10 Video Game Glitches That Turned Into Features

Developing games comes with a variety of unique challenges that might prove difficult to overcome. Bugs, glitches, and errors might take days to get fixed, and even if the team does everything to remove them, some might still slip through the cracks.

However, what if not all of those glitches had to be bad?

As it turns out, sometimes a glitch can become an important part of the game, either by accidentally creating a brand new mechanic, or by being a memorable experience for players. The developers might like the impact of the glitch so much, they decide to integrate it into their future - or even current - games.

In the famous words of Bob Ross, "We don't make mistakes, we make happy little accidents."

Game developers are no strangers to this phrase, as some of the most iconic features in the gaming world are actually a result of such "happy accidents".

Let's explore the glitchy origins of various features in video games.

Over the years, combos have become a staple of fighting games, and nowadays it is hard to imagine any of the big titles in the genre without a whole encyclopedia of special moves which you can learn in order to punch and kick your friends into submission.

However, combos have not been added to fighting games intentionally. The creator of the original arcade version of Street Fighter II, Noritaka Funamizu, discovered by accident that by performing a series of attacks in a specific order - and with very specific timing - the game would allow the player to skip some of the animation frames and rapidly hit the opponent without interruption.

The bug was kept in the game as it was difficult to perform, and the producer thought it wouldn't be found by the players.

Obviously, that latter didn't turn out to be true, and soon after the release of Street Fighter II, arcade players would start to study the art of combos to destroy anybody who challenged them. Combos became such a huge success that Capcom even began using them as an advertisement for their game.

Fast forward to present day, and combos dominate the fighting game world.