History Main / GameBreakingBug

*** Early in the game's life, many people who played as Peach in "For Glory" mode were horrified to discover being banned from online play, sometimes for [[LongerThanLifeSentence extreme amounts of time]]. This was because Peach's Vegetables are treated by the game as an item, and the game mistakenly detected their use as [[NoFairCheating hacking items into a mode where items are disabled]]. This was thankfully soon fixed, with the bans overturned.

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingWildWorld'':
** There's a glitch that makes the game freeze upon visiting an animal's birthday party, forcing a reset and an earful from Resetti. While this particular glitch may not show up for years, once it starts happening it's impossible to STOP it happening, meaning that you can never visit one of these parties again.
** Through hacking, one can obtain broken items that, if dropped, can never be picked back up, can create buildings, change the terrain, or ''freeze the game''. And because the title screen shows in-game footage of your town, the game-freezing item will be loaded into memory before you can do anything, meaning you can't even delete your save, and will have to buy a new copy of the game if someone uses the item on your town. Needless to say, [[{{Griefer}} certain people]] took great pride in deliberately sabotaging peoples' games through the Internet. Although only people on your friend list could enter your town via friend codes (the games don't allow towns to be visited by anyone not on your list), you had no way of telling if someone was nice or a griefer until it's either too late or you watched them like a hawk.

** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosFor3DSAndWiiU''

*** One exclusive to version 1.0 of the game; Mewtwo's forward throw has it throw the enemy into the air and pelt them with tiny Shadow Balls. In a match involving Mewtwo with more than two players, it's possible to have Mewtwo use its forward throw on one player, then have another player jump into the stream of Shadow Balls and use the Z button to airdodge-catch one of them. Throw the Shadow Ball and the game freezes.
*** If you grab an opponent as the Ice Climbers and then chain together a specific set of attacks with the right timing, the opponent becomes unable to move. At all. You can hit them up to 999% damage as gradually as you like, then throw them for an instant win. Or, well, anything else you like. They can't stop you.

* In the American version of ''VideoGame/TokyoXtremeRacer 3'', the game's money system is deflated hundredfold (you earn 1% as much money as in the Japanese version, and everything costs 1% as much), likely to [[CulturalTranslation reflect US dollars rather than Japanese yen]]. Unfortunately, the money requirements to encounter two particular opponents were not adjusted; as a result, one of these opponents, Whirlwind Fanfare, requires more money than you are allowed to hold -- you can hold up to 99,999,990 credits, she requires 100 million. Since you need to beat the first 599 opponents, including her, to challenge the GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere FinalBoss, it's impossible to beat the game without an Action Replay.
* The arcade game ''VideoGame/WanganMidnight'' has a card cloning trick that doubles as a [[GoodBadBugs Good Bag Bug]] ''and'' this. Doing said trick is highly frowned upon because ''it literally breaks the game''--specifically, the card reader. If you know what the trick is, [[DontTryThisAtHome please don't do it]].

*** The babies and toddlers of inactive households often disappear on their own. The most common way that this happens is right after birth with babies. However the baby still shows up as alive in the family tree.
*** If you have the World Adventures expansion pack, you can travel and [[ParentalNeglect leave your baby behind]]. There's no guarantee they'll be there when you come back. (Though honestly, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome that's what would probably happen in real life]]...)

** The travelling system in World Adventures is bugged for some players. Sims travelling to another country may not actually arrive, leaving the player with no active household to control and stuck in that neighborhood unless they reload an earlier save. Visiting sims that return home are often corrupted and have new family ties and surnames from the vacation country.

* In the old PC Point-And-Click adventure game ''WesternAnimation/PinkPanther: Hokus Pokus Pink'' skipping through the cutscene where the "Star's Bite" collection is unveiled makes the camera un-acquireable, thus making the Greek Mythology chapter {{unwinnable}}.

