6 Classic Games With Cool Details Hidden On Their Unpatched Physical Discs

As I’m sure you’re already well aware, yesterday, Sony announced that the production of first-party and third-party physical PlayStation discs will end in January 2028. You’d be hard-pressed to find a living soul who supports this decision, as the internet collectively (and justifiably) started shouting at Sony for its anti-consumer decision.

There are dozens of reasons why PlayStation’s shift to digital is bad for consumers. You’ll no longer be able to swap discs with your friends. PlayStation discs are often cheaper to purchase than their digital counterparts. You’ll no longer be able to borrow discs from your local library. Those with poor internet speeds or data caps won’t be able to benefit from installing a game from a disc. Oh, and yeah, as Sony themselves have demonstrated twice in the past week, digital licenses are not permanent and can be revoked at any time.

However, there’s another element to this shift to digital that I’m particularly upset about: We’ll no longer be able to explore the secrets of unpatched games. As we transition to a world of digital-only games, there will be no way to install a game without automatically downloading a day-one patch alongside it. While the announcement that PlayStation is going discless is the final nail in this coffin, this issue has already popped up several times in 2026, as the likes of Crimson Desert and Gothic Remake require you to download a patch even if you own a physical copy of the game–and don’t even get me started on Grand Theft Auto 6’s code-in-box bollocks.

What are we losing as a result of this? Let me take a moment to talk about some of the weird stuff you can only find if you’re playing on an unpatched, physical copy of a game, and to say goodbye to our chances of ever seeing this type of stuff in the future, as day-one patched versions of games increasingly become the new norm. There go our chances of seeing if GTA 6 has a Hot Coffee mode.

Bloodborne

Bloodborne version 1.0 contains many oddities, but playing the unpatched version of the game is mostly to the player’s detriment. The load times are abysmal; a couple of items, such as Henryk’s Attire, are missing; and the lighting is a noticeable downgrade from that in the 1.09 version of the game

It’s not all bad, though, as this version of the game also features different behaviors for certain enemies, such as Micolash and Darkbeast Paarl, and different descriptions for several items. However, the most interesting change is to the Doll. As explained by Lance McDonald, the Doll has several events that can trigger when you return to the Hunter’s Dream, but one of these was removed from the game in subsequent patches.

There’s a rare chance in version 1.0 that the Doll will hum the Russian lullaby “Bayu-Bayushki-Bayu” when you visit her. This lullaby is about a wolf preying on sleeping children which, considering all the games’ themes about nightmares and childbirth, feels extremely appropriate.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

This might be the most bizarre entry on this list, as the unpatched version of Shadow of the Tomb Raider features an entirely different ending than what you’d get if you finish the game in its current form. That in itself is obviously pretty interesting, but I think the way in which this was discovered is half the reason this is so fascinating.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider launched with a day-one patch. The majority of players, naturally, automatically installed the patch before booting up the game, but a user by the name of Tombstone on the Tomb Raider forum had to play through the game without connecting their PlayStation 4 to the internet. Discussing the ending, they asked users what they thought the letter Lara receives from Natla, the main villain from the original 1996 Tomb Raider game, might imply, and if it could be hinting that Natla would appear as the villain of the next game. Every user told them that there is no letter in the ending, and a few even stated that they’d be reporting Tombstone for making stuff up.

Turns out, Tombstone was telling the truth, and had to replay through the entire game just to prove it. Developer Eidos-Montréal ended up issuing a statement in response to the discovery, in which they referred to the alternate ending as an “error” that was “mistakenly included” in the unpatched disc version of the game.

Final Fantasy XV

For those unaware, Final Fantasy XV had quite the troubled development. The game was originally titled Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and development began sometime in 2006. This version of the game ended up being scrapped sometime before the internal announcement of the PlayStation 4, so around pre-2013.

When Final Fantasy XV finally (ha!) released on November 29, 2016 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, it was pretty clear that a lot of story beats had been cut, and that the game’s ending had been somewhat rushed. In March of 2018, Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition was released for Windows.

