Five Facts Episodes 2015

Game 	Facts	Air Date 	Links
Super Mario Galaxy 2 	1. After the release of the original Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo planned on producing a follow-up called Super Mario Galaxy More. The game was going to have variations of assets from the first game as well as a few scrapped ideas from past developments, however, the game began to have too many new features so Nintendo decided to make an actual sequel instead of a simple re-imagining. During development it was called Super Mario Galaxy 1.5.
2. During development the lead programmer of the game created a simple development tool that allowed anyone working on the game to create levels without waiting for programmers. Many of these levels made it into the final game.
3. One idea that was proposed during development was having cameos of other Nintendo characters in the game, however, Shigeru Miyamoto rejected the idea and it was never implemented.
4. Initially no new music was going to be recorded for the game , however as development continued, Miyamoto immediately approved the idea to record with a full orchestra again, just like the first game. However as a compromise, the new soundtrack featured some arrangements from the previous game as well as older Mario games.
5. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is arguably the highest rated Wii game of all time, tying the original in terms of average critic score but surpassing it slightly in regards to user reviews.	January 6, 2015 	1
Alien Isolation 	1. A 6 person team from developer Creative Assembly created a small multiplayer game in order to pitch the idea of a new alien game to Sega. In the game demonstration a human controlled alien was tasked with hunting down the other players. The game went viral within the company and the idea for a new alien game was approved.
2. This game is heavily modeled after the first Alien film in more ways than one. To design the game, developers recreated the creative processes used in the making of the movie. In order to stay faithful to the film's technology for instance, Lead UI artist John McKellan has stated "that if a prop couldn't have been made in 1979 with the things they had around, then we wouldn't make it either."
3. In order to make the xenomorph more realistic and more terrifying, almost 80 sets of animation were created to handle any situations the alien could end up in.
4. The video distortion seen on in game monitors was made by recording animations on real VHS tapes. After that step was completed, those clips were recorded from an old fashioned TV while someone played with the tracking settings.
5. 20th Century Fox gave the Creative Assembly 3 terabytes of data for them to use if they needed assistance of any kind while making the game. This included original sound clips, behind scenes videos, assists, film notes and a lot more.	January 13, 2015 	2
Super Mario Kart 	1. After the Super Nintendo launched title F-Zero proved to be a great racing game, Nintendo wanted to recreate that success but with a focus on two player action 
to contrast F-Zero's single player gameplay. This created the foundation for the game that would eventually become Super Mario Kart.
2. At first the characters sitting the cars were just men in overalls. The idea to include characters from the Mario universe didn't occur until three months in the development.
3. In the prototype version of the game there are second and third place animations on the podium screen with the cork in the bottle that the winner holds hits a flying Koopa. These animations did not make it into the final game, however, a Cheep Cheep does get hit with a cork.
4. The famous banana peel started out as a small can of oil, when Nintendo characters were added to the game they changed to bananas partly because of the inclusion of Donkey Kong Jr.
5. In the Japanese version of the game Bowser and Peach drink champagne during the trophy presentation. This was changed however in the version of the game outside of Japan.	January 20, 2015 	3
Mario Kart 64 	1. Originally Mario Kart 64 was called Super Mario Kart R. It was intended to be a launch title for the Nintendo 64, however, more of Nintendo's resources were made available for Super Mario 64 and the game was delayed slightly.
2. In early prototypes of the game one of the playable characters was a magikoopa, a character first seen in Super Mario World, however that character was replaced with Donkey Kong in the final version of the game.
3. The infamous blue shell was created in order to keep each race competitive and balanced. Since the Nintendo 64 couldn't handle eight karts on screen at once, separation was natural and the blue shell helped balance that out.
4. Toad and Donkey Kong are the only two drivers with unique kart engine sounds, the other drivers all share their sound effects with another character. (i.e. Mario sharing with Lugi or Bowser sharing with Wario).
5. The game's instruction manual actually encourages screen looking, this can be found under the Versus section on page 12. The manual for Super Mario Kart includes similar instructions.	January 27, 2015 	4
"Fact Check #3"
Bioshock franchise, Alien: Isolation, Sonic The Hedgehog, Atari 2600, Burnouot Paradise	1. Bioshock franchise: In the Bioshock series originally Irrational Games wanted to have small chipmunk like creatures running around and collecting ADAM, as development progressed the Little Sisters were created to replace this concept. The chipmunks were thought to be too comedic looking and were taken out.
2. Alien: Isolation: FALSE
3. Sonic The Hedgehog: FALSE
4. Atari 2600: There was a dial-up game distribution system created in the 1980s that allowed Atari 2600 users to download exclusive content over a telephone line. Although it was discontinued the company who made it eventually became America Online.
5. Burnout Paradise: FALSE	February 3, 2015 	5
DuckTales: Remastered 	1. The game's voice acting cast contains the surviving members of the original animated series cast, including 93-year-old Alan Young reprising his role as Scrooge McDuck.
2. The sprite for Scrooge McDuck went through several design changes due to his long prescience and media, spanning from his creation in 1947 up until present day.
3. The developers watch the whole cartoon series to get inspiration for the level backgrounds seen in the game.
4. For the newer levels that were added in and lacked source material, developers went back and created 8-bit songs first so they too could be remastered to keep things consistent with the rest of the game.
5. To promote the game CapCom sent out 150 limited edition gold NES DuckTales cartridge with DuckTales Remastering replacing the original label. The game was packaged inside a DuckTales lunch box filled with real shredded one-dollar bills.	February 10, 2015 	6
The Last of Us: Remastered 	1. According to Creative Director Neil Druckmann the development of The Last of Us started with a plan to reboot the Jak and Daxter series. As the development team worked on planning out the new game, they quickly realized that their ideas would be better suited for a different kind of game altogether.
2. A segment in the BBC series Planet Earth about cordyceps, which are fungi that infect and kill various insects from the inside out, served as a major inspiration for the game's plot.