* The Switch version of ''VideoGame/PaleoPines'' has a tendency to crash during loading screens, which can reportedly progress to the point where you can't leave the ranch.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The virtual pet site ''VideoGame/MoshiMonsters'' once had a glitch where increases to your monster's health and happiness wouldn't stick; they'd appear to have increased at first, but if you left and returned later, you'd find that the additions weren't saved on top of them decreasing a little more over the course of the day. Fortunately, it's since been fixed.
[[/folder]]

** ''[[VideoGame/{{Creatures}} Creatures 2]],'' perhaps due to its rushed release, is full of bugs both minor and game-crashing. "One Hour Stupidity Syndrome", caused by a problem with the original genome (the simulation itself is working ''exactly as it's supposed to''), is especially infamous for making afflicted Norns essentially unable to survive after a while as they'll refuse to eat or sleep.

** In ''VideoGame/MarioKartDS'', the game will freeze if you attempt to spin turn on the front steps of Luigi's Mansion (hold A Button and B Button, then turn). This glitch was fixed on the Wii U Virtual Console Rerelease.

** In ''VideoGame/MarioKartDS'', the game will freeze if you attempt to spin turn on the front steps of Luigi's Mansion (hold A Button and B Button, then turn).

*** In the original copies of the Wii version of the game, the aforementioned required character was outside the room behind a sealed door, in which case it actually was unwinnable, this glitch was fixed in the UpdatedReRelease on the Wii U
*** By simply returning to the title screen and playing a different save file, you can trigger a number of glitches due to a variable that tracks overall game progress not being reset. Most of the time you end up harmlessly skipping a cutscene, but in one instance it's possible to make the monkeys in the Forest Temple disappear completely, making progress impossible.

*** After completing the Thunder Dragon's portion of the song during the Song of the Hero quest, if you go and talk to Golo the Goron and have not started the other two quests yet, the event triggers will not happen and the game could not be completed. In early 2012, Nintendo released a patching program on the Wii that downloads the patch and fixes save files. This glitch was completely fixed in the UpdatedRerelease Switch version.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'' was [[{{Unwinnable}} impossible to finish]] if the player saved and quit at the wrong time after crossing a bridge [[BrokenBridge which subsequently gets broken]]. A required character would also turn invisible if the player saved and quit in the wrong area. He could still be utilized, so the game was not unbeatable, but this was still a frustrating bug.

*** After completing the Thunder Dragon's portion of the song during the Song of the Hero quest, if you go and talk to Golo the Goron and have not started the other two quests yet, the event triggers will not happen and the game could not be completed. In early 2012, Nintendo released a patching program on the Wii that downloads the patch and fixes save files. This glitch was also completely fixed in the UpdatedRerelease Switch version.

*** In the original copies of the Wii version of the game, the aforementioned required character was outside the room behind a sealed door, in which case it actually was unwinnable.

*** After completing the Thunder Dragon's portion of the song during the Song of the Hero quest, if you go and talk to Golo the Goron and have not started the other two quests yet, the event triggers will not happen and the game could not be completed. In early 2012, Nintendo released a patching program on the Wii that downloads the patch and fixes save files. This glitch is also completely missing in the UpdatedRerelease Switch version.

** The third is attempting to enter a single-player SBURB session. The game was not intended to be played alone, and creates a supposedly-doomed session in which the player has only a few seconds to complete their chosen tasks before they fail. However, [[spoiler:Caliborn'']], a Time player, was able to succeed regardless due to his extremely powerful classpect and [[spoiler:Gamzee's help]], eventually becoming Lord English. [[spoiler:Calliope also succeeded at this impossible task in a Doomed timeline due to having a similarly unbalanced Space aspect.]]

* Remember that part about physics engines messing you up by sending important things flying where they're not supposed to go? ''VideoGame/{{Jazzpunk}}'' has possibly the ultimate version of this: It's possible to accidentally launch ''yourself'' high in the air and land outside the field of play. Jim Sterling [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etnvVyiX7nQ managed to do this]] in the first mission area and wound up on the street between the park and the sidewalk, unable to get back to either because of the fences.

