Secret Areas Gamers Were Never Supposed To Find

Developers love to hide little secrets in their games. From simple Easter eggs to full-blown bonus areas, finding them is a task that has kept gamers busy for years. Sometimes, the developers will even get so impatient for players to find their secrets that they'll just tell people where to look, which is how Quincy Sharp's secret blueprints for Arkham City were finally discovered in Batman: Arkham Asylum.

In an interview with Tedium, The Cutting Room Floor co-founder Alex Workman explained, "Game developers often only ever want people to see the 'finished' project, much like films." Sometimes, though, gamers manage to access places in their favorite games that were never intended to be seen, let alone explored in detail. These "lost" places can take the form of unfinished areas, sections cordoned off by the developers, or maps randomly created by genuine anomalies within the code of a game. Sometimes these nooks in the game can be found via cheat codes; sometimes they're accessed through hacks or exploiting glitches. Whatever the means of discovery, the following places were never supposed to be found. 

But they were. So let's take a look at them.

Originally infiltrated by the group Termacious Trickosity, this secret area has the added benefit of giving players a literal look behind the scenes of Halo: Reach. While trying to clip through a wall into a different unreachable area, Termacious Trickosity realized that Reach uses a system very much like a movie studio backlot for its cutscenes. 

By clipping out of bounds and switching the game camera to a bird's eye view, they found themselves in a blank room. They discovered that the cutscenes in Reach weren't actually pre-rendered, because above this void, they could see all of the various "sets" where the cutscenes take place, floating out of their reach.

While the discovery of this abyss was incredible enough on its own, Trickosity decided to try and enter the floating areas, which was another matter entirely. Termacious Trickosity subsequently spent an impressive seven years trying to work out how to enter the destroyed Science Wing from Reach's ninth level cutscene. Through an exact set of jumps, character placements, and understanding of how the game loads its cutscenes, Trickosity finally managed to literally break into one of the game's cinematics. All in all, it's a pretty incredible accomplishment, as well as a testament to the sheer determination of fans.

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is full of majestic hilltops, lush valleys, and incredibly ornate Dwarven caverns. And, of course, there's the quaint little nook known as the Dead Body Cleanup Cell, as well as — Oh, you haven't been to the Dead Body Cleanup Cell? Well, have a seat, because it's time to learn all about this place that should never be.

Through a series of console commands on the PC version of Skyrim, it is possible to access a sickly colored cavern that contains NPCs that you've killed. It's essentially a dumping ground utilized by the game so that it doesn't clutter too much of its memory remembering where you've left corpses behind. They're all piled up on top of each other, and they're all inexplicably naked. Sometimes there are fewer dead bodies in the hallway, but the whole place still looks like the day after a party at Caligula's place. Aside from the corpses, there are also two empty coffins in the room.

The creepiest part of this area? It's shaped like a cross. Yikes. The Dead Body Cleanup Cell didn't have to spook us this much, but it really went for it. If you do decide to visit the Dead Body Cleanup Cell, tread carefully. It may crash your game.

When Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was released on the PlayStation in 1997, it was a smash success, with GameSpot calling it "quite possibly the best 2D action side-scroller ever." Sadly, for a game that is so well loved, the well-known PlayStation version had quite a bit of content designed for it that was ultimately left on the cutting room floor. These sections were only realized when an expanded version of the the game was later ported to the Sega Saturn in Japan.

However, by exploiting a glitch that moves your character through the floor, players are able to access a cavern that may have originally led to the excised areas. There's not much to the cavern beyond a couple of platforms and a shallow bit of water in the lower left corner. What's actually interesting about this secret passageway is that it eventually deposits you into a hidden Save Room. 

Here's the best part of finding this hidden area: after saving your game and leaving back through the cavern, a hatch above the room will now be open, allowing the underground tunnel to be accessible through normal means, without all of the extra trickery. In essence, this discovery doubles as a neat hidden area and as a tactical advantage. After all, in a game as challenging and vast as Symphony of the Night, there can never be too many Save Rooms available.

Pretty much everyone knows about the hidden "Minus World" in the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES. It's an underwater level that loops endlessly, only accessible via a specific glitchy sewer pipe. However, there's another kind of Minus World secreted away within a different NES classic, The Legend of Zelda.

First reported in early 2019, the Zelda "Minus World" was discovered by a player who manipulated the game's code into letting him leave the bounds of the world map. What he found was truly bizarre: rows upon rows of headstones, variations of enemies that can't be killed, monsters that were bizarre chimeras of different enemy types, and generally scrambled scenery. Some areas have a pulsating, unsettling variation of the normal music, while some areas have no music at all. The Old Man will offer you items you cannot take, enemies will teleport, and trap doors will appear from nowhere. All in all, The Legend of Zelda's "Minus World" is as dangerous as it is bizarre.

However, this was clearly never meant to be playable. As Business Insider noted, "You probably don't want to play this stuff, as interesting as it looks." However, it's still a fascinating trick of the game's internal code. The most bizarre aspect has to be combined monsters, which sometimes take the shape of ghosts swirling around one of the fireball-spitting Zoras. There's no way to 'win' the "Minus World," but its eccentricities are worth exploring.

Among the many things one would expect to find in the outskirts of a Battlefield 3 map, an empty white void with a lone helicopter probably isn't one of them. However, if you roam far enough in the game's second story mission, "Operation Swordbreaker," that's precisely what you'll come across. 

As you leave the normal map behind, the buildings become hazier and less defined. The road disappears altogether, leaving you in a room similar to the Construct in The Matrix where Trinity and Neo picked up "lots of guns." And that's when it appears from out of the sky, landing itself in your path. 

It's unclear if this helo was meant to be included in some unfinished part of the mission, but it looks for all the world like the sky opened up and the Battlefield gods sent you a vessel of destruction as a gift. It's so bizarre how it seems to seek you out. It would be a shame not to take it for a spin, right? If nothing else, it's worth seeking out for the hilarious surprise your enemies will feel when you return from the void with your very own attack helicopter.