3. Early in development, Ellie showed a strong resemblance to actress Ellen Page. Her character model underwent alterations for two reasons; Naughty Dog wanted Ellie to look more like her intended age as well as her voice actress Ashley Johnson, and Ellen Page was actually appearing in another PlayStation exclusive, Beyond Two Souls, that same year.
4. Originally Joel and Ellie were going to be father and daughter, however, that idea was scrapped so both Joel and the player would feel the same connection to Ellie.
5. The development of The Last of Us marked the first time that developer Naughty Dog split its company into two teams to work on two separate titles. Both this game and Uncharted 3 had their own separate development teams within the company.
6. Developer Naughty Dog refused to change the artwork for the game when the decision to include Ellie on the front cover was questioned. 
7. During development Naughty Dog demanded to have female focus testers test the games as the research firm working with the developer had no intention to do so.
8. Early on in development, Tess was actually going to be an antagonist. The original plan was going to be Tess blamed Joel for the death of her brother during a gunfight in the quarantine zone. Afterwards, Tess would pursue Joel and Ellie for the rest of the game. The idea was abandoned though because it was too unrealistic. Tess would wind up capturing and torturing Joel with the ordeal ending with Ellie killing Tess and her henchmen.
9. When the player controls Joel, Ellie becomes invisible to enemy AI. Naughty Dog implemented this feature specifically so she wouldn't be able to give away Joel's position by accident.
10. When Ellie finally learns how to whistle while in Pittsburgh with Joel, she begins whistling the theme song from another Naughty Dog game, Uncharted.	February 17, 2015
February 24, 2015	7
8
"Fact Check #4"
Sunset Overdrive, Angry Birds, Titanfall, Minecraft, The Last of Us 	1. Sunset Overdrive: FALSE
2. Angry Birds: FALSE
3. Titanfall: The parkour mechanic in Titanfall started out as a Half-Life 2 mod that a Respawn Entertainment employee made while testing possible game engines.
4. Minecraft: The computer versions of Minecraft allow you to play in a couple of constructed languages. Quenya, created by author J. R. R. Tolkien, that is spoken by the elves of Middle Earth is one of the them as well as Esperanto and Klingon.
5. The Last of Us: At one point after the game's release, some bulletin boards had phone numbers for a pest control service that ended up actually being phone numbers for sex hotlines, they were taken out shortly thereafter.	March 3, 2015 	9
"Five Facts"
Minecraft, Wolfenstein: The New Order,Duke Nukem Forever, Skyrim, Five Facts: Five Facts	1. Minecraft: Five Facts in Minecraft Part 1 and Five Facts Minecraft Part 2 have the biggest gap between episodes in the history of Five Facts.
2. Wolfenstein: The New Order: Five Facts in Wolfenstein: The New Order is the only episode ever done that was for a game that had not yet been released. Wolfenstein came out in May 2014 and the episode came out in April 2014.
3. Duke Nukem Forever: Five Facts in Duke Nukem Forever is the only Five Facts to be used in an Animated Adventure.
4. Skyrim: As of March 2015, Five Facts in Skyrim is the only episode to break one million views on YouTube. It is also the first Five Facts to be hosted by Jack and Geoff.
5. Five Facts: Five Facts: Five Facts is the only Five Facts that is based on five facts and not on any game itself.	March 10, 2015 	10
inFAMOUS Second Son 	1. Developer Sucker Punch worked closely with the lead PS4 architect Mark Cerny as both Second Son and the PS4 were being worked on. Sucker Punch gave feedback and suggestions that ended up influencing the hardware choices for the system.
2. Before creating the plot for this game, the developers looked at how many people chose to sacrifice Cole at the end of inFAMOUS 2. Since 78% of players had earned the trophy associated with that event, the developers decided that they would create a new story with a new main character.
3. Seattle was chosen as the setting for the game because most of the employees at Sucker Punch live there and the studio wanted to use personal experiences of the area during the development.
4. Over 75 family members, friends, actors and actresses were involved in a three-day motion capture process in order to record data for most of the NPCs in the game.
5. inFAMOUS Second Son sold over a million copies in just nine days, this makes it the fastest selling entry in the series.	March 17, 2015 	11
Battlefield 1943 	1. When you start playing Battlefield 1943, the EA logo that appears on screen has the date November 16, 1943 written on it. On that day for the first and only time during WWII, a Japanese submarine destroyed a U.S. submarine called the USS Corvina.
2. A sandcastle can be found with a Swedish flag stuck on it on every map but Coral Sea. The flags are a reference to the game's developer DICE, which is based in Sweden.
3. The Air Superiority game mode was originally locked on the PS3 and the Xbox 360 and didn't unlock until the console communities reached 43 million kills. The Xbox community unlocked the mode after only four days after launch.
4. A PC version of Battlefield 1943 was in development after the game's console release, however, it was cancelled in February 2011 so DICE could focus on developing Battlefield 3.
5. At Sony's 2011 E3 Press conference it was implied that every copy of Battlefield 3 would come with a free copy of Battlefield 1943. However, some point after the event, EA and DICE decided not to follow through with the idea. This led to a class-action lawsuit with the results being that PS3 owners received free Battlefield 1943 codes as well as early access to Battlefield 3 expansions on the system.	March 24, 2015 	12
"Variety Pack #9"
Grand Theft Auto IV, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, Bioshock Infinite, Dead Space 	1. Grand Theft Auto IV: When GTA IV was being planned out, Rockstar North's art director had the idea of making a massive map for the game including a large countryside surrounding Liberty City. The map was scaled-down though in order to focus more on game mechanics and features.
2. Left 4 Dead 2: The Sugar Mill chapter in Left 4 Dead 2's hard rain campaign has more witches in it than several other chapters combined. Up to 20 witches can spawn on the map during a single playthrough. It has been said that witches are attracted to the smell of sugar, hence their strong presence in the level.