* Remember that part about physics engines messing you up by sending important things flying where they're not supposed to go? ''VideoGame/{{Jazzpunk}}'' ([[WidgetSeries guess it fits here]]) has possibly the ultimate version of this: It's possible to accidentally launch ''yourself'' high in the air and land outside the field of play. Jim Sterling [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etnvVyiX7nQ managed to do this]] in the first mission area and wound up on the street between the park and the sidewalk, unable to get back to either because of the fences.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars3'': Stage 7 is a BeachEpisode, with most of the cast taking some time off...so naturally, the bad guys choose this moment to attack. For the first four turns your only units are a small skeleton crew; on Turn 5, the rest of the heroes get back just as some more enemies arrive. However, if you manage to beat the initial enemies before Turn 5, the stage ends and everyone on the beach just gets left behind. Hope you like early UC ''{{Franchise/Gundam}}'' and Manga/GetterRobo!

* The UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port of ''VideoGame/TerraFlame'' has a bug where the player's [[AttackDrone Roll Units]] may disappear when losing one point of shielding, even though the player was not killed, which is supposed to be the only way to lose the Roll Units. If this happens, the player's ship becomes severely handicapped. You cannot perform {{Charged Attack}}s and the shots that would come out of the Roll Units are absent; with your DPS shot to hell as a result, good luck trying to beat bosses before their timers run out. Perhaps worst of all, the game does not properly unset the "player has Roll Units" flag: The Charge meter is still presesnt despite your inability to charge up your weapon and the game continues to prevent Roll items from appearing (which is only supposed to happen when you do have Roll Units on your ship). The only way to get out of this state is to die and respawn, assuming you have lives to spare.

* VideoGame/{{DyingLight}}: The expansion ''The Following'' has its own save file and is loaded separately from the main campaign in the menu, though your save is linked to your campaign save so that your stats and inventory can sync back and forth. There's a bug, with no clearly-established cause, that makes your ''Following'' save load you into the main campaign's city map instead of ''The Following'''s setting of The Countryside. As it's not normally possible to return to the city during the ''The Following'', there's no built-in way to go to The Countryside from the city either, so you're stuck. The only known fix is to have someone else invite you to their ''Following'' co-op session, which forces your game to load you into The Countryside. This bug was never fixed, and [[https://dyinglight.support.techland.pl/en/support/solutions/articles/15000009874-can-t-play-the-following-it-goes-to-the-regular-campaign-in-the-slums Techland's own support site only offers the co-op workaround as a solution]]. If the game's co-op stops working someday, or if you're playing on console and don't pay for online features, you're out of luck, and probably can't play ''The Following'' again without losing progress (potentially your progress in both the expansion ''and'' the main campaign).

* VideoGame/DyingLight: The expansion ''The Following'' has its own save file and is loaded separately from the main campaign in the menu, though your save is linked to your campaign save so that your stats and inventory can sync back and forth. There's a bug, with no clearly-established cause, that makes your ''Following'' save load you into the main campaign's city map instead of ''The Following'''s setting of The Countryside. As it's not normally possible to return to the city during the ''The Following'', there's no built-in way to go to The Countryside from the city either, so you're stuck. The only known fix is to have someone else invite you to their ''Following'' co-op session, which forces your game to load you into The Countryside. This bug was never fixed, and [[https://dyinglight.support.techland.pl/en/support/solutions/articles/15000009874-can-t-play-the-following-it-goes-to-the-regular-campaign-in-the-slums Techland's own support site only offers the co-op workaround as a solution]]. If the game's co-op stops working someday, or if you're playing on console and don't pay for online features, you're out of luck, and probably can't play ''The Following'' again without losing progress (potentially your progress in both the expansion ''and'' the main campaign).

