Midway through making the game, PC version developers KnowWonder had to do a hard reset and completely restart their development of the game after the lore restrictions employed by Rowling made their original game uninteresting and a "glorified walking simulator", as they put it. Specifically, much of the KnowWonder's ideas had to be abandoned or worked around because many of the spells they wanted to adapt to gameplay they couldn't because first year Hogwarts students didn't have access to such abilities.
Going back to the drawing board caused the redone game to be rushed and the developers to experience crunch, but despite this, they still "found their groove" that helped them create the final game. The team also greatly understood Rowling's strict demand as they were huge fans of the source material.
Rowling also helped KnowWonder by creating a new spell for the team which didn't appear in her novels or on-screen before: Flipendo, a movement spell. Developer Christo Vuchetich opines that Rowling knew what went into making a game by giving his team vague and simple descriptions for the list of first year spells (i.e. "Flipendo moves things").
Many locations in Isle Delfino feature a series of swirl-shaped glyphs. While seemingly unreadable to the average player, these symbols are actually a cipher for the Latin alphabet. Consequently, most instances of them can be decoded to generate coherent messages:
• The sign on the Sand Cabana in Gelato Beach reads "BAR GELATO". • The sign above the entrance to Pinna Park reads "PARCO", the Italian word for "park." • The sign on Pinna Park's pendulum ships ride reads "VIKING". • The Isle Delfino guide book's preview image for Noki Bay features symbols in the corners that read "NOKI" when read in the following order: top-left, top-right, bottom-left, and bottom-right. • The flag atop the orange dome in Noki Bay reads "MARE VILLAGE", the location's Japanese name.
In some instances, however, the translation does not produce actual words or sentences:
• The wall paintings throughout Noki Bay feature various nonsense combinations of letters, with some featuring just one. • The stone trimmings in various parts of Noki Bay simply repeat the alphabet from A to Z. • In the international release, the game's signboards read "RZTU BOD TVR". Of note is that this is a replacement for English placeholder text that was featured in the Japanese version. The placeholder text is taken from a dictionary, with some portions inexplicably removed. The unaltered text reads "This isn't gonna hurt a bit. Just a little stick. Ready? 1...2...3. There you go. All done," while the text that appears in-game reads "This isn't gonna Just a little stick. Ready? 1...2...3. There you All do."
Despite being developed by different studios, in all versions but the Game Boy Color version, during the final battle with Voldemort Spoiler:/Professor Quirrell, the player must use the Mirror of Erised in the middle of the room in order to strike and defeat him. This does not happen in either the book or movie version of the story. Spoiler:In those stories, Harry involuntarily "defeats" Lord Voldemort when the villain tries to touch him only for Lily Potter's protection spell that she put on Harry to disintegrate Quirrell and in turn Voldemort's physical vessel.
Due to a loop hole with the Tolkien estate, Vivendi Games was able to make the game independently from Peter Jackson's film adaptations and have it more based on the book. However, despite this, the game's console and PC versions still open with a narration by Lothlorien Elf Galadriel where she describes the history, lore, and creation of The One Ring, which is something that happens in the very beginning of Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring film and not the original novel.
In the Nocturne Maniax version that features Dante from the Devil May Cry series as a guest character, jumping from the Mantra Headquarters will normally cause your party's HP to be reduced to 1 HP. However, if Dante is in your party, he will take no damage from the fall.
In the Nocturne Maniax Chronicle version only released in Japan featuring Raidou from the Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner games replacing Dante, he also takes no damage if you jump from the building.
These appear to be references to how each character can fall from great heights and land without any visible damage, such as in the beginning of Devil May Cry 2 where Dante successfully lands a jump from a tall cathedral tower.
The Japanese release of the game includes scans from the official manga "Kirby of the Stars" by Yoshiko Sakuma; these are omitted in international releases.
Unused dialogue for "Of Their Own Accord" suggested that if the player neglected to, or otherwise failed to defend the Washington Monument evac site, it would eventually be overrun and destroyed by the Russian army resulting in the deaths of all military personnel and civilians on-site, and thus mission failure.
The dialogue itself features the previous operator being replaced with a far more desperate one warning the player of the site's worsening combat effeciency. This would eventually result in the untrained civilians taking up arms against the Russian invaders before being completely overrun. In the original final game, effectiveness never goes below 80% and the danger is more to the player themselves.