3. Portal 2: After the success of Portal, many of the developers at Valve were excited to work on the sequel, as a result the Portal 2 team became about 5 times bigger than the original team from the first game.
4. Bioshock Infinite: During Bioshock Infinite's development, Project Icarus was an internal codename used by Irrational Games in an effort to prevent information from leaking too early.
5. Dead Space: If you go to Dead Space's main menu and then go into the options menu, there will be a vertical of line symbols on the left of the options. These are Unitology symbols which spell out the phrase "Red marker is man-made."	March 31, 2015 	13
Cities Skylines 	1. The idea for Cities Skylines was discussed for a while before development actually began. After the 2013 version of Sim City was met with criticism, Paradox Interactive decided it was time for Colossal Games to begin work on the game.
2. A team of only 9 people created Cities Skylines in less than two years.
3. During development, Colossal Order encountered a bug where the citizens of the city would turn in Lovecraftian-esque monsters, developing elongated arms and gathering in groups. 
4. You can rename any entity in the game, this applies to everything from your city's citizens to the individual animals that wander freely around the world.
5. Cities Skylines broke almost every record that publisher Paradox had. This including pre-orders, day-one sales, concurrent users, and much more.	April 7, 2015 	14
Bloodborne 	1. While development was being completed on the Prepare to Die Edition of Dark Souls Sony approached From Software if they wanted to work together on a new game. When director Hidetaka Miyazaki was asked about making a game for the 8th generation of consoles, the concept for Bloodborne began to take shape.
2. From Software developed the atmosphere for the game with influences like Bram Stoker's Dracula in mind. The reason why From Software wanted to make the game for the PS4 was because it was the best system for creating the environments that they wanted and was also presented to them first.
3. Since the developers couldn't have made the game harder than their previous titles without making the game impossible to play, a much more aggressive combat system was created to add a greater sense of accomplishment without making the game frustrating.
4. According to Bloodborne producer Masaaki Yamagiwa the decision to include guns in the the game was a very difficult one for the team to make. They ended up including them in the game though partly because they fit the game's nineteenth century setting.
5. When a few anonymous developers were asked about the game's long loading times, they said what the game is basically doing is resetting each asset in the area you're repawning in. Repostioning enemies and fixing all small details that sometimes physic-based assets takes a while.	April 14, 2015 	15
Injustice: Gods Among Us 	1. In order to improve the gameplay that was seen in the most recent Mortal Kombat release, NetherRealm Studios utilized a multi-threaded rendering engine for Injustice. As a result the game can handle about three times more on-screen objects than developer's previous game, the previous game was the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot.
2. After the multiplayer problems that plagued gamers in 2011's Mortal Kombat were brought to Ed Boon's attention, development teams spent two years focusing on the online portion of Injustice to make sure that it worked properly.
3. According to Ed Boon, for every character's final design in the game there were at least 10 designs that were scrapped. He attributes this fact to how excited his development team was to work on something set in the DC universe.
4. Each downloadable character took six weeks to be fully developed before being added into the game. The DLC characters were Lobo, Batgirl, Scorpion, General Zod, Martian Manhunter, and Zatanna.
5. Originally Injustice was banned in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait most likely to the game's natre and use of the word God in the title. It was marketed as Injustice: The Mighty Among Us for that reason. Eventually the ban in the UAE was lifted with the original title intact.	April 21, 2015 	16
Battlefield 4 	1. On a technical level, Battlefield 4 launch was so bad that EA had to do multiple lawsuits concerning the major bugs and glitches in the game experience on day one. It caused DICE to halt development on all other games and projects until the issues were resolved.
2. DICE decided not to include co-op mode for the game after the mixed reception received after Battlefield 3. Instead the developers used the extra time and resources to focus on the campaign and multiplayer.
3. Six months after the game came out, DICE created a program called the Community Test Environment. The CTE allowed certain PC players to play an altered version of the game to test patches and updates before their official release.
4. There was no Wii U version available version for Battlefield 4 because developers realized the nature of the console and its primary controller would have caused development delays. Furthermore in an interview with Eurogamer, DICE's Patrick Bach, said that the Wii U wasn't part of the development focus at the time.
5. Although it wasn't banned initially, the release of China Rising DLC for Battlefield 4 got the game banned in China in December 2013. The Chinese Ministry claimed the game endangered national security.	April 28, 2015 	17
"Fact Check #5"
Evolve, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Sonic the Hedgehog, SSX, Mafia II 	1. Evolve: FALSE
2. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: FALSE
3. Sonic the Hedgehog: The controllers for both the Atari 2600 and the Sega Genesis use the same pin layout, therefore it is possible to play through Sonic the Hedgehog entirely using the Atari 2600 controller.
4. SSX: EA's 2012 reboot of SSX was planned to be a much darker game called SSX Deadly Descents. However the game returned to a series lighter tone before its release, dropping Deadly Descents from the title.
5. Mafia II: Originally there was going to be an option in the game to buy a gun license in order to show it to the police whenever they caught you with a weapon in public.	May 5, 2015 	18
The Order: 1886 	1. Although official development of The Order: 1886 started in 2010, some concepts and story ideas that made it into the game were conceived back in 2005. The game's working title was Requiem.
2. Early ideas for the game setting involve the city of Jerusalem, however, Assassin's Creed, which came out in 2007, caused Read at Dawn CEO Ru Weerasuriya to alter his ideas in order to avoid similarities with the Ubisoft.
3. Ready at Dawn's decision to go ahead with The Order: 1886 was greatly influenced by the Uncharted series, specifically Uncharted 2 and its success.
4. The development team took a field trip to London in order to take a variety of reference photos. The team even borrowed a collection of garments and objects from the game's time period in order to scan the into their computers.
