The Most Bizarre Things Found Out Of Bounds In Games

Blizzard's MMO World of Warcraft is known for its treasure trove of pop culture references, hidden areas, and secrets. Podcasts like Warcraft Less Travelled have dedicated numerous episodes to uncovering the mysteries hidden by game developers. While most of these Easter eggs are meant as rewards for travelers who take the time to explore the expansive zones of WoW, some of them are unused or scrapped content that was easier left in-game than taken out.

One such example is the spooky dungeon of the Forgotten Crypt near the Tower of Karazhan. There has been much speculation about why this particular area was never made accessible to players, with the most fitting explanation being the game rating. Because of some of the more disturbing content in this particular crypt, Blizzard likely would have had to raise its ESRB rating to M.

Among the dark and dreary halls of the Forgotten Crypt is the infamous Upside-Down Sinners Room. Just as the name would suggest, this area is simply a large water-filled room full of corpses that have been chained to the floor as their bodies float towards the ceiling. Given just how grotesque this is compared to the rest of the game, it's obvious why Blizzard decided not to keep the content accessible.

Horror survival games filled with jumpscares can be some of the most entertaining to watch others play on YouTube. It's easy to laugh at their terror when you aren't the one in the driver's seat. But when dropped into the game on your own, players often find themselves paralyzed with fear.

Slender: The Arrival is one of those games that seems to be more fun to spectate than to play, because all interactions with Slender Man send us sprinting blindly in a panic. This fight or flight reflex makes it difficult to focus. Some players who were savvy enough to try to beat the system and get out of Slender Man's grasp, however, found that the consequences for cheating were much worse than actually playing the game as it was intended. If a player finds themselves out of bounds in Slender: The Arrival, whether by choice or by glitching through the boundaries, a message will appear on the screen in the familiar, untidy Slender Man scrawl. It reads, "Not even a bug in this game will save you from me." As this message flashes across the screen, the familiar camera static and screech of Slender Man can be heard as the faceless antagonist appears before the player and kills them. If you're faint of heart and don't like the idea of a game with no escape, it's probably best to just sit this one out.

The Resident Evil franchise is synonymous with survival horror. Resident Evil has been terrifying gamers since the dog-through-the-window jump scare of 1996. As the games have evolved, however, they've only gotten more horrifying, and 2005's Resident Evil 4 was no exception. Because of this, the Easter egg found out of bounds in this game can either be seen as humorous and very out of place, or dark and sinister.

Nearly 12 years after the original release of Resident Evil 4, a bizarre texture was found in a distant building after the plane crash scene. Using a free roaming camera, players were able to identify the figure in the building window as being a man in a coat, but who the man is and why the image was included in the game is still unknown. Many assume this person is a developer who wanted to sneak their likeness into the game, though confirmation of this theory hasn't risen yet. Because the character is seen pressed up against the glass window of the building, peering out to where the player character is located, it gives the whole discovery an eerie vibe. Whatever the reason the image was included in the finished game, it definitely adds an air of mystery to the atmosphere.

The 2005 first person shooter TimeSplitters: Future Perfect was a bit of a cult classic among PS2 and Xbox gamers. Because the game itself is a mostly straightforward playthrough that doesn't focus heavily on comedy, the bizarre Easter egg found in one of the levels is that much more out of place.

Within the "Breaking and Entering" level of TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, players are tasked with defending a room where Amy Chen resides. However, if a mod is used to enter the room before the defend sequence is triggered, the room is actually empty, save for six bananas. This odd find made players question why in the world a serious game like TimeSplitters would need a room that looks like something straight out of a Donkey Kong game. Even odder still is that these bananas disappear when entering the room in the correct sequence of events. Because the NPCs that players are protecting Chen from appear to shoot directly at where the bananas had been only moments before, it has been speculated that they were placed there as markers for where the NPCs should be shooting. Seen out of context, however, it looks like the game developers forgot what game they were making.

Grand Theft Auto is a game littered with pop culture references and Easter eggs. Most of these are relatively simple to locate for those willing to put in a little effort. Some, however, are hidden behind walls that need to be glitched through to be seen, as is the case in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Inside of the gun store "Ammu-nation," players will need to jump onto the countertop with their back against the wall, crouch, and then pull out a rocket launcher. If the player turns around in this position, they will be able to see a hidden billboard through the wall that is otherwise inaccessible.

On the left side of this secret billboard is a photo of former leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev with several bullet holes smattering the sign. On the right side of the billboard, players can see a photo of former US President Ronald Reagan, holding a gun and giving the camera a thumbs up with his free hand. While it's unclear exactly why this Easter egg was hidden behind a wall in the game, it's obvious that the game developers had a sense of humor about something they thought players may never find.

In the 1996 MS-DOS game Big Red Racing, most things are about what you'd expect from a late-'90s racing simulator. The pixelated racetrack and cars are all pretty straightforward. But in taking your car out of bounds and exploring a bit beyond where the developers thought casual gamers would stay, strange things can be found.

Not only is the out of bounds area in Big Red Racing quite large for a map that doesn't have any need for the extra space, but an odd depiction of a horse that looks like something straight out of Minecraft can be found.

At the starting line in the Japan map, players must refrain from actually competing in the race and instead, veer off the racetrack all together. Taking a sharp right and heading towards the setting sun, careful to avoid any water hazards, players will eventually come across a hilly area, with one hill in particular bearing a picture of what appears to be a horse. Emphasis on "eventually": what makes this one so bizarre is just how long you have to drive, into empty land, just to finally find ... a horse. On a hill. It takes nearly two minutes all told, and there's absolutely nothing to tell you that there's even anything waiting for you at the end of your journey. We don't know why the developers bothered putting this in their game, but for whatever reason, they sure did.