The errors are common to all software, and the same happens in video games. These glitches are patched by the developers, but sometimes these ”mistakes” are so fun or special that they never get deleted.
Here we list down ten video game glitches that massage players and developers loved so much, they left them in the games. Whether intentional or not, they are things that have become part of our gaming history.
Puppet Madness on my Street My Friendly Village
The idea of Muppet horror is an odd one, but My Friendly Neighborhood manages to craft a compelling and strangely fitting experience around it. Chief among these glitches was the time in pre-production when a puppet stalker called Norman mysteriously spawned more than two dozen versions of himself and swarmed.
The Glitch That Became a Feature
The glitch is the result of a bug where there were to spawn many Normans at different places but ended up spawning them in one spot. The result? When there was even just one alert Norman, the ‘disturbed’ them turned into many of their likes and scattered throughout.
This was so bizarre that the developers loved this contingency and decided to leave it in the final game. In its basement-level trick, a puppet of Norman (unnamed) splits into many Normans as an homage to the original error insulated.
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Fallout 4 – Gatling Laser Glitch
Fallout 4 had its share of bugs, but none were as memorable (and abusable) as the Gatling Laser glitch. This legendary weapon was supposed to act as a means of consuming fusion cores for ammo but didn’t properly drain the core’s charge due to a bug.
The Bug that Went On to Become a Legendary Feature
If you know Bethesda, which loves to release its games with million bugs (funny ones many of the times), must imagine how fun is to have a weapon impossible to have ammo.
Instead of patching it right up, they even went as far as to double down with the Nuka World DLC including a weapon called Externus that also capitalized on this mechanic. The bug was never 100% resolved, but it became a fun fascination of the game giving players something inconsistent to look forward to.
No Man’s Sky: Melee Boost
Melee boosting is a trick in No Man’s Sky exploited by nearly every player, and yet it was originally an accidental glitch. This is a way to chain and gain immense forward movement with the combination of a melee attack followed by a jetpack boost.
The IVTT – Glitch into Game Mechanic
While certainly not intended, this ‘glitch’ caught on and grew on the developers at Hello Games who ended up keeping it in.
The trick was allowed to persist over time and even acknowledged by the devs themselves, with it being included in patch notes for version 3.37. Care packages, introduced in Ghost campfires and now transporting through the ages via Black Ops III future soldiers (to this day – CHOOO!), are highlight reel stuff, though maybe even more memorable is Treyarch’s basic melee boosting maneuver.
Few modern tricks seem to have as enduring a legacy from one game in particular, or indeed any source of FPS fun whatsoever; I hesitate thinking how much we owe some cherishing byzantine bug plucked lurid from nowhere that just so happens made us faster when only our knees worked fine]].
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Projectile Boosting Ultrakill
The kinds of mechanics you can expect in Ultrakill are full of surprises, but one that stood out to me is projectile boosting. Another tip used is the BB melee, meaning when shooting your shotgun you are also allowed to during that same shot release a powered-up up-bullet(s).
Embracing the Unexpected
Developers of Ultrakill have embraced the leave-it-in philosophy, simply letting players discover and exploit them. Boosting projectiles: We’re not sure this makes a whole lot of sense, but we enjoyed the video nonetheless, and it demonstrates how some glitches aren’t worth fixing because they bring added flavor to an already chaotic game.
The Briefcase from Hitman 2
Hitman 2 included a little cheats mode where thrown objects, like the briefcase, would still hit their target. This weird feature was particularly problematic with the slow-moving briefcase, which would hilariously follow targets over long distances.
From Fix to Feature
At first the “glitch” was repaired by IO Interactive making the briefcase faster, but after fan outcry, they turned it into a feature. This was the introduction of “The Executive Briefcase MK-TW”, and it brought back purposely broken physics that made his homing briefcase so infamous. Hitman 3 brought the item back, proving a glitch can now be etched in the history of games as iconic.
The Skyrim Astronaut
One of the most iconic bugs seared into our minds from Skyrim is that of the “Skyrim Astronaut”. This is what happens when a giant gets fed up and smacks the shit out of you (or any NPC for that matter) so hard, you are launched into low orbit.
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A Bug Too Fun to Fix
This bug is iconic, with it even being a part of the identity of Skyrim itself. As Todd Howard mentions in an interview, anything that made the game more fun was left in regardless of whether or not it was a bug.
The giant space program, as it’s sometimes called, may be the product of damage overflow calculations in a video game – but it also speaks to Bethesda’s willingness to roll with the punches that give their titles so much life.
The Madden NFL 15 Tiny Titan
The football player Christian Kirkby was just one foot high in Madden NFL 15During an Ultimate Team challenge, a strange bug made the heart. The game meanwhile treated him like any other player, albeit an exceptionally strange one.
Embracing the Absurd
EA did not fix this exploit straight away, instead making a whole weekend out of the tiny Titan 2 -bringing it back for an additional weekend even after word spread about the bug. They even put out a funny trailer starring the actual Christian Kirkby and transformed what might have been an embarrassing bug into this legendary moment for their game.
Sonic Frontiers ‘Homeing Dash
In games, it is not strange to see speedrunners unearthing glitches that help them establish their best times and the homing dash in Sonic Frontiers finds itself a glitch personifying this relationship except that for once a major development team has chosen to keep hilariously abused trick alive.
Glitch Made the Game
For instance, the homing dash can be exploited in areas where planting a well-timed performative gentle twirl just right before bopping an enemy with a single makes it possible for expert speed-demons to pretty much lift as soon as earlier mentioned hulking sections of levels.
The director of the game, Morio Kishimoto, met it with a smile and allowed this trick to remain in play because he also felt that something charming would be lost without its presence. For a modern game like Borderlands 3, it’s not exactly common for the name-brand director to go “Yeah we left that bug in on purpose.”
Glitterhoof in Crusader Kings II
Crusader Kings II is a very complex grand strategy game where you appoint your horse as a courtier. What began as a text event only for rulers with the Lunatic persona ballooned into something broader.
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Cultural Phenomenon or A Glitch
Given enough time and effort, players quickly found out that they could turn their entire court (and possibly all of Europe) into horse culture – beginning with Glitterhoof.
The developers took this absurdity in stride by introducing more horse-focused events and at one point, allowing players to turn their entire kingdom into an equine monolith. What began as a little joke is now one of the weirder and most beloved mechanics in the game.
Ultima Not So in Final Fantasy II
While the Ultima spell is one of the most powerful in Final Fantasy, it was surprisingly weak -leading players to assume this bug.
Intentional Weakness
Follow-up interviews in Famitsu magazine with the legendary Final Fantasy director Hironobu Sakaguchi, however, made it clear that this design was not a matter of shoddy programming skill.
It makes sense in the context that if a spell is old, then it would be rendered in improper ways as well so naturally what they made of this theory was weaker spells than modern ones. That would have made the narrative sense, but as a design choice, it was an oddity that rang false with gamers.
Here, they look back on 10 of those instances-examples that prove glitches aren’t always bad. Some have even come to see a level of acceptance as iconic features within their games, loved both by those who play them and developers. Pure and simple, be it accidental or on purpose: sometimes a little anarchy can take your game from good to great.