5. Garret Foster, Technology Director of 1886, attempted a speed run to test the game before it was released but couldn't even come close to the now infamous five hour playthrough that surfaced on YouTube right around the game's release date.	May 12, 2015 	19
Mortal Kombat X 	1. Mortal Kombat X's working title was Mortal Kombat 2, most likely because the 2011 reboot of the series was simply titled Mortal Kombat.
2. According to the game's producer, it took a whole year of working full time for one of Mortal Kmat X's tech artist to create the dynamic damage system that alters a character's appearance as a fight progresses.
3. In order to test the game to the best of their ability, the developers brought in approximately 300 play testers to make sure everything worked and worked well.
4. The Fatality meetings that took place during X's development were filled with a lot of crazy ideas. According to Ed Boon, the suggestions that resulted in the group members saying, "There's no way we can do that", were worked on first.
5. Mortal Kombat X is now the fastest selling entry in the Mortal Koombat series to date.	May 19, 2015 	20
Red Dead Redemption 	1. Although Red Dead Redemption was announced in 2009, Rockstar released a tech demo for an Old West project back in 2005. It can be found on YouTube and can may be considered a teaser trailer of sorts.
2. The game's 1911 setting was chosen because the idea of the Old West transforming into a modern world was intriguing concept to Rockstar Games.
3. When the team finally got the game's environment up in running during development, they quickly realized that there was nothing to do. As a result the lead designer Christian Cantamessa had his team create random generation systems to fill the void.
4. Members of the development team at Rockstar visited Washington and the Library of Congress to learn more about the American Frontier.
5. The game's original score, created by Bill Elm and Woody Jackson, took over 15 months in collaboration to complete.	May 26, 2015 	21
Skate 3 	1. Skate 2's setting was very much an anti-skateboarding one. In order to mix things up, Skate 3's setting of Port Carverton was purposefully designed to be a skater's dream location.
2. The team based focus in Skate 3 was a result of how much the Skate 2 community wanted it and how real life professional skateboarding progresses in general.
3. The greatly improved off board controls were a result of players wanting more control in the Hall of Meat challenges. The developers decided to carry over those improvements to the entire game after seeing how much fun it was.
4. EA held a launch party for the game at Venice Beach Skate Plaza where over 500 skaters came out to test the game and hang out with pro-skaters.
5. Skate 3 is such a popular game for Let's Players that EA had to print more copies towards the end of 2014 due to high demand.	June 2, 2015 	22
"Fact Check #6"
Red Dead Redemption, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Portal, Worms, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater	1. Red Dead Redemption: The development team behind Red Dead Redemption conducted motion capture sessions with a real horse in order to make the in game horses look more realistic.
2. Injustice: Gods Among Us: Batman's super move was originally just him delivering a few punches to his opponent and concluding with a jump kick. However this was changed due to the reactions of many unimpressed fans. Footage of his old move still exists online.
3. Portal: FALSE
4. Worms: FALSE
5. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater: The original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater had to be released as Tony Hawk's Skateboarding in other countries as the word skating is often associated with ice skating in those countries.	June 9, 2015 	23
Far Cry 3 	1. Elias Toufexis, known for playing Adam Jensen in Deus Ex, was the original voice for Far Cry 3’s Jason Brody. He recorded his lines over the span of two years but was replaced after Ubisoft feared that the two characters would sound too similar and cause confusing.
2. Although the exact location of the Rook Islands isn’t stated, they’re most likely located very close to Indonesia based on the wild life you find during the game.
3. Michael Mando, the voice and motion capture for Vaas, originally auditioned for a character named Lupo. Although Mando didn’t get the part, Ubisoft liked him so much that they scrapped Lupo and created a new character based on Mando’s performance.
4. Vaas’s famous “definition of insanity” speech was recorded in a dark intimate studio with Mando talking to a tennis ball mounted on to a pole.
5. Toward the end of the game, Jason loses half his left ring finger, this is a common reference as Ubisoft titles Assassin’s Creed and Brother’s in Arms also have characters that lose that same finger.	June 16, 2015 	24
Hitman Absolution 	1. In the original script for the game, Agent 47 had a lot of dialogue that was spaced through the story, however, a majority of it was cut out in order to better show the character’s mechanical and logical personality.
2. There is a book that can be found in various locations in the game that has the name “HC Anderson” on it. Anderson was a Danish children’s author and his name being on the book is most likely linked to the game’s developer being based in Denmark.
3. Hitman Absolution was released on November 20, 2012. This is a reference to the game’s main character as it was the 47th week of the year.
4. The music in the game changes when conflicts occur, however, it’s not simply based on pulling your gun out. The music actually changes based on the AI’s hearing and sight abilities as well as their ability to communicate with each other.
5. When scanned, the barcode that was shown on Absolution’s teaser trailer linked to a sex toy storage bag on Amazon.com, however this unintentional Easter egg no longer works.	June 23, 2015 	25
Call of Duty Black Ops II 	1. All the changes to multiplayer, such as the removal of wager matches and implementation of score streaks, were made specifically to make Black Ops II a more team orientated and balanced game.
2. Oliver North, who was involved in the Iran-Contra affair, acted as consultant for the 1980’s portion of the game. Also defense expert Peter W. Singer was consulted for the 2025 portion of the game.
3. The game’s nonlinear elements took three months of brainstorming and planning to be fully developed.
4. The number of single day pre-orders for Black Ops II ended up being three times more than the single day pre-orders from Black Ops. It went on to make 500 million it its first 24 hours.
5. In the Japanese version of Black Ops II, a good portion of in-game text is unreadable due to a nonsensical translation. The game is very hard to understand and was met with harsh criticism from Japanese players.	June 30, 2015 	26
Resident Evil 3 	1. Resident Evil 3 was developed at the same time as Resident Evil: Code Veronica. It was originally referred to as Resident Evil 1.5 because it partially takes place between the first and second games.
2. Resident Evil 3 had a few different names during development, however, it was given the 3 because Sony wanted the PlayStation's Resident Evils numbered consistently.