The 2020 campaign remaster implements some degree of dialogue, including combat effectiveness dropping to 50% if the player is on harder difficulty levels, though never lower than that.
In a video interview with former Capcom game designer Shinichiro Obata, he stated that the reason why the character Pet Shop is so overpowered to the point of being banned in competitive play is because he was originally intended for the PlayStation version and not arcade one, as such he wasn't really intended for competitive play.
However when the updated arcade version JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future was in development, Pet Shop was added as a playable character and Mr. Obata couldn't help but notice how weak this version of the character was. So he started doing everything he could to buff Pet Shop, with Mr. Obata himself remarking that he “might’ve overdone it”.
On the Credits of the PC version, switch from the Scrolling Credits over to the Photo credits featuring headshots of the developers who worked on the game. From this point, quickly click on the photos as they appear on-screen. After an unknown amount of clicking, a secret minigame will begin where you must click the photos before they disappear to score points.
One of Velma's moves in the game consisted of calling the police to take the opponent away. This was changed on September 8th, 2022 with the release of patch 1.02. With the release of this update Velma will now call the Mystery Inc. gang and the Mystery Machine instead.
In the SNES version, the main antagonist General Akhboob is sent to prison, unlike all other versions of the game where he is sentenced to the electric chair for his crimes. In regards to the final boss fight against his giant head, the SNES version depicts his muscular final form as dark green, while all other versions depict it as being red human muscle.
To detect if the Steam version of the game is a pirated copy, the game registers a fake DLC ID with SteamAPI. If a Steam emulator unlocks all DLC, the game won't progress past the first chapter and will open browser windows to the Steam page of the game every frame, potentially freezing your computer for having too many tabs on your browser.
pack/database/stat.rbrb also contains this text about a popular Steam emulator. It's referenced in the exe so it's not completely unused, but if it actually triggers anything is unknown.
"steam_api.dll.ali123 ALI123.INI - STEAM NOT DETECTED! RESTART GAME TO ENABLE STEAM FUNC! -"
As of 2.00 the game also checks the integrity of steam_api.dll and will softlock after defeating a boss in Chapter 2 by disabling your controls.
Normally, if you change the music selection to "Choose" in the Audio menu, the game will not allow the track "Prophetic - Title" to play. However, a glitch in the European version causes the song to play if the player loops through the list by pressing D-Right after the last song. This is the only way the song can be played in-game, though the game will change the song to "Azule Lux" every time a new level is loaded.
This is most likely caused by the game trying to play "Extol", as it was the last track in the US version. Since its placement was changed, the game loops the list and plays "Prophetic" instead.
The song "Flim Flam" is not present in the European version. The Brick variation which used this song now uses "Extol" instead, which is also the song that replaced it on the Audio menu.
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In the game's Beta, Tier 15 of the battle pass features the rewards of Pajama Finn and the feline character Cake, both from the animated series Adventure Time. This is a possible euphemistic reference to the "Tier 15 of Dating" joke from the series episode "Burning Low" implying in-game that Tier 15 is bestiality, although it's never actually stated what Tier 15 is in the episode.
Although Banjo and Kazooie from Banjo-Kazooie would not appear in the series until Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, their names appear as two of the random default names selected in the Name Entry in the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. Melee. The same is true for Conker from Conker's Bad Fur Day, another Rare character. Notably, Bad Fur Day didn't release in Japan until its Xbox remake, Conker: Live & Reloaded
In the original arcade build of Pac-Man, there is a specific area on the board that can be used as a hiding spot where the ghosts cannot see you. To access it, enter the upward tunnel, located just to the right of where Pac-Man spawns in on the board, from the right underneath, and keep Pac-Man facing up (do not do this as your first move when the level immediately starts, move slightly before trying this, for instance looping around the small left pathway from where Pac-Man starts and then going to the hiding place). This exploit can be used the same way on every level in the game except for the Strawberry level (the second level of the game). The Strawberry level has a slightly different way of pulling it off that can only be done there, requiring you to enter the same tunnel, but entering it while traveling left towards Pac-Man's spawn spot instead of entering by going to the right.
