Video games are dense creations. There are thousands of different doodads in Starbound, countless different micro-celebrities in Destiny and Final Fantasy XIV, and entire tomes of background lore in StarCraft, Halo, and The Witcher. The sheer amount of content demanded by games once inspired epic GameFAQs plain text walkthroughs entire megabytes in size. Today the army of dedicated game archivists have moved on to sprawling wikis, ensuring no tiny detail is forgotten. This is a wonderful outlet for any fan. I've lost entire days scrolling through the curated factoids on Wowpedia. I mean, where else am I going to read the pre-retcon history of the Draenei?
That being said, sometimes wiki editors go to truly outlandish lengths to document their favorite games. Sometimes they remember things that no human being was ever meant to recall. Sometimes they're literally forced to define the pendulum of quantum physics because a franchise decided to go down that rabbit hole. Sometimes, like in Disco Elysium, there needs to be a page just called, "Communists."
This list is a tribute to the weirder, funnier side of video game wikis. Where would we be without all these anonymous obsessives, who ensure that no trivia, no matter how broad or ancillary, goes to waste?
Getting Over It: Diogenes
Did you know that the man in the pot from Getting Over It has a name? Did you know that his name is Diogenes, of all things? Sure enough, make your way to the Getting Over It wiki and you can read all the biographical details of the sledgehammer guardian. On that page, you can read that Diogenes bears a striking resemblance to Vin Diesel and Vladimir Putin, and that nobody knows how he fits his legs in that pot.
"Diogenes tends to be a silent character throughout the game," reads one passage. "However, when it comes to moments of pulling himself up onto ledges with a lot of force, you can often hear him grunting, and from time to time you can hear him mutter the word, 'No,' when falling."
Thanks for clearing that up!
World of Warcraft: Kralnor
Kralnor, a level 11 Orc Warlock, made an inscrutable post on the World of Warcraft forums back in the early days of the game's lifespan. "I dont like to stress the fact that the warlock rocks, but he jus does," it reads, in its original syntax. "So, for all you staff users out there, feel free to come in and post, my staff is a good one, but here is how it goes."
1. post message in the room
2. LOOK IT OVER
3. dont report anything, i might get in trouble :)
and 4. Have fun!!!
We still have so many questions. Why did staff users need their own dedicated forum thread? Why did Kralnor think he was going to get in trouble? What staff was he using anyway? Should I be offended that I'm more of a sword guy? These questions swirled into a maelstrom on the Warcraft boards until it was finally, mercifully, locked. But the legend of Kralnor remains. He was immortalized by Blizzard in the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, and therefore his legacy lives on in the universe's corresponding wikia database.
Rust: Raw Human Meat
Is there a better distillation for the cantankerous anarchy of Rust than its Wikia page for Raw Human Meat? According to the database, Raw Human Meat provides less regeneration stats than Cooked Human Meat, and it has the chance of giving you food poisoning. Cool! Thanks Rust! I am glad that even in one of the most hellish online player communities in the world, the wiki has the good sense to not recommend eating the flesh of your fellow man.
Halo: Mountain Dew Game Fuel
Look man, corporate cross-promotion might seem harmless at the time, but this is where it leads to. Halo, one of the most protected commodities in the industry, now has an entry on its wiki dedicated to a rancid cherry-citrus soft drink. Why? Because Microsoft had the gall to stick Master Chief on the bottles back in 2007, as hype for Halo 3 reached staggering heights. Mountain Dew is officially part of the Halo canon. This is a hell of your own making, Gates.
Terraria: Mysterious Package
Similar to the Mountain Dew, but not quite as egregious: a couple years ago some eagle-eyed Terraria fans dug up an item called "Mysterious Package" from the Terraria inventory. On screen, this "mysterious package" looks conspicuously similar to an Amazon cardboard delivery box (it has the logo and everything!) and on use, the box summons a Prime Delivery drone. The Mysterious Package was never implemented into Terraria, so most fans have concluded that it was meant to serve some sort of Amazon promotional tie-in that never got off the ground.
Still, the idea that the Bezos estate is acknowledged within Terraria wiki makes a lot of sense. This is a game about mastering land, sea, and air until you're so resource-rich you no longer know what to do with yourself. Remind you of anyone?
Super Mario Bros.: Frederick Douglass
I know this is PC Gamer, and therefore this isn't the place to wax poetic about ancillary Nintendo characters. But no list of weird video game Wikia entries can be complete without paying homage to Mario's Time Machine—a scarcely remembered Super Nintendo game where the Tiny Plumber Who Rides Dinosaurs takes a trip through Actual Human History. In one scene, Mario runs into the revolutionary abolitionist Frederick Douglass, you know, the former slave, for a brief history lesson in the racial justice movement of the 18th century. Because of this, Frederick Douglass is forever a part of the Mario multiverse.
You already know what I'm thinking: PUT FREDERICK IN SMASH.
The Binding of Isaac: Guppy
One of the main advantages of indie game development is that you can put pretty much whatever you want into the product you're making, forcing any customers in your wake to deal with your vision. Case in point: Guppy, the name of the cat that belongs to The Binding of Isaac's creator Edmund McMillan. Isaac can transform into Guppy by collecting the right suite of items, which mandates that Guppy will permanently immortalized in the game's Wiki. When I die, don't bury me, just turn me into a really good buff in a roguelike.
The Legend of Zelda: Arwing
One more weird Nintendo exception. In the early days of the development of Ocarina of Time, Nintendo used assets from Star Fox to test some of the enemies. Those assets were left in the game's code, and with the proper Gameshark finangling, you can absolutely summon a Star Fox-style Arwing in Kokiri Forest. Watch as it scours the skies! Chuck a boomerang at it, if you'd like! The Zelda Wiki, as uncompromising as it often is, is forced to take the Arwing at face value.
"The Arwing relies on a hit-and-run tactic that involves flying toward Link to attack and falling back at great speed. It can fly at varying altitudes and can even venture underwater unhindered. Unlike most enemies encountered in the game, the Arwing has no fade-in routine and will remain active and visible on-screen even when it is very far away from Link."
Good advice for the next time Link finds himself in space.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Humans
You can go down this rabbit hole with plenty of other Star Wars properties, but like, just look at the description of the human race on the Knights of the Old Republic wiki. It will seriously start to make you wonder how, exactly, earthlings enforced hegemony over what's supposed to be a galaxy far, far away.
"Since humans are the most common sentient species, they are often considered to be a standard or average to which the biology, psychology, and culture of other species are compared."
Literally, even in the dead of space, human-first nationalism reigns unchecked. I reject this premise entirely. Luke Skywalker is an alien.
Minecraft: Herobrine
Herobrine has no pupils and the default skin. He appears in your Minecraft seeds late at night and haunts you until you uninstall.
None of that is true, but due to Minecraft's extreme popularity and incredibly young fanbase, the legend of "Herobrine" managed to pierce the veil between creepypasta and canon. Because of that, Herobrine is the proud occupant of his very own Minecraft Wiki page, so he may terrorize future generations of builders for years to come.
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