3. The original idea of Resident Evil 3 was going to have Hunk on a luxury cruise liner, trying to retrieve a sample of the G-virus. It was scrapped due to time constraints.
4. The game's lead writer had little to no experience with the Resident Evil universe when he was chosen to write for the third game. He had to immediately play through the first game in order to familiarize himself with the series.
5. The Nemesis enemy is inspired by the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgement Day.	July 7, 2015 	27
Grand Theft Auto IV 	1. In order to get a lot of research in on New York City, the inspiration for the game's setting, Rockstar visited it twice. They even had a full-time research team based in New York City who did extra research and handled development requests.
2. Although other games in the series appear to be heavily influenced by film, writer Dan Houser explained that Rockstar tried hard to avoid this so that the game would seem fresh and new.
3. Music supervisor, Ivan Pavlovich said that over 2,000 people were contacted in regards to using their music for the in-game GTA IV soundtrack.
4. Originally New Zealand received a pre-censored version of the game to meet the country's rating laws. Stan Calif, the disappointed owner of New Zealand game retailer First Games, resubmitted the unedited game for review. The original and uncensored version was approved for sale as a result. Calif had to pay 1,400 New Zealand dollars out of pocket for the process. (Around $1,000 U.S.)
5. GTA IV broke three different world records when it was released in 2008. They were for: the fastest selling video game in 24 hours, the highest-grossing video game in 24 hours, and the highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours.	July 14, 2015 	28
Niko Bellic (Grand Theft Auto IV) 	1. Niko’s appearances are based off of Sasha’s character from the 2001 movie, “Behind Enemy Lines.” Vladimir Mashkov, who plays Sasha in the film, was approached by Rockstar to play a character in one of their games. The actor said no, not knowing at the time that he was turning down a truly iconic voice acting opportunity. You can even buy Sasha’s outfit in the game.
2. The pager ringtone found in Niko’s phone is actually the pager sound effect from Grand Theft Auto III.
3. Niko’s iconic fingerless gloves that were shown in a lot of promotional material were not actually in the game initially. They can be added via modding though as they are still the game’s files.
4. According to his LCPD records, Niko was first arrested in 2008 for grand theft auto. This is a reference to GTA IV and its year of release.
5. In an episode of the TV show "Criminal Minds", Niko is referenced directly as a child reportedly named Niko Bellic goes missing.	July 21, 2015 	29
The Ghost (Destiny) 	1. Comedians David Cross and Brian Posehn were brought in during development to “punch up” some of the Ghost’s lines and make them funnier, however after they finished writing, not a single line was used according to Cross.
2. Holding your Ghost in front of certain spawn points will open doors that do not normally open. An easy example to see of this are the locked doors in the Hall of Wisdom, behind these doors are clouds of darkness.
3. According to an old advertisement for Destiny it was implied that Ghosts were made during the Golden Age, however all other sources since that advertisement have stated that the Traveler created Ghosts after the Golden Age had ended.
4. In the Destiny Alpha, the Ghost says the line, “That wizard came from the moon.” This line was infamously cut from the beta but can actually be heard in the final game. Although it doesn’t happen every time, there’s footage online of the Ghost saying the line during the Dark Within mission.
5. The Ghost actually participated in the ALS ice bucket challenge after a wizard threw a bucket of ice water at the Ghost from the moon.	July 28, 2015 	30
Grand Theft Auto V 	1. In an interview with Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies, over 1,000 people worked on developing Grand Theft Auto V.
2. The game’s open world was modeled after Los Angeles and Southern California. Along with sending the development team members to California to do research, Google Maps was used to recreate things like road networks.
3. According to Michael’s voice actor, Ned Luke, the script for GTA V was somewhere around 3,500 pages long.
4. When it was possible, developers got real-life gangsters and criminals to record lines in the game to make dialogue more authentic.
5. GTA V made a hundred million dollars on its first day on sale and one billion dollars on its third day out. It also broke seven Guinness World Records within its first month.	August 4, 2015 	31
Achievement Hunter 	1. One of Geoff’s initial ideas was to name Achievement Hunter, Achieve Men.
2. Achievement Hunter’s first official achievement was the "Millionaires Club" achievement in "Burnout Paradise" in July 2008.
3. The longest Achievement Hunter video is Let’s Play Fuel Part 1 which clocks in to 1 hour, 54 minutes and 20 seconds.
4. The beginnings of Achievement came from small things including The Mile High Club race from "Call of Duty 4" and Burnie’s 10,000 gamerscore challenge to Geoff.
5. The first live Let’s Play is for the game, "Watchmen: The End is Nigh" of March 2009.	August 11, 2015 	32
Trevor Philips (Grand Theft Auto V) 	1. Originally Trevor had a backstory that implied that he grew up in rural American backwoods, however when Canadian actor Steve Ogg was cast to play Trevor, his backstory was changed to fit his Canadian accent.
2. In several interviews conducted shortly after the game’s release Ogg mentioned that Tom Hardy’s portrayal of Charles Bronson in the 2008 film Bronson was a big inspiration during his preparation for the role of Trevor.
3. While performing motion capture with other actors, Ogg would constantly make changes as Trevor scripted actions to make them more outrageous, often doubling checking with other actors around him for comfort Ogg would up the violence and craziness to truly embody his character. For instance, in one scene Trevor is supposed to shove the character to the floor from behind and Ogg decided it would be better to shove them down by the face.
4. Trevor’s default vehicle, the Canis Bodhi, is named after Bodhi Ogg, the son of actor Steven Ogg.
5. When the game was finally released Ogg, not considering himself to be a gamer, couldn’t figure out how to play it on his Xbox 360 and had to call the game’s cutscene director Rod Edge to explain to him and his son how video games work.	August 18, 2015 	33
Batman: Arkham Knight 	1. At Dallas Comic Con 2013, veteran Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy told fans that he was busy working on “the next Arkham.” This would become one of the first information leaks about Arkham Knight as fans quickly realized there would be a fourth game after noticing Conroy’s absence in Arkham Origins.
