April Fools Day is a great time to prank your friends and family. The gaming world is not oblivious to this day, as players have seen many hilarious Gaming April Fools' Day Jokes over the years.
Whether it's in-game additions or prank announcements by gaming companies, this list compiles some of the best Gaming April Fools' Day Jokes fans have seen over the years.
Hilarious Gaming April Fools' Day Jokes Played by Game Developers
Valorant
Each agent's unique abilities are an integral part of how Valorant is played. Hence, Riot Games decided to prank its players on April Fools Day 2024 by completely mixing and randomising each agent's abilities.
Any agent that you picked would have different abilities from different agents, causing mass confusion. Additionally, the developers also added eyewash stations, where you could wash your eyes to get rid of flashbang effects.
Lastly, Riot also claimed to add "deception detection." If you deliberately lied to your teammate, you would get a pop-up saying that your comms were recognised as dishonest or misleading. Hence, your mic would be muted for the remainder of the round.
Minecraft
Mojang Studios is infamous for coming up with hilarious and creative Gaming April Fools' Day Jokes in Minecraft. From adding trendy gadgets like smartwatches and VR headsets to allowing you to charm mobs with a love meter, Minecraft has seen it all. However, the best Gaming April Fools' Day Joke pulled by the developers was last year, when Mojang allowed players to vote on how the world would change around them.
This included potions that could turn you into any mobs, bee balloons that floated you into the sky, and even allowing you to travel to the moon by flying up high enough into the air.
Yakuza
The reason that this Gaming April Fools' Day Joke is so unique is because it eventually ended up being a permanent part of the series. In 2019, Yakuza developers played a joke, saying that they were shifting the series' action-packed, fast-paced combat to a turn-based system.
During this time, Yakuza: Like a Dragon was in development. After receiving unexpectedly positive feedback from the video, the game developers decided to shift the game's focus to a turn-based combat system, creating a spectacular product in the end.
Ark: Survival Evolved
Ark: Survival Devolved was a 2016 Gaming April Fools' Day joke that flipped the game on its head. Normally, the game allows you to tame and ride dinosaurs for easy transport. However, for one day during the April Fools' event, Dinosaurs were able to ride human players, making for a hilarious sight to behold.
Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
In 2023, Sega released the "Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog", a visual novel video game. The game involved players investigating Sonic's murder, playing as various characters from the Sonic universe.
Overwatch
Overwatch is proof that a Gaming April Fools' Day Joke does not have to be intricate and highly detailed to be hilarious. Blizzard's simple idea put googly eyes on all Overwatch characters for a day. This created for hilarious sights where a menacing character like Doomfist was coming to kill you with his eyes popped wide open.
Rockstar Games
Elon Musk has recently faced a lot of backlash for his acquisition of Twitter, and the steps he has taken to change the platform. Mocking this fact, a renowned insider tweeted that Take-Two, the parent company of Rockstar Games, would be acquired
Pokemon Go
In 2014, Google Maps released a video titled The Pokemon Challenge. Players were tasked to roam their surroundings and catch Pokemon through their smartphones. If this sounds familiar to you, it is because this joke was eventually turned into reality. Niantic, an independent game developer, partnered with the Pokemon Company to create Pokemon Go, mimicking the ideas presented in the video.
This joke created one of the most successful mobile games of all time and is regarded as the most profitable Gaming April Fools' Day Joke ever.
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