Finding the Chicago Ghost - Perfect Dark - Works with v1.0 and v1.1 

Hey, I just wanted to say that I really appreciate you doing all of this. You truly have no idea how much this means to me. The unloading of guards is quite interesting, and it may very well be an element in how the ghost itself got into the room. It probably wasn't in there at the start of the level, but instead, instantly teleported into it when it became hostile to everyone. I really think that we need someone to dedicate some time into looking at the game's memory. What triggers the ghost could be any number of things, but I think that the challenges have something to do with it. There could be another challenge that writes bad memory without crashing the game. Or perhaps there is a glitch with Counter Operative, or Cooperative, or maybe even all the above and more. It could be many different bugs compounded together. We really just don't know...and that's why the ghost has stayed hidden for so long. This is one of the reasons why I stopped looking. There are just too many variables; too many things that could trigger it. I just don't have the time to spend looking into it anymore. However, when some lucky dude figures this out, I will at least feel good knowing that I helped in some capacity finding the ghost. Thanks again, really. And I highly suggest you try to get a 1.0 version of the game, because I'm fairly certain that the ghost can only be encountered on that one, which is also why so many people didn't see it. It was only a triggerable bug on a version of the game that had a finite number of copies. When they saw the ghost, they tried to tell other people about it, but no one else could ever replicate it, because they had a fixed version of the game which could never yield the ghost. Thanks again, dude. Really.

The algorithm did well! I watched Goose's video on this 3 days ago.

15:45 Goldeneye 64 *definitely* has guards that surrender, and it uses that exact same animation. I remember it very clearly, and I never played Perfect Dark - didn't even know anything about it until very recently. Great video, thank you.

This is appears to be a good analysis of the ghost phenomenon. Bravo!

Excellent analysis, and a fitting Halloween themed upload!

Will this work on the PAL version of the game or this is just NTSC only?

14:05 he looked genuinely confused 😆

Great video bud. Hey the 2 cloaked guards in the G5 building at start are scripted to drop a crossbow if both are killed with melee attacks only. Perhaps a memory error loads one of them in the Chicago stage instead but they are haywire and able to pull out the crossbow coded as drop only normally. Would explain the ghost uncloaking and having a crossbow. I mean their in the very next stage.

Ok it's been 3 years now. Find out anything more about the ghost? Not many people on RU-vid covering this topic it seems. Only your video and one by Goose is all I can find

What are "Janice guards"?

Do you have the right cartridge? Back then when PD was new. We did find the ghost even in 2 op play. So it is there. you just need the "luck" to find it. I think it is a brown guard if i am remember right.

I just Watched a secret weapon video Perfect dark in one of the secret weapons is a crossbow and it comes from one of the cloaked guards in the level after Chicago.

What

Quality Content!

Hearing that you were calling many spawning guards a ghost, I'm not sure you're understanding what the ghost is supposed to be. Its not any level respawning, or objective triggered guard, that are a typical game program, and appear in most levels. It/he is supposed to be a single corrupt entity, somehow triggered, and enabled before the Chicago level is even played. And again, it is cloaked, has a crossbow as its weapon, and kills NPCs, players, without prejudice. The two examples are vastly different.

I am convinced, the "ghost" actually is the drone (robot). It IS in the Chicago map, it does have the cloaking SOUND and the location itself - the club underneath the street - makes sense as well. I can not fully explain it but my best guess is, that the drone itself (for whatever reason) spawns as a Janus Guard. Since the drone has a very specific behavior, it is not really compatible with being a "Janus Guard"... this may alter it´s attributes (e.g. it´s height) in a way that it spawns above the club and then falls through the street into the club. It attacks the bouncers, who then start running out of the club and open the doors. The "janus drone" however is set to a fixed path on which it usually patrols and can not leave that route and thus can not leave the club either. It is likely moving to the right wall of the club and getting stuck there. Once you enter the club and get in it´s sight, it does make it´s programmed "uncloaking" sound upon attacking and kills the player. This theory at least explains, why Krythic did not encounter the drone on the street, since it simply wasn´t there at all. There are of course quite a few questions, which I can´t really answer. But I really think, when the drone becomes a "Janus Guard" (which obviously would be a bug) it simply becomes a very broken entity in the level. Since the drone is extremely different from a normal guard, it is not really compatible with this state. I guess, the Janus Drone gets the "physical" attributes of a normal NPC but since there is no texture for it, it simply becomes invisible. And as it does not use a normal weapon, the game just defaults to the next weapon (most likely the next hexadecimal number after it´s own weapon attribute) which could happen to be the crossbow. All of this results in an invisible "Janus Drone" with a crossbow on a fixed path that is stuck in the club. It then attacks the player as it is programmed to with it´s only available weapon. The uncloaking sound is just the sound that always plays when the drone "sees" you. To prove this theory, one would simply have to start the level over and over again, run to the street and check if the drone is there... I know that there are quite a few uncertainties with my theory, but every other theory so far is impossible in my opinion. The game simply can not load guards from other levels (G5 building) as the number of objects loaded is specified in the map properties and memory garbage could corrupt existing objects but not insert additional ones. And the "ghost" occurs way to inconsistent to be an easter egg. If it was, it would have been found in the code. It can´t be a teleporting guard (as in this video) either, as these do not have the crossbow. The cloaking sound and the sound of the drone can´t be a coincidence... Now feel free to rip this theory apart :)

Its always something soooooo simple. People have always known about enemy AI in GE/PD teleporting when pathing fails, but no one ever thought maybe that's all the Ghost was until now. Thank you so much for taking the time to shine a light on this fascinating mystery!

I've only played a little PD casually and heard about this earlier today, but I don't think the teleporting guards is sufficient to explain the ghost rumors. Not just the one-hit crossbow, but the fact that the most basic rumor is that you can be alone on a map, leave the game on for hours, and when you come back you're dead. There should be no way there would be a guard trying to pathfind to you during that time.

I have seen something similar to the guard spawning with no weapon, it was recently , but it OG 007, one of the guard in the first level had no weapon, but would still try to aim and shoot at me, and with no rounds coming from his missing gun

id like to say time will tell on the ghost... but i feel like maybe time has already told

I love your laughs, thanks for your insights!

No offense, but you are clearly clueless about the "Chicago Ghost." Most important facts to remember about the Chicago Ghost: 1) When you arrive at the Punk Pond Club, all the guards are ALREADY DEAD, killed with crossbow bolts, and the doors are already open. 2) The "Ghost" is apparently cloaked, because everyone who's been killed by the Ghost always hears the sound of a cloaking device right before they die. 3) The Ghost only uses a crossbow. So the fact that every time you arrived at the club and you were attacked by guards from inside is proof that you NEVER encountered the Ghost.

This