10 Scary Video Game Urban Legends Everyone Believed Were True

The only urban legend on this list with its own Wikipedia page and documentary, it's safe to say that the tale of Polybius has taken in more than a few video game fans over the years.

As the story goes, in 1981 a video game called Polybius caused something of a disturbance in the town of Portland, Oregon. Players allegedly suffered from insomnia, hallucinations and amnesia and literal Men in Black came to collect information from the machine, leading to the theory that Polybius was part of a government experiment on mind control.

Like the earlier story about Berzerk, the myth has gained popularity due to its conflation of fact and fiction. As revealed by Eurogamer in 2015, the government did experiment with mind control with the MK Ultra experiments, FBI agents did raid arcades in America and games have always been capable of causing unpleasant side effects such as epileptic fits or nausea. Polybius was a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists and, given the unprecedented amount of coverage it has received, its status as gaming's most popular urban legend is assured.