released in North America, as there was concern, naturally, that his name would be vandalized, with the P being replaced with an F

And yeah, it wouldn't look great on Namco to see the words, well, you can imagine them on their machines, so you can see the concern

It is fascinating to know that a fear of arcade hooliganism, though, led to such an iconic name being Bon

Next up, the studio was afraid of Sean Connery, Doldeneye. Gaming myths were rampant in the pre-internet era, with a particularly popular one being the All Bonds Cheat

This urban legend claimed that the N64 classic shooter GoldenEye featured a cheat that would unlock models for nearly every iteration of Bond

letting you and your friends duke it out to see which one was the best

This was naturally false, however, while the rumor itself was a hoax, it's surprising to know how close to reality it actually was

That's because there were plans to include a four Bond mode, including Sean Connery

Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan, and tough luck for George Lazenby

However, this concept was scrapped, and during an interview with The Independent, the game's

director, Martin Hollis, revealed that the reason the mode was removed was because the

company was afraid of what cinema's first Bond would do to them

I think they were worried about him getting litigious, Hollis claimed. While the idea would

have been amazing, it seems incurring the wrath of the original 007 wasn't a risk worth taking

Next up, many unexpected results, Dwarf Fortress. For those unfamiliar with Dwarf Fortress

this is a bonkers management and construction simulator game with uncompromising levels of

complexity As such it has some of the funniest patch notes as collected by PC Gamer that you find in any game ever Some of the things the devs had to fix due to unexpected outcomes I swear down we leave you in stitches

I mean just look at some of these highlights, there's one that says fixed a bug where animals could rent rooms

fixed a bug with mule shitting luggage, stopped children from buying shops

weasels probably shouldn't be found on glaciers, rodent man has no teeth

and the iconic added cat butchery. I don't even know what that last one means

I mean, I can kind of get it, but I kind of don't want to get it, you know what I mean

Another particularly amusing alteration the game needed to make was for the sake of saving the dwarf kids

It turns out that forgetting to dress them once they turned two years old was leading to them dying of embarrassment, literally

Unlike other entries on this list, the thrill of this game is in its unpredictability and weirdness, though

As such, these goofy changes are part of the broader appeal of this absolutely absurd title

Next up, the drunken princess, Super Mario Kart. The bright, fun, inviting world of Mario Kart is about as controversial as a butterfly resting on a flower

This series is renowned worldwide for its family-friendly content and wholesome overall vibe

That's what makes it so funny then to learn that the first game in the series had to make a controversial change

when bringing the game to America, and it was all down to the villainous Bowser and the charming

Princess Peach. After achieving victory in Super Mario Kart, each character performs a unique

animation while holding a bottle of champagne. While most characters just toy about with it

the original Japanese release saw two characters crack it open and neck it to their heart's content

Those figures, as you might have guessed, were Bowser and Peach. Now, Bowser's messy chugging

does feel pretty fitting, but seeing the affable Princess Peach get all flushed upon drowning

champagne was a little less familiar. As such, Nintendo America saw it fit to change these

animations when localizing to the West, switching to Bowser cheering, and Peach throwing the

bottle up and down like it was a football. Bring it back, I say, though. Knowing Nintendo

they'll probably charge extra for it, wouldn't they? The original name was less than PG

Dark Souls. It's hard to think of a franchise that has had a bigger impact on modern gaming

than Dark Souls. Damn near every gamer has an opinion on it one way or another, whether it be

decrying it as a masterpiece or lamenting its punishing difficulty. But, and that is a choice

word as you'll soon see, the iconic name of Dark Souls came very close to being something else

with a last minute alteration saving FromSoft some major embarrassment. That's because the

game went through a few names as per the gamer, with one of the original ideas being Dark Race

a name that obviously was better left by the wayside. Its firmest moniker, however, was Dark Ring

Now that seems innocent enough, but a decision was made at the last minute to change the name

as the British devs stepped in to inform FromSoft that this title might be interpreted as something

else in the UK. And if you don't know that's because the term is often used as a slang term

in the UK for you know the bum the bot the arse the backside the rear the cheeks But more specifically the butthole referred to in the UK by wrongans everywhere as The Ring As such something about the name Dark Ring just felt a little off

And Rings Lights, Rings Born, Rings Lights. Yeah, I don't think any of these quite have the same ring to them either

Even though if Elden Ring came out first, they probably would. Elden Ring was good, wasn't it? It was a good title, yeah

Definitely. Imagine if that was called Dark Ring as well. Doesn't bear thinking about

Next up, the fans demanded cake, Dead by Daylight. When thinking about the monstrous Silent Hill villain Pyramid Head, a lot of things probably

come to mind. There's his oversized headpiece, the tendency to chase you, the Berserk style sword and more

However, if you're a Dead by Daylight fan you might instead think of cake, but not the

bakery kind, the one I was just on about, y'know. The bum, the bot, the ass, the..

Yeah, you get the joke. When Pyramid Head, known in the game as the Executioner, was announced for DBD, his early

promotional work showed that he'd been given a damn rotund backside. Fans naturally were overjoyed to see their monstrous villain so well caked up

Sadly, this excitement was marred by controversy when the character finally appeared in game

with a noticeable nerf to his posterior. The backlash to this was, while mostly ironic, pretty notable as covered here by The Gamer

which drew the attention of the devs. Thankfully the 5.1.1 update brought the bakery back with a patch note reading quote, fixed

an issue that caused the executioner's rear to be too flat. So yeah, what a victory for gaming

While the developers have claimed the butt reduction was due to a technical issue, it's

notable that his flatness was listed under known issues in the patch notes

So it seems that Behaviour Interactive is more than aware of what the fans are worried about

Up next, it needed to be hornier, Baldur's Gate 3. If you've played Baldur's Gate 3, which everyone in the world should do by the way

then you'll know the game is hornier than a tiefling. There's barely any companions who aren't looking to pounce on the player with romances

being a massive part of the game. Hell, at times it even feels like a straight up dating sim

However, while you might assume this was a path the devs always planned to walk, it was

actually a deliberate change in the direction that was prompted by player feedback

Because in the words of one of the developers when discussing the BG3 player base, quote

they're all horny, end quote. Baldur's Gate 3 went through an extensive early access period, refining the game's

themes, story and more, with player opinions always in mind. Well this feedback, as per IGN, led the team to realise they needed to up the amount of

romance in the game. According to the same developer, only about 1% of players were uninterested in actually

having a romance, and as such, BG3 became what it is. So that's right, the players brought this on themselves

Now this is the end of the list, go and chat up those frog people, go and talk to the hot vampires and get ravaged by the guy who turns into a bear

But before you go let me know if you have any similar stories down in the comments below and if you want more content like this click one of the videos on screen right now