** While ''XII'' is widely considered to be an ObviousBeta of the game that would become ''XIII'', the first version of the latter game still managed to release with a variety of crippling bugs: Hwa Jai can fly out of the arena, anyone who trades with Ralf's Neo Max using a jumping attack becomes stuck in the air, and Vice has ''two'' separate methods of locking up her opponent. These bugs, along with an infinite combo, were fixed in version 1.1.

*** The initial version, [[ObviousBeta which wasn't technically supposed to get out to the public (it has missing Fatalities, no Kombo Limiter, missing characters, no endings...)]] has a bug where one character can lift his opponent to the top of the screen by using a special move properly. The "lift" won't wear off until the target is hit by something else, and nothing can get up that high, so the game is effectively stuck, especially if the game timer is disabled.

* ''Star Wars Episode 1: Battle for Naboo'' has a particularly nasty bug associated with one of the passcodes. Said passcode is only supposed to unlock all of the levels up to the second to last bonus one. However, if you're playing in a file with every mission unlocked normally with this code active, it'll actually let you scroll past the last one to discover [[ObviousBeta leftover levels with placeholder text for mission briefings]]. Just don't go any further than the fourth one or your game loses its shit on the level descriptions and crashes.

** ''Videogame/XRebirth'' was an ''extremely'' [[ObviousBeta buggy game at release]], with bugs ranging from hilarious (Teladi [[EyeScream eyes would detach from their skull]] in conversations, ships would flip out and go flying away if shot in [[PortalNetwork highways]], etc), to gamebreaking. For example, ships exiting highways normally are jettisoned a few hundred meters from the highway stream (so they don't get sucked back in). In version 1.0.0, exiting a highway could sometimes cause ships to get jettisoned several hundred ''thousand kilometers''. Unless one wanted to tape down the boost button and go take a nap to reach civilization again, the only fix was to reload the last game; and there was no autosave until version 2.0.

* The Switch port of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'' has one reeking of ObviousBeta (and ''only'' in this port) when Billy and Rebecca split up, if the non-controlled partner dies, the game implodes on itself and just crashes or reset to the prologue cutscene if no save data is detected.

%%* ''[[VideoGame/{{Driver}} Driv3r]]'' is full of these, due to being [[ObviousBeta rushed for release]].

* Due to [[ObviousBeta the code not being complete when it first came out]], in ''Pinball/StarTrekStern'', any Level 2 mission, because of the code simply not being there, requires 65,535 shots to complete. This quantity is so high that the machine would more likely break down or overheat before you can accomplish it, provided you've got the world-class skill to get that many shots (or you remove the glass and roll the ball around with your hands instead of the flippers). It is possible that the designers ''wanted'' that unreasonable number, considering that there is no code whatsoever beyond that and thus the game will crash if you actually complete one of these missions. A later patch completed the code and brought the Level 2 missions down to a much more reasonable 10 shots to clear.

*** Due to [[ObviousBeta poor editing,]] the section also features a number of utterances with exceptionally vague wording and ruling clashes. For instance, the Lexicon of the Perfected Map utterances reportedly all affect a twenty-foot radius around you, but [[RecycledScript half of them are stated to function exactly like spells]] that affect different areas or no areas at all, "unless noted otherwise", without explaining what takes precedence. For instance, Stone Tell [[EverythingTalks allows the caster to talk to stones]], so does Lore of the World allow just the truenamer to talk to stones, or allow everyone in the radius to talk to stones, or allow them to talk to stones inside the radius, or fail to target anyone and allow nobody to talk to stones? There's also a truenamer/monk combo class that both explicitly [[LogicBomb does and does not advance your flurry of blows progression]].

* The [=PS3=]version of ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedShift Need For Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed'' has a bug that sometimes the game crashes in the loading screens.

* The PS3 version of ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedShift Need For Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed'' has a bug that sometimes the game crashes in the loading screens.