Everyone loves a good mystery right? Video games are a treasure trove of conspiracy theories, buried secrets and other shady activities. There’s so many to choose from, but let’s dive into a few recent big unsolved mysteries in video games.
Big Unsolved Mysteries in Video Games
The Secret Zoo Level in Accounting+
For over a year now, fans of a short indie VR game, known as Accounting (now “plus”), have been scouring every inch of the game’s various worlds to find a Secret Zoo Level.
Accounting+ is an irreverent game about going into multiple dimensions of VR, similar to the concept of Inception, and along the way the player is subject to silly events such as summoning Satan via a rap ritual, being on trial for the murder of the King of VR, and getting recruited into a gang of “hardened” animals.
It was developed by a collaborative team of the people behind The Stanley Parable and the executive producer of Rick and Morty.
There’s really nothing that special about the game on the surface. It’s a fun ride while it lasts, but the game is short and you can see most of the game in a few hours of play time.
Well, almost all of the game except one really big mystery that remains hidden: The Secret Zoo Level. At The Game Awards 2017, Justin Roiland (Rick and Morty) and William Pugh (The Stanley Parable), revealed Accounting+, and tipped off its fans that there was a Secret Zoo Level.
The teaser shown dropped a few clues about the Zoo Level that are still being analyzed today, and Roiland and Pugh proclaimed that it’s incredibly difficult to find, and a lot of work went into hiding something that only a very small percentage of people would ever see.
The challenge was accepted by a dedicated group of fans of the game. Since Accounting+ released on Dec. 19, 2017, a massive search has been on for the Secret Zoo Level.
There’s really not a whole lot of game to cover and all of its files have been datamined with nothing clearly pointing to the existence of the level. This has led some people to believe that the developers are in on a massive troll job.
However, those that believe in the Secret Zoo Level counter that data is obfuscated, or in other words, intentionally made unintelligible to dataminers to throw miners off the scent, and that level is in the game somewhere.
Whether or not the Secret Zoo Level is in the game’s files right now is still a hotly debated topic. What isn’t up for debate though is that the developers are embracing the search.
Developer Crows Crows Crows, has dropped hints since the game’s launch that are designed to very cryptically guide players to finding the Secret Zoo Level. More often than not though, the clues have led to more questions being raised than answers.
An update was later added to Accounting+ which added a new level, called The Water Park Level, which paid homage to the search.
The level is plastered in fan theories and objects related to the search. An all-important clown that was featured in the original trailer teasing the Secret Zoo Level makes an appearance and acts as an in-game embodiment of the real-life people losing their minds trying to find it.
To-date, the Secret Zoo Level has not been found. As recently as a few days ago on Christmas Day 2018, more cryptic hints were dropped by Crows Crows Crows, but once again, the clues have just driven fans deeper down the rabbit hole.
Those wanting to keep tabs on the latest can join the Discord dedicated to search which is complete with resources for those that want to catch up and get the full story.
Big Unsolved Mysteries in Video Games
The Nature of “The Darkness” in Destiny
In the first Destiny game, an unexplained, unseen entity known as “The Darkness” was consistently reinforced as the game’s true enemy, running alongside whatever villain detours the game’s thin plot wanted to lead players down.
What “it” was, it drove the Traveler into the arms of Earthlings and kicked off the chain of events that led to the world of Destiny as we know it now.
Destiny 1’s narrative was pretty much universally panned, and when Destiny 2 released, the developers admitted that they weren’t even sure what The Darkness is. The team focused on delivering more coherent plots with villains that had clearer motivations.
Fortunately, the effort wasn’t for naught, and while Destiny 2 and its expansions won’t be winning any awards for its narrative anytime soon, it’s certainly better put together than it was previously.
However, Bungie didn’t completely swear off The Darkness either, telling Kotaku that “when we are going to talk about Darkness next, we need to know what it is and have a plan for it. And we do.”
As maligned as the main plot was, Destiny does have very fascinating lore that exists under the surface that, for reasons unknown, Bungie prefers to hide away instead of putting it center stage.
Because Bungie has chosen to keep The Darkness very mysterious — originally unintentionally, and now as of late intentionally — it has become a source of speculation for fans.
Some speculate that The Traveler is actually a source of evil and Guardians are inadvertently doing its bidding. The recent Leviathan story arc suggests that Emperor Calus, the former despot of the Cabal, has some truth bombs that he’s ready to drop on us when we finally meet up.
