3 Wildest Fan Theories That Developers Later Confirmed Were Actually True

Especially in the early days of gaming, players were left with plenty of room for interpretation. The limitations of the hardware meant that parts of many stories were left untold or that certain features had to be pared down and altered. Because of that, many wild fan theories emerged over the years, trying to make sense of some of gaming’s biggest ambiguities. Many of these theories proved to be little more than fans wishing something into existence, but some of them have been officially confirmed by developers years later. And with remakes and remasters, a few developers have even taken the extra step to drop those confirmed details into the new version of the game, officially canonizing the theory.

Here are three wild fan theories that turned out to be true.

3) The Mario Characters Are All Actors

In the mainline Super Mario Bros. games, Mario and Bowser are almost always fighting. You know the drill: Bowser’s kidnapped Peach, and Mario has to take on the King of the Koopas to get her back. After Mario thwarts Bowser’s plans once again, things tend to get weird. At least in the Mario lore we see, the two enemies often decide to put their differences aside and go play baseball or something.

Seeing the Mario characters put aside their differences for the love of sport and parties has always been strange, but Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto actually explained why this happens. In an interview with Game Informer, Miyamoto likened the series to Popeye, which is famous for having its characters take on different roles depending on the story.

Miyamoto explained, “To a certain degree, I look at our characters in a similar way and feel that they can take on different roles in different games. It’s more like they’re one big family, or maybe a troupe of actors.” While not total confirmation that Mario, Bowser, and the gang are putting on a play, it’s clear that Nintendo views the characters as totally fluid, willing to change their temperament based on what that specific game calls for.

2) The Location of Mary’s Body in Silent Hill 2

When Silent Hill 2 was released in 2001, a prominent fan theory started to make the rounds that James’s dead wife, Mary, is actually in the backseat of the car he drives to Silent Hill. It makes sense given the implications from Silent Hill 2‘s main story and fits well with the “In Water” ending, but was just a theory for several years.

Then, Silent Hill 2 lead designer Masahiro Ito took to Twitter in 2012 to essentially confirm the theory. He said, “…Mary’s body is on the back seat of James’s car, not in the truck, if I remember correctly.”

If that weren’t good enough for fans, the fact was officially canonized with the Silent Hill 2 remake. The 2024 game clearly shows a body-sized lump covered by a blanket in the backseat of James’s car. You can’t see Mary, but the cover was likely added so that the ending wouldn’t be spoiled for fans new to the series. Either way, this is a theory that was confirmed by one of the developers and made official via the remake.

1) Chrono Trigger Had an 8th Playable Character

Chrono Trigger is one of the all-time great RPGs, but it still left players with a few lingering questions once the credits rolled. Some of those would eventually be revealed in Chrono Cross, but fans suspected that there might’ve been an eighth playable character originally planned for Chrono Trigger who would help tie up those loose ends.

Eventually, it was revealed via a Japanese Chrono Trigger player’s guide that there was supposed to be an eighth character. The cut character was Gaspar the Sage. In the final game, he has a reference to potentially joining the team, but this idea was seemingly cut relatively early into development.

Still, the player’s guide included a sketch from Akira Toriyama, Chrono Trigger‘s character designer. That, and the in-game line, confirmed that Gaspar was planned to be the rumored eighth character. Unfortunately, because he was cut so early in development, Gaspar doesn’t have any extra sprites in the ROM, so players never would’ve found him without the player’s guide.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

3 Video Game Easter Eggs That Took Players Years to Finally Discover