From the earliest days of video gaming, when a designer named Warren Robinett hid his name in a secret room of his game Adventure, secrets have been a big part of the medium. Even if Robinett didn't intend for anyone to actually find the pioneering Easter egg, he inadvertently began a tradition that remains alive and well in gaming to this day and has taken many different forms over the decades.

However, for every legitimate secret area and hidden item there is to find in a video game, there are just as many that are complete fabrications. There are enough myths and urban legends surrounding video game secrets that there are entire websites dedicated to them, both to debunk them and also perpetuate them. While these mostly started with video game magazines playing fun April Fools Day pranks on their readers and kids sharing fish tales on the playground, it soon evolved into a whole culture of misinformation about what is and isn't actually hidden within video games.

While there are many legends related to gaming that go beyond the content of the games themselves--the mind-control arcade game Polybius, the haunted copy of Majora's Mask, and so on--this list is relegated to things that people believe to actually be hidden inside video games that have since been officially debunked. Or have they? It's up to you to decide whether or not you want to ignore the concrete evidence that these myths are fake and keep on believing them away.

Play As Snake In The Plant Chapter (Metal Gear Solid 2)

One of the most elaborate switcharoos in gaming history was when we unexpectedly found ourselves controlling a character named Raiden--rather than Solid Snake--for the second two-thirds of Metal Gear Solid 2, something that could've only been pulled off pre-social media.

But because so many pre-release trailers showed Snake in the Raiden areas of the final game, people speculated that there must be a way to unlock him for the Plant chapter. People even used those trailers as "proof" of this. Turns out that Hideo Kojima and team just put him into those areas specifically for those misleading trailers.

Find Bigfoot (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas)

As video games creep ever-closer to reality, it's inevitable that real-life hoaxes eventually find their way into virtual worlds. Sorry, Bigfoot aficionados, but yes...we here at The Gamer are indeed taking the stance that Bigfoot is a myth.

Bigfoot also isn't real within the world of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

The rumors began when supposed in-game photos people had taken of a Sasquatch in the woods of San Andreas began to pop up online. Those turned out to be faked, and any screenshots you see of such a creature are from a modded version of the game.

Brutus The Evil Villager (Animal Crossing)

Games like Animal Crossing are fun because they play out differently for everyone. This allows people to discuss the game and ask each other if they've seen this character or that event. You could play the game for months and not experience something your friend has.

Because of that, we get legends like Brutus the Bulldog, who is supposedly an evil villager with glowing red eyes that shows up in your town and wreaks havoc if you don't play for awhile. No such character exists, however--all that shows up when you neglect your town are weeds and cockroaches.

The Secret Cow Level (Diablo)

It's one of the funniest Easter eggs in video game history, especially because it eventually became a self-perpetuating joke. But while actual "cow levels" eventually found their way into the Diablo series, there truly wasn't a cow level in the first game despite the rumor mills saying otherwise.

There are different variations on the means of unlocking the non-existent level, but the most common one involves clicking on a specific cow in Tristram a set number of times. Blizzard included the cheat code "There is no cow level" in StarCraft as a fun way to debunk the myth.

Unlock Sonic and Tails (Super Smash Bros. Melee)

While the rumors that Sonic the Hedgehog was an unlockable character in the original Super Smash Bros. were pretty far-fetched given that Nintendo and Sega were still rivals at the time, Melee was released in a world where Sega had already gone third-party and was releasing games on the GameCube.

The mocked-up screenshots showing Sonic and Tails in Melee were certainly convincing...but also certainly photoshopped.

Sonic would eventually the Smash roster for Brawl and Ultimate, but Tails remains a no-show as a playable character.

Blood Code (Mortal Kombat, SNES Version)

There are entire lists dedicated to myths and urban legends surrounding the Mortal Kombat series, as the developers have had a lot of fun playing with people's conspiracy theories regarding the franchise. Many rumored characters and features even made their way into future installments.

One MK rumor that hasn't been made real--and can't be made real--is the supposed blood code for the SNES version. We think this one was mostly just wishful thinking on the part of SNES owners who had to settle for the "sweat" and the G-rated versions of the Fatalities.

The Golden Warthog (Halo 2)

The civilian-model Warthog, otherwise known as the "golden Warthog," was first seen on a billboard within the world of Halo 2. And with that, players began to speculate that such a vehicle could be located and used, followed by the usual false means of getting the mythical vehicle.

You can't get a gold Warthog in OG Halo 2, but it is available in the Anniversary edition for Xbox One.

It's unclear what players thought was so different about the civilian Warthog beyond its color, but maybe the cool paint job was all that mattered.

Herobrine (Minecraft)

It's hard to know what is officially "real" and what isn't when you're dealing with a game that's all about players creating custom content for it, but that didn't stop an urban legend from popping up around Minecraft with a very mysterious character.

The story goes that a Hostile Mob character who looks a lot like Steve started showing up in people's single-player games and would build bizarre structures in their world. All kinds of rumors popped up about "Herobrine," including that he was a ghost infecting the game. As of yet, no concrete proof exists that he is real.

Pikachu's PlayStation Hatred (Hey You, Pikachu!)

Back in the days when voice recognition wasn't so advanced that we were able to run every device in our house by simply talking at a robot in the corner of the room, video game companies tried to make games that utilized the then-primitive tech to predictably mixed results.

Hey You, Pikachu! was cute for about five minutes, until you got fed up with Pika not understanding half of your commands.

One thing he definitely didn't understand were the words "Sony" and "PlayStation," despite claims at the time that saying those things to him would elicit an angry reaction.

Predict The Future (Fallout 3)

Fallout 3 is a game that takes place in the past, and like a lot of fiction within a timeline that precedes our own, it has a lot of fun with that. For instance, through coded messages, the game pretended to "predict" the ing of actor Gary Coleman.

So, naturally, people started to dig into it even more and some became convinced that the game was also going to predict real things before they happened. However, despite some players claiming to have found more "real predictions," none actually exist, and several predicted event dates have already come and gone without incident.