2. The idea for Arkham Knight was created shortly after 2011’s Arkham City. Since Rocksteady knew they would need extra time to complete the game, the agreed with Warner Brothers that the wait between the games would be too long, as a result Arkham Origins was released in 2013 to keep fans busy until the final game.
3. While planning out the use for the Batmobile, the developers dropped a prototype Batmobile into the map for Arkham City. After watching the vehicle struggle to navigate, Gotham was redesigned with wider roads and bigger buildings to fix that issue in Arkham Knight.
4. The composers for the game decided to revisit tracks from previous titles in order to create new variations while keeping the tone of the series consistent.
5. When Batman: Arkham Knight received an M rating from the ESRB it actually surprised Rocksteady, especially because of the T ratings the previous games received. However, the developers decided to keep the mature content in as to not jeopardize their vision.	August 25, 2015 	34
"Variety Pack #10" Grand Theft Auto V, Batman: Arkham Knight, Bloodborne, Destiny, The Last of Us 	1. Grand Theft Auto V: Actor Ned Luke put on 25 pounds in order to accurately portray Michael De Santa in GTA V. Luke thought the character was going through mid-life crisis and he wanted to embody that physically
2. Batman: Arkham Knight: During the opening sequence in Batman: Arkham Knight, you can find Rocksteady co-founder and Arkham Knight Director Sefton Hill in diner. It is a quick cameo that can be easily missed.
3. Bloodborne: If you leave Bloodborne running for over 12 hours the bosses in the game become much easier to beat. Memory leak issue results in reduced move sets for each boss after the 12 hours.
4. Destiny: If you are in shallow water and shoot at your feet, you can kill yourself.
5. The Last of Us: While trying to come up with the main idea for The Last of Us, an idea was pitched for the virus to only affect females. The idea failed because several Naughty Dog employees voiced their concerns and writer Neil Druckman realized it was a misogynistic idea.	September 1, 2015 	35
Far Cry 4 	1. Ubisoft had originally planned to make Far Cry 4 a direct sequel to Far Cry 3, however, after playing with the idea and brainstorming for four days, the team decided that creating a new story with new characters would be best.
2. Elements of locations like Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet were combined to create the game’s fictional Himalayan country of Kyrat. Although there is much more to do compared to the world of Far Cry 3, the map for this game isn’t much bigger than the previous one.
3. When voice actor Troy Baker auditioned for the role of Pagan Min, he quickly disregarded the script he was given, instead he decided to torment the people in the room while staying in character. At one point an assistant walked into the room Baker, as Min, threatened to peel her face off and wear it as his own, he got the job.
4. Ubisoft spent a good amount of time trying to figure out Pagan Min’s appearance. As they were designing his look, the team focused on Japanese films such as “Brother” and “Ichi the Killer.” Characters in both of these films wore brightly colored suits to help them stand out, hence Min’s pink attire.
5. A secret ending can be unlocked very early into the game. After waiting long enough in Pagan Min’s palace, you’ll be able to lay your mother’s ashes to rest and join Min on a helicopter ride before watching the end credits.	September 8, 2015 	36
Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain 	1. Before Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zero was released, Project Ogre was the code name used by several people at Konami for the game sequel, The Phantom Pain.
2. Community Manager Robert Allen Peeler has said in interviews that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is roughly 200 times bigger than the game’s prequel, Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes. Other Konami employees have confirmed this as well.
3. Hideo Kojima stated in an interview that several humorous elements, such as realistic horse defecations, are used in the game as a form of stress relief. He believes the players need a break from time to time due to the tense nature of infiltration. 
4. While discussing the actions and portrayal of Big Boss, Hideo Kojima drew comparisons between him and Walter White from the TV series Breaking Bad. The plan for this game was to show you someone becoming “the bad guy” while making sure players knew where the character is coming from, similar to the successful AMC drama.
5. Several reports indicate that the development of The Phantom Pain cost Konami well over 80 million dollars. According to various lists detailing less expensive video games ever made, it generally sits within the top 20.	September 15, 2015	37
Fable II 	1. In order to properly work out a good story, developer Lionhead Studios flew out seven actors and a Hollywood director out to a soundstage where they recorded and filmed all the game’s dialogue from start to finish. Many ad-lips of the actors made it in to the final re-recorded script.
2. One of the original ideas for when a player dies during combat would allow them to continue their quest as one of their children, however, play testers spent too much time trying to have more and more children and the idea was scrapped. 
3. According to Peter Molyneux, there was a tool created during Fable II development that would have collected thousands of stats as players played through the game and made choices. Unfortunately it also caused thousands of bugs so it was dropped.
4. There is only one save slot in Fable II simply due to technological and time constraints, however there were talks about having a multi-save system that caused great debate during development over a possible effect on player choice.
5. Two years after the release of Fable II it was discovered that more than half of all the people that play through the game used less than half of the features Lionhead Studios implemented to make the game more immersive, much to the dismay of Peter Molyneux.	September 22, 2015	38
Franco The Editor 	1. He sounds like Kermit the frog.
2. I feel like if a pug could talk, its voice would sound like Franco’s.
3. Franco needs to get a voice lift.
4. Franco = Badger
5. Franco is the Peake of Achievement Hunter.	October 1, 2015 	39
"Fact Check #7" General PlayStation knowledge, Mortal Kombat X, Far Cry 4, Halo 3, Resident Evil 4	1. General PlayStation knowledge: Two PlayStation One games, specifically FIFA 2001 and Gran Tursimo 2, had scratch-and-sniff disks. FIFA’s disk smelled like a soccer field and Gran Tursimo’s disk smelled like car tires.