The A.I. for the ghosts works in two different modes, Chase and Scatter. The ghosts start in Scatter and aim for their own corners of the board while ignoring Pac-Man. In Chase mode, they can see and will actively chase Pac-Man. The ghosts will alternate between scattering and chasing Pac-Man in set intervals, and after the fourth Scatter, they will chase Pac-Man until you die or win the level. Due to a programming oversight, the ghosts cannot travel up in the "T"'s above and below the ghost spawning area, forcing them to move right past you. The ghosts also have unique methods of targeting Pac-Man, and all of this info put together allows the hiding spot to be possible. However, there is one exception to this trick. When Blinky switches from the fourth Scatter back to Chase for the rest of the level, he will come down from the top-right corner of the screen, and it is possible for him to enter the tunnel from the right entrance and kill Pac-Man, making it crucial not to perform this trick right before the fourth Scatter switches back to Chase to avoid the risk of death.
This exploit was patched out of future ports of Pac-Man, although ports containing the original arcade build will still retain it.
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At the Farris Halstead Library train station in the Loop, if you follow the tracks to the east, you will discover a junction where opposing straight tracks from the north and south intersect with the eastward tracks. These eastward straight tracks are unusual in that they seem to continue and stop before the edge of the elevated platform with no bumpers to mark the end of it, appearing unfinished. It should be noted though that no trains traveling eastward will actually go down these straight tracks all the way due to the curved transition tracks guiding them away. In the real-life Loop in Chicago, this spot would be located at the junction right after the Harold Washington Library train station, which unlike its depiction in Watch Dogs has no straight tracks continuing after the curved tracks at all.
This detail is notable because the day before Watch Dogs' release in May 2014, an anonymous developer claiming to have worked on the game posted to 4chan their insight on the game's development and experience working with Ubisoft Montreal, including details on how the train tracks worked in earlier builds of the game that may be talking about this unfinished intersection:
"Earlier when we were just working on world buildings etc, Montreal said we need to create a path for the L-train so that's what they did, but they put fucking 90 degree turns on the tracks! So I asked them for time/resources to fix this, they respond "we don't see your issue."
So I went ahead and sent them a video of this, showing how retarded a train running at 80mp/h looks when turning 90 degrees, they tell me "We see your issue but it's too late, maybe we'll patch this later." This was back in October [2013], before the delay announcement etc although you can probably still see in the game tracks marks left of that, which we missed cleaning up. In the October demo that was shown with the train if it went any further you'd see the 90 degree turns."
In 2020, an early build of the game dated to September 21, 2013 was dumped online by YouTuber JustAnyone, but it's currently unknown if this mistake existed in this build.
Many locations in Isle Delfino feature a series of swirl-shaped glyphs. While seemingly unreadable to the average player, these symbols are actually a cipher for the Latin alphabet. Consequently, most instances of them can be decoded to generate coherent messages:
The Japanese release of the game includes scans from the official manga "Kirby of the Stars" by Yoshiko Sakuma; these are omitted in international releases.
The song "Flim Flam" is not present in the European version. The Brick variation which used this song now uses "Extol" instead, which is also the song that replaced it on the Audio menu.
In the original arcade build of Pac-Man, there is a specific area on the board that can be used as a hiding spot where the ghosts cannot see you. To access it, enter the upward tunnel, located just to the right of where Pac-Man spawns in on the board, from the right underneath, and keep Pac-Man facing up (do not do this as your first move when the level immediately starts, move slightly before trying this, for instance looping around the small left pathway from where Pac-Man starts and then going to the hiding place). This exploit can be used the same way on every level in the game except for the Strawberry level (the second level of the game). The Strawberry level has a slightly different way of pulling it off that can only be done there, requiring you to enter the same tunnel, but entering it while traveling left towards Pac-Man's spawn spot instead of entering by going to the right.
At the end of the second phase of the France level (known in-game as round 2) there's a sign that says that the player is going to an airport (called aeroport in-game). The Japanese version mentions the real life Charles de Gaulle airport while the international version removes the name and changes "AEROPORT" into "AERO PORT".
In the Japanese version the pillars in the background of the France level (also known as Round 2 in-game) has graffiti peace signs painted on them. These graffiti were changed in the international version so that they no longer resemble peace signs.