The Most Bizarre Things Found Out Of Bounds In Games

Game developers are known for hiding Easter eggs in their work. For those map completionists and explorers who enjoy searching every inch of a level or zone, they will often find pop culture references or messages from game developers. Sometimes, however, these Easter eggs and hidden messages aren't found within the playable area of a game.

Placeholder textures, unfinished landscapes, unreleased content, and even inside jokes hidden in games have become something of a treasure hunt for gamers who enjoy utilizing a free-floating camera to take a look behind the scenes. These omnipotent views of levels and zones can often tell a story about what the original plot or intent of an area was. Scrapped ideas can be deciphered, unused bosses can be found, and snarky memos between departments can be seen.

While some out of bounds discoveries were left in game with the intent that boundary breakers would eventually find them, some were left in by accident. From giant teddy bears to punishment for breaking game boundaries, here are ten 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.

Most players can say that at one point or another in their gaming life, they've found themselves glitched through a wall or a floor in game. Sometimes your avatar gets stuck and you have to go back to a checkpoint, and sometimes you simply fall through the floor into an open endless void until you die and respawn.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition some players who fell through the floor found something a little different than the expected void of nothingness that would eventually lead to their demise. In fact, the void may have been less frightening than what was found. In the map for Skyhold, player LeeCsM found something odd hiding underneath the ground. A large pie with a face and a top hat stared back at him as he glitched into the area.

And if the anthropomorphic pie wasn't eerie enough, when the game developers began chiming in on the mysterious pie man, they informed gamers that several more of these pie men were hidden throughout the game. Going along with the creepy tone, they were aptly named "The Lord of the Pies."

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 Call of Duty franchise has been popular since the release of the first game in 2003. Its huge fan base means that it's also under the scrutiny of the public eye more than other, less popular games. If any Easter eggs are hidden in a Call of Duty game, it's a safe bet that the fans will find it eventually, even if it does reside out of bounds.

In the tenth installment of the franchise, Call of Duty: Ghosts, in the Freight map, players found that if you use the spectating free-floating camera to explore beyond the bounds of the shipping containers, an extremely easy-to-miss and subtle Easter egg has been left by developers. In a hidden area, three items can be seen on the ground: a stop sign, a hammer, and a clock.

This reference to the line, "Stop. Hammer time," from MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" is a clever reference in numerous ways. Not only is this particular Easter egg hidden in an area where players aren't supposed to travel in the first place, but if players do manage to find it, they may pass right by it without a second thought. After all, if you weren't looking for it, the hidden message may just look like a random assortment of debris littering the ground. Clearly the Easter egg is a reward from developers for players who spend time exploring the maps they've made and/or just can't touch this.

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.

As AAA games get ever larger and more complex, it's only natural that one or two things might slip through the cracks. This seems to be what happened in Irrational's BioShock.

While closing in on Andrew Ryan in the first BioShock game, some players discovered that a very specific chain of events can trigger the player respawning outside of Ryan's office while the infamous golf club scene begins to play out. By lowering your health to one hit point, engaging Andrew Ryan to begin his speech, and then dying by walking into an Incinerate Plasmid effect, players will be respawned in a Vita-Chamber outside of Ryan's office. This is supposed to be a situation that can't happen because there is no combat during the scene in Ryan's office.

Developers apparently weren't counting on the player killing themselves during this very important plot point.  Players are still able to locate the same area today by following these steps and, if they do, can find the message, "!!! Bug This. If you can read this Paul Hellquist did not do his job. Love Kline." It looks like Paul Hellquist will forever have his name immortalized as the developer who forgot to fix the bug. There are worse things to be known for.

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.

The Call of Duty franchise seems to be one that enjoys hiding Easter eggs in its maps for players to find. Just as a small teddy bear was found next to the MC Hammer reference in Call of Duty: Ghosts, more bears are littered around the maps in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and other Call of Duty games. By the time Modern Warfare 3 came out, the teddy bear Easter eggs went from small bears to bears that take up entire buildings. Many of these hidden teddy bears can only be seen by breaking through the boundaries of certain buildings or by using the spectator free-floating camera.

Because of one teddy bear in particular, a theory has arisen regarding the meaning behind this prominent Easter egg that has spanned several Call of Duty games. In the map Mission, a teddy bear can be found with a child's drawing beside it. The teddy bears also now all have stars over their hearts. It is known that the young daughter of one of the Call of Duty game developers passed away during the development of Modern Warfare 2. Many believe that these small and large teddy bears that have been hidden out of bounds, as well as in difficult-to-find locations around the maps, are in memory of her.

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.

The map in 2015's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an expansive sprawling area filled with places for gamers to explore, and the Blood and Wine expansion only brought more unfound secrets to be uncovered. One Easter egg in particular gives long-time fans of the series a glimpse into the creative team behind the Witcher franchise.

Because this hidden photo is at the top of Mount Gorgon, an area otherwise inaccessible, a PC mod is required to reach it. Accessing the debug console and free-floating camera, players can teleport Geralt to the top of Mount Gorgon where two red pillars can be found. Between these pillars, sitting on an easel, is a large photo with a group of people in it. This depicts the development team behind the Witcher games. As the Blood and Wine expansion was some of the last in-game content to be created for the Witcher 3, this is likely a goodbye of sorts to fans. This Easter egg ensures that the team who created the beloved game will be immortalized in it forever.

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.