2. Mortal Kombat X: FALSE
3. Far Cry 4: FALSE
4. Halo 3: FALSE
5. Resident Evil 4: Leon loses his leather jacket shortly after the scenes in the village. If you look during one of Ada Wong’s missions you can see an enemy wearing it, implying that they stole it during that scene.	October 8, 2015 	40
Assassin's Creed Revelations 	1. The general plot for this game was originally going to be used in a planned 3DS title called Assassin’s Creed Lost Legacy Shortly after development began on Lost Legacy the game as scrapped and the story was reworked into what would later become Assassin’s Creed Revelations.
2. During development, voice actor Nolan North urged Ubisoft to adopt a performance capture system where the actors can record voice and motion at the same time. Although they didn’t change the recording process for Revelations, later Ubisoft titles use processes similar to what Nolan suggested, possibly due to the veteran voice actor’s comments.
3. Six deferent Ubisoft studios helped make Ubisoft Montreal, the main developer of Revelations, with various aspects of the game.
4. The hook blade was originally going to be an upgrade for Eizo to obtain during the game. However in the final version of Revelations it acts as a replacement for his broken right blade.
5. Sophia, Eizo’s love interest in the game, is based on an Albrecht Dürer painting called Portrait of a Venetian Woman.	October 15, 2015 	41
Tomb Raider (2013) 	1. Auditions for the role of Lara Croft were posted with fake character names to prevent information leaks, however when one voice actress Camilla Luddington read the character bio she already knew what role she was up for.
2. Although Lara’s face was modeled after Megan Farquhar at first, was redesigned in the game’s Definite Edition to look more like Camilla Luddington.
3. A custom instrument made of glass and various metals was created specifically for the game’s score in order to produce the horror like sounds heard during the gameplay.
4. During the game Lara says that Atlantis is a myth, interestingly enough the plot of the original Tomb Raider has Lara Croft searching for the Lost City of Atlantis which she finds to be real at the end of the game.
5. As of an April 2015 announcement, Tomb Raider has sold 8.5 million copies, making it the best-selling game in the franchise so far.	October 20, 2015 	42
The Walking Dead: The Game (Season One) 	1. Although Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, was happy to assist TellTale Games with their development, one of his few requests was not to have anything pertaining to Rick Grimes in the game. The main reason behind the request was that Kirkman has long-term plans for Grimes in other regards for other media types.
2. TellTale drew inspiration from the games like Heavy Rain, Uncharted, and Mass Effect when developing the cinematic style of the game as well as the core gameplay and dialogue system.
3. For every episode a developer would be paired with a writer so they could work together and make sure the two aspects of each installment would not feel detached or conflicting.
4. TellTale’s Art Director Derek Sakai drew inspiration from his own daughter when he was designing the character of Clementine.
5. Because the episodes were released within a month or two between each one, the writers were able to use all the player decision data to make choices for their own terms for the next episode’s pilot.	October 27, 2015 	43
Assassin’s Creed III 	1. •	Ubisoft took the research of the game’s time period very seriously during Assassin’s Creed III’s development. They studied every map they could find to recreate places like Boston and New York, and they even created “huge charts of historical characters” to make sure everyone was in the right place at the right time.
2. Connor was originally going to have the ability to scalp enemies after their deaths. This was removed however after Ubisoft found out that it wasn’t historically accurate and decided it was too brutal regardless. 
3. Many fans wanted to see a female protagonist for the third number of Assassin’s Creed game. However Creative Director Alex Hutchinson said that the American Revolution setting made it really difficult to pull off although it was considered.
4. There was a weapon called the chain blade that was scrapped during development. The rope dart ended up replacing this ranged hidden blade because it was deemed to be too fantasy like. The chain blade was reworked to a grapple hook weapon for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.
5. This was the first main Assassin’s Creed game to not feature Jesper Kyd as the composer. Instead Scottish composer Lorne Balfe, who previously worked with Kyd on Revelations, took over the role.	November 2, 2015 	44
Rocket League 	1. Rocket League is the sequel to 2008’s PlayStation 3 PS3 exclusive title Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. The game was originally conceived as an Xbox Live Arcade game with its working title being Crash Course with its gameplay being closer to that of a more traditional car combat game rather than what Battle Car’s, and eventually Rocket League, turned out to be. 
2. Rocket League’s lore is a closely guarded secret. Only a few people at Psyonix are aware of what the story is and answers to questions like: are they sentient cars, are the radio controlled cars, do they have drivers, and etc. do exist. Careful observers may have already found clues as to what the lore might be and they should continue to find more hints when Psyonix releases more updates and DLC in the future.
3. The closed Alpha version of Rocket League, which was available during the summer of 2014, had a crafting system that allowed players to create items with junk parts that were dropped while playing in the game. Ultimately Psyonix thought that, while cool, the traffic system over complicated the game and a more simplistic item drop system that rewarded you with an already assembled item after each match would be the better way to go.
4. Two of the arenas in Rocket League are named after members of the development team. DFH stadium is named after Psyonix’s CEO and studio director Dave Hagewood. Beckwith Park is named after Ben and Adam Beckwith, two brothers who have been with Psyonix for years. Ben is the studio’s technical artist and the company’s second ever employee after Hagewood. Adam joined a few years later as a level designer, he is also the person to originally drop a soccer ball in the original version of Battle Cars to see what would happen.
5. Rocket League is littered with references from content from other Psyonix games. The seasonal Halloween items for example, included fuzzy antenna toppers with vampire and Frankenstein like monsters which were taken directly out of an unreleased puzzle game Psyonix was working on, code name Fur Balls. Flags from the Square Enix published Psyonix developed, Legacy of Kain multiplayer game, Nosgoth are also available in the garage for car customization. Also various references to Sonic Shooter Arc Squadron are all over the place including the “Guardians Team” and its bots, all of which are named after bosses found in the critically acclaimed mobile iOS title Psyonix released several years ago.	November 13, 2015 	45
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag 	1. The idea for an Assassin’s Creed pirate game was thought up during the development of Assassin’s Creed 3, as he team at Ubisoft began to realize how well the naval aspects of the game were coming together. They wound of choosing the final third of what was originally considered the Golden Age of piracy as their starting point.
