
The quest for Shadow of the Colossus' last big secret (2013) - danso
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-05-02-the-quest-for-shadow-of-the-colossuss-last-big-secret
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teddyh
TL;DR: Any “last big secret” has not been found, and all signs point to there
not being any.

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rangibaby
There might be. The Citadel map in Goldeneye was found ten years after the
game was released. Every same person had given up looking considering it
obviously wasn't in the game and it's existence was denied by devs who has no
reason to lie about it (other than getting fans to stop asking, I guess). But
it was there.

~~~
brandur
Just for anyone else who was curious, here's some more information on the
Citadel:

[http://goldeneye.wikia.com/wiki/Citadel](http://goldeneye.wikia.com/wiki/Citadel)

It wasn't really an intended secret. It sounds like to make it accessible, a
player had to hack it in, and to make it playable, another player had to
contribute clipping information.

~~~
TeMPOraL
The whole thing sort of sounds like the beginning of StarGate: Universe - only
the reward for beating an unbeatable test in an MMO game was getting enrolled
in an extraplanteray research program.

~~~
sslayer
Kerbal Space Program, here I come.

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rangibaby
This reminds me a lot of Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64; maps with areas
that have no reason to be there other than conspiracy theories (some that
turned out to be true!), traces of things that were meant to be in the game
but were cut at the very last minute, emulators unearthing more mysteries than
they solve... it's maddening, but an interesting look at how we think.

~~~
grimman
Ultimately there are very simple explanations for most things. You'll have
developer/mapper playgrounds where they model new stuff and try things out
before cutting them or implementing them. Sometimes these things happen in
production maps, and are simply overlooked when they are no longer
interesting. It's cruft, but for explorers they are so much more.

Other times they are really nicely fleshed out, but locked away behind flimsy
"gates", and really were intended to go into the full game, but had to be
abandoned at the very last minute.

And then there's the cinematic areas that are made for show, implemented as
they were intended, which never included being accessible to players.

What's really the most rewarding thing about this is that you, as a player, as
an explorer, get to puzzle things out; you almost get to write the narrative
yourself.

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Mithaldu
And Nomad is still posting: [http://nomads-sotc-
blog.blogspot.com.au/](http://nomads-sotc-blog.blogspot.com.au/)

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shalmanese
Why isn't it possible to decompile this inside of an emulator and know for
sure if there are assets that haven't been seen in-game and where they reside?

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HCIdivision17
I remember finding the beach that seems to harken back to Ico. The ambiguity
is a thrill: there's enough to remind you, but never quite enough to prove it.
And so you have an odd win-win scenario, where you can enjoy just finding
something interesting, but maybe there's more to it. When you walk away from
the game, there's a little part of you that thinks there's still more to be
had, that the game hasn't ended yet. It helps stave off that bittersweetness
of winning mentioned near the start.

It also helps that there really were some great hidden bits. The game is
riddled with wonderfully hidden special spots. (If I remember correctly, it's
a bad idea to eat the fruit in the garden at the top of the temple.)

When Myst Online: Uru Live got its second wind, a similar air followed the
gameplay. Everything could be a puzzle or a plot with each new update. I
always felt the Cyan developers knew they had to make puzzles that not only
stumped a player, but a whole community of fans. I had enormous amounts of fun
searching for and - in the end inventing - puzzles there. To this day I like
to think Jalak was totally a puzzle, and not just a surprisingly involved
gizmo.

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Absentinsomniac
I really, really wish I had enough time to sit around and explore stuff like
this for weeks at a time. I haven't even played any games in over a year.

~~~
wetmore
I know what you mean, I spent a lot of time exploring Shadow of the Colossus
when I was younger, but now it's really hard to find the time to spend quality
time with a game.

