In software industry, there is a widely known saying (and kind of a meme thing) goes as “it is not a bug, it is a feature”. While there are very different reasons for such a saying, some bugs actually were bugs but in time they were deemed to be useful as features too. Video games were no different.

Today we will share 5 examples of such incidents for your entertainment. Here comes the list.

Skyrim Space Program – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skyrim is a legendary game for countless reasons, yet it had its fair share of bugs especially at launch. Many bugs were eventually fixed and game became much better and more enjoyable to play, but some of them were actually found to be quite useful and fun. One of them were about giants in the game who were able to simply perform a grand slam on you with their huge clubs and hurl you into gray skies. 

As much as it was an issue with the physics engine, later it was seen as a more realistic way of giving them the well-deserved scary power since they were supposed to be able to do that. Even for a Dragonborn, they are meant to be a serious threat after all. 

Funniest part is, flying at 150 meters in the air was called Skyrim Space Program by players. 

The Mist – Silent Hill

Silent Hill is undeniably one of the best horror games around, and it absolutely deserves it. Many players will remember the fog in the game that kept the atmosphere at a very tense level. But it was not actually a feature in the beginning.

Video games in 90s were built with different challenges in mind. One of them was the general capabilities of hardware back then. Rigs were mostly not that strong, and developers were adjusting the rendering mechanics in such a way that game would only render what was necessary at any given time. This brought the fog mechanics into the game but eventually that fog became an indispensible part of Silent Hill’s success.

Not knowing what may be there in just a few meters gave people a huge chill down their spines, and it is also valid for Stephen King’s The Mist as another successful example.

The Spy – Quake Team Fortress

Team Fortress was initially a Quake mod, made back in 1996. Game had class system back then too, but it was obviously much more different than what we have today. But there was a bug that eventually caused a new class to rise.

At some point, game had a glitch that caused some players’ names to appear in the wrong colour, deceiving other players to think that player with glitched name was actually in the opposite team. Instead of fixing it and moving on, developers had a much better idea. The Spy.

They built a whole new class that could use disguise and appear truly like a member of opposite team, backstab his enemies and create chaos and confusion on the battlefield. Thanks to that bug and the great developers, a great game became even much better.

Rocket Jumping – Quake

Moving on with another legendary feature stemming from Quake, we have infamous rocket jumping on our list. This was also a physics engine issue just like aforementioned Skyrim Space Program, causing players to propel themselves into air if they time their jump and rocket shots on the ground correctly. 

While this may sound dangerous (and it is, especially if you fail timing), it could provide you a massive advantage in combat due to speed and positioning despite the health, armor and ammo loss. As players learned using it correctly, developers also noticed it and turned it into a feature that became one of the most utilized techniques of Arena FPS games for many years to come.

Combos – Street Fighter II: The World Warrior

Last one on the list is another legendary game contributing a legendary feature to the genre. We are talking about one of the most famous fighting games, Street Fighter. When Street Fighter II: The World Warrior arrived to arcade halls in 1991, a producer noticed that it was actually possible to cancel animations of certain attacks to perform another one. This would mean that defending side could not have any chance blocking the following moves. 

Instead of removing this, devleopers left it in the game as “combination attacks” since they thought it was difficult enough to perform and players who would go through the trouble should be rewarded.

What an underestimation of determined madmen among gamers, right?

Some people actually went crazy with performing these moves and after that this bug became a feature in later versions of Street Fighter – even rewarding with bonus points for that. Today though, remove combos from fighting games and probably no one would play them.