It’s kind of staggering how much stuff has changed between the original 1.0 version of Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition. Ignoring all of the new DLC content that Windows/Royal Edition adds, version 1.0 of Final Fantasy XV features completely different dialogue throughout the game, a different version of the ending campfire scene, and several reworked dungeons.

You can immediately see how much has changed when you compare the chapter “The Cure For Insomnia” in the original version of the game with the same chapter in the new version from 2018. The layout of the map is different for a start, but the chapter’s opening cutscene has been changed too. The changes hardly stop there, though, and this Reddit thread catalogs many of the most noticeable differences.

Ninja Gaiden 2

All right, this one is silly, but I just had to include it. Ninja Gaiden 2 originally released in 2008, exclusively for the Xbox 360. The 18-year-old game features a segment in Chapter 10 that fans refer to as the “Infamous Staircase.”

To make things cool and cinematic, dozens of enemies spawn in during this segment in the unpatched version of Ninja Gaiden 2. While, in theory, cutting down a group of almost 30 enemy ninjas at once sounds cool, in practice… it proved to be too much for the Xbox 360 to handle.

You still end up fighting the same amount of enemies in the patched version of Ninja Gaiden 2, but there’s a cap on the amount that can be on screen at once. The subsequent re-releases of Ninja Gaiden 2, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Ninja Gaiden 2: Black, also altered this section to put a cap on the amount of enemies on screen at once, so the only way to experience this ridiculous section in its full, slo-mo glory is by playing the unpatched disc version of the game on the Xbox 360.

Cyberpunk 2077

Here’s another weird one, in the sense that it was pretty difficult to track down any information about the content that ended up being removed or otherwise altered with Cyberpunk 2077’s day-one patch. From what I can tell, as the physical release of Cyberpunk 2077 on PC was a code instead of a disc, players on PC seemingly received the 1.1 version of the game as standard. That means the only way to discover this content is by playing a fully unpatched version of the game on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One… and considering the state Cyberpunk 2077 launched in on consoles, it’s no surprise that nobody voluntarily decided to root through an extra-rough version of the game to exhaustively catalog these details.

Still, a few people have tried to uncover the contents of version 1.0 and found a few interesting tidbits in the process. For instance, the opening cinematic is slightly different in places. The Iguana Egg that was introduced in Patch 1.5 is actually present in version 1.0, but there’s no way to hatch it. Some extra muzzles and suppressors aren’t present in Patch 1.1.

And weirdly enough, the developer rooms in version 1.0 just don’t function at all. Content creator Deconstructing The Game found a way into the main dev room through the use of an exploit, only to discover that the room is completely different than it is in later versions and that the developer credits aren’t present. Imagine being so rushed to finish your game that you don’t have enough time to finish off the dev room easter egg.

Stellar Blade

Uh, this is a strange example, but it’s an example nonetheless. Not one I would suggest that you revisit yourself, but it’s interesting that this content, if you can call it that, can only be found on the PlayStation 5 version of Stellar Blade, as it was a PS5 exclusive for over a year before it made its way to PC.

There are two examples of content that were removed from the original version of Stellar Blade. For starters, in the 1.0 version of the game, developer Shift Up included an “unintentional” reference to a slur.

Stellar Blade embargo is up so I can finally show you the "Hard R Shop" graffiti lmao wonder how long this'll take to get patched out. pic.twitter.com/e7xv2aoxGz

— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) April 24, 2024

Yeah, that was pretty swiftly removed with the release of Stellar Blade’s first patch. Technically, this next one is more of an example of something that was added rather than removed, as some of Eve’s costumes were altered in Patch 1.1 to make them less revealing.

Thankfully (I guess), someone has uploaded a comparison video of all of the changes to Eve’s outfits. In response to cries of “censorship” from fans, Shift Up’s CEO stated that the developer itself changed these costumes, and that Sony didn’t pressure them to make them less revealing. Still, they are present on the physical PS5 disc if you really, desperately need to see them. Top tip though: you can just Google “boobs” instead. Nobody is stopping you, unless you live in the United Kingdom.