And, the end of the vanilla Destiny 2 campaign shows mysterious pitch black triangle ships out in deep space awakening after being touched by the Traveler’s light.
Our bet is that answers will come in the redacted season teased for the summer this year.
Big Unsolved Mysteries in Video Games
Petscop
image via The New Yorker/Petscop YouTube
It’s debatable whether you can consider Petscop to truly be a video game mystery, considering it’s not actually a video game that anyone can play and buy. It’s a scripted series of videos that shows a fictional “found” game known as Petscop.
It’s more of an elaborate creepypasta for gamers, but it doesn’t make it any less mysterious or interesting.
Basically, the story goes like this: A man by the name of “Paul” has been uploading videos of a supposed PS1-era game that he found called Petscop, to YouTube.
The best way to describe the game (on the surface anyway) is that it’s a surreal take on Pokemon. The character walks around the world capturing “pets” and keeps track of the strange pets that he collects along the way.
However, underneath that game world is a dark tale of child abuse which slowly unravels as the video series progresses that based is on the actual real-life murder of Candace Elizabeth Newmaker, but eventually takes on a life of its own.
The story that follows is extremely complex, and I can’t possibly do it justice in a short article entry like this. The Game Theorists have an excellent set of videos about Petscop that you can watch to get the gist, and if you’re feeling up to it, you can watch the Let’s Play for yourself.
Big Unsolved Mysteries in Video Games
Shepard’s Indoctrination in Mass Effect
Spoiler Warning: We’re going to discuss the ending of Mass Effect 3 lightly here, don’t read if you haven’t played it and plan on doing so.
Mass Effect 3’s ending might be a little dated compared to the other gaming mysteries on this list, it is without a doubt, one of the most debated topics of the two most recent gaming generations.
The premise is easy to introduce. Was Shepard indoctrinated at the end of Mass Effect 3? And are the final scenes that include The Illusive Man and Captain Anderson really just a battle that is taking place inside Shepard’s mind?
It might seem ludicrous at first, but there is a mountain of evidence that points in that direction. In fact, you only need a loose understanding of how Reaper indoctrination works to understand how silly it would be if Shepard wasn’t indoctrinated.
Shepard was exposed to Reaper technology constantly throughout all three games. In Mass Effect 3, he has nightmares that are visual depictions of accounts of what indoctrination is like from the Rachni Queen, which manifested through Shepard’s own insecurities.
The Indoctrination Theory, as it is known, fits over the overall Mass Effect trilogy storyline like a glove, falling into many of the narrative’s major plot holes and provides an explanation for why the Destroy ending has that extra scene that the other major endings lack.
It’s easy to root for the Indoctrination Theory to be real because if you accept it as being true, it turns what was a sloppy effort at best at wrapping up a beloved trilogy into a masterpiece that makes Bioware look like geniuses instead.
There are a lot of videos about Indoctrination Theory out there, but the ACAVYO video is probably the best place to start, and then if you’re hooked go over to the Clever Noob documentary for the deep dive.
Big Unsolved Mysteries in Video Games
The Overarching Pokemon Narrative
We’ll end this five pack of video game mysteries with Pokemon. Just Pokemon in general because it is a constant source of eerie fan theories, and mysterious plot details.
Whether you buy into the shadiest takes on Pokemon’s overarching narrative, there is no doubt that Game Freak likes to incorporate dark elements into Pokemon as Easter eggs at the very least.
Take, for example, Pokemon’s obsession with Alchemy and other similar magic that hint at destruction and death.
Whether or not the plot literally will ditch its younger audience one day and go full dark and embrace those underlying themes is very debatable, but the fact that they are there waiting to be found is not.
Sometimes the weirdness that Game Freak typically buries bubbles up to the surface. There’s the Ghost Girl of Lumiose City and the alternate dimensions explored during the plot of Sun & Moon and Omega Red & Alpha Sapphire.
If you want to get old-school, you can always dive into the mysterious nature of Lavender City, Ditto’s origin as failed Mew clones, and how the world, in general, might be in recovery from a massive total war.
The frustrating part is that Pokemon’s niche as a game for all ages means that most, if not all of these mysteries will likely never occupy the main stage.
The best we can hope for is that Game Freak at least continues to leave breadcrumbs in each game for us to follow.
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