2. When Welsh actor Matt Ryan came in to audition for the role of Edward, he planned on doing a Manchester accent. However, when the people at Ubisoft heard his natural Welsh accent, they chose to go with that and rewrote Edward’s backstory to match it.
3. Originally Ubisoft wanted the game to start with protagonist Edward Kenway as a small child growing up surrounded by the pirate lifestyle, however the lead writer of the game was worried about having a time span that was too large to portrayal well, so it was shortened.
4. The subtitles for Black Flag’s animus cut-scenes have every noun capitalized because that’s how English was written during that period in history.
5. After Ubisoft released in-game screenshots of a wale approaching the Jackdaw, your boat, PETA issued a statement about Black Flag being disgraceful for glorifying whaling. Ubisoft responded to the claim by saying it didn’t glorify or promote whaling in any more than it did a pirate’s lifestyle. As a result of this controversy, an anti-whaling assassin by the name of Susan Drayton was introduced into the Assassin’s Creed universe.	November 18, 2015 	46
Halo 5: Guardians 	1. In an effort to test out the new hardware of the Xbox One, the team at 343 created fully animated cacti’ that would react in several different ways depending on where they were shot. However, they needed to be removed from the game due to technical issues. According to 343’s Chris Lee, the removal of the cacti caused hard feelings between many developers.
2. Originally, 343 wanted to use the characters from the Halo 4 episodic series Spartan Ops for Fireteam Osiris. But, as the game’s story became more and more developed, they decided that making a new Fireteam with new characters would be much better.
3. Since the team at 343 was going to start developing a game for a brand new console, they wanted to go as big as they possibly could with it. During team meetings, a couple hundred people were encouraged to pitch ideas about where they thought the story and gameplay could go for Guardians.
4. Although there were many challenges that the developers face when creating Halo 5, the biggest challenge was all of the co-op nature of gameplay, according to narrative designer Morgan Lockheart.
5. The launch of Halo 5: Guardians broke two sales records. It was the biggest Halo launch ever, earning $400 million globally, and it is currently the fastest selling Xbox One exclusive as of November 2015.	November 24, 2015 	47
Star Wars Battlefront 	1. Star Wars Battlefront was almost never made. While EA was deciding on what to do with the Battlefront part of the Star Wars deal, many DICE developers lobbied to be given a chance to make the game. EA was skeptical due to DICE’s already busy schedule, but DICE convinced them that they could do it.
2. The game’s developers traveled to the actual filming locations of previous Star Wars movies in order to get a feel for the worlds they were trying to recreate.
3. When asked about the game’s lack of a single-player campaign, DICE’s Patrick Bach stated that the singe-player was never really part of the plan to begin with. This came as news to many fans of that theorized that DICE cut it out due to time constraints imposed by the next Star Wars film.
4. In order to make the speeder bikes perform better and fly faster, DICE brought it the team behind the Burnout series, Criterion Games, to lend a helping hand during development.
5. The Star Wars Battlefront beta was EA’s largest beta ever, with over 9 million people playing the game during its availability.	December 7, 2015 	48
"Fact Check #8" Mortal Kombat X, Destiny, Metal Gear Solid V, Grand Theft Auto V, Halo 5 	1. Mortal Kombat X: While trying to come up with ideas for DLC characters, someone pitched the idea of having the Terminator be a playable character. The idea was in serious consideration before it was decided that it wouldn’t work out.
2. Destiny: FALSE
3. Metal Gear Solid V: According to Hideo Kojima an eighties filter was developed for the game so it would look like a film from the game’s time period. Unfortunately as soon as it was applied to the game, it slowed down the system as it was running on so much that it was scrapped.
4. Grand Theft Auto V: FALSE
5. Halo 5: Originally Thorn from Fireteam Majestic was going to be part of Fireteam Osiris, however Thorn’s voice actor Ethan Peck became unavailable so he was dropped from the team. When Nathan Fillion became available, they chose to replace Thorn with, fan-favorite, Buck.	December 16, 2015 	49
Fallout 4 	1. According to the Bethesda Game Studio’s Twitter account, there are over 111,000 lines of spoken dialogue in Fallout 4.
2. Codsworth, your faithful robotic butler, can say over 1000 different names in English.
3. When Fallout 4 was released on Steam it broke the record for most concurrent users in the game not created by Valve. The record belonged to GTA V previously and the approximate 470,000 players on launch day got Fallout 4 the title.
4. A fan sent Bethesda about 2240 bottle caps in order to reserve their copy of Fallout 4. Bethesda honored the pre-order saying that because they were the first person to do so, they were going to get a copy of the game.
5. Although Fallout 4 is a very deep and time-consuming game, it has been discovered that the game can be beaten in just over an hour. One speed runner, as of December 2015, holds the any% completion record with an hour and nine minutes.	December 22, 2015 	50
Assassin's Creed Unity 	1. The setting of revolutionary Paris in Assassin’s Creed Unity is twice the size of the world in Assassin’s Creed 3.
2. Approximately 15 different kinds of directors on Ubisoft’s development team had to learn about Paris during the revolution. Historian professors visited Ubisoft to make sure the script was accurate and paintings were analyzed for design inspiration.
3. According to an article from Destructoid, one developer spent more than two years making the Notre Dame Cathedral for the game. Some of the artwork for the game, especially for the stained glasses windows, were created from scratch due to copyright laws.
4. The crowds in the game can contain up to one thousand individual AI characters with each one acting and reacting independently.
5. When fans criticized the absence of playable female characters, something Ubisoft had encountered with previous installments, the developers argued that it wasn’t possible due to “the reality of production” they also argued that it would require an additional 8,000 animations to be created for a female avatar.	December 30, 2015 	51
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