Builders like to current gamers with characters that function bonkers origin tales of their video games, however generally the in-development tales that led to the creation of those characters are even wilder.

Right here’s a listing of well-known online game characters whose true origin tales I’m prepared to guess that you just’d by no means guess — I positive know I wouldn’t.

Strong Snake is 2 completely different individuals — identical to the true Large Boss

Within the Steel Gear Strong collection, Strong Snake would function an authentic search for the primary sport, however then turn into closely impressed by Snake Plissken from John Carpenter’s Escape From New York. You may know that one contemplating how Snake truly goes undercover as “Pliskin” in Steel Gear Strong 2, however do you know that the character started life due to a unique character?

Within the Steel Gear collection, Strong Snake’s design was closely impressed by Kyle Reese from Terminator, right down to his pose for promotional supplies.

I discover it very attention-grabbing that despite the fact that each Reese and Plissken are iconic characters, Strong Snake has arguably grown to overshadow each of his fathers by way of reputation.

Ermac was born out of faux information

Ermac, the purple ninja from the Mortal Kombat collection, wasn’t meant to be a factor.

All of it started when one fan despatched Digital Gaming Month-to-month a Polaroid of a purple ninja within the sport. EGM believed on this online game equal of a bigfoot sighting and printed it with out additional inquiry. The incident created rumors so robust that the nice builders determined to simply make it actual.

However the place did the picture come from? Welp, the fan simply doctored a photograph of Scorpion to make his armor purple.

Additionally, Ermac is brief for “Error Macro”, a time period utilized in one of many sport’s diagnostics menus. Sorry should you thought it had some horny and mysterious that means.

Rain from the Mortal Kombat collection is each an inner joke and a Prince reference

If Ermac resulted from followers pressuring the MK devs into making a personality, then Rain was the devs’ revenge. Many of the ninja characters within the MK collection have actually enjoyable inception tales, however Rain may simply take the cake.

Ed Boon inserted Rain in a small filler sequence in MK3 simply to mess with the minds of followers. “How can we unlock this cool new man?” Many should have requested. The factor is, the purple ninja didn’t even have any strikes of his personal, as a result of he wasn’t even an actual character. He was yet one more rehash of the basic MK ninja pores and skin.

Rain solely confirmed up as an actual character a bit later with the discharge of Final Mortal Kombat 3. Ed Boon says that his identify and coloration took place as a tribute to Prince’s hit, “Purple Rain.‌” Right here’s hoping he’s being trustworthy about that.

Kirby’s look was only a placeholder

Kirby is among the most instantly recognizable online game characters, however Nintendo didn’t initially need him to appear to be that.

What we all know as Kirby was merely a graphical placeholder for an precise design that by no means got here to be. Both that, or he simply swallowed no matter Nintendo artists put close to him.

Think about rocking as a lot at design as the one that randomly got here up with a throwaway design that turned extra recognizable than 95% of online game characters on the market.

Gordon Freeman from the Half-Life collection was initially an area biker

‌Regardless of making a number of errors alongside the way in which, the protagonist of the Half-Life collection stays one of many extra book-smart primary characters in gaming historical past. Nonetheless, Valve initially needed him to a minimum of appear to be the precise reverse of that.

He was initially born as “Ivan the House Biker”, a way more burly model of the primary character we ended up getting.

The Spy from Staff Fortress 2 was born out of a glitch

Staff Fortress 2’s spy is probably going essentially the most meme-able character within the sport, and that’s saying rather a lot since this is among the most meme-able video games in existence. Nonetheless, he’s there due to a comfortable accident.

He exists as a result of a bug plagued the sport’s beta levels and brought on enemies to indicate up as in the event that they had been teammates. This could’ve led a weaker dev workforce to lose its collective thoughts, however Valve noticed the universe sending them an indication.

Nathan Drake is predicated on a real-life daredevil

For those who suppose Nathan Drake from the Uncharted collection is the son of Lara Croft and Indiana Jones, then I’ve some worrying information for you.

Naughty Canine truly based mostly him on Jackass celebrity Johnny Knoxville. It’s a kind of issues that you just’d by no means in one million years contemplate a chance, however good luck erasing the data out of your thoughts now that you just’ve seen the picture above.

Girl Dimitrescu is predicated on an actual serial killer

Girl Dimitrescu possible turned much more well-liked than the sport she’s from, and that’s cool, but additionally form of worrisome when you recognize the complete image. You see, Girl Dimitrescu is partly based mostly on Morticia Addams, who’s cool, but additionally on a noblewoman referred to as Elizabeth Báthory, who was something however.

The factor about Báthory is that she was one among — if not essentially the most — prolific serial killers in historical past. Báthory was energetic within the second half of the 1500s, and her factor was killing younger women to drink their blood, as she thought that may hold her youthful. She was fallacious and died earlier than reaching even 55. Occasions had been powerful again then, however I believe it’s truthful to say that killing as much as 650 individuals for his or her youth and never even reaching the age of 60 is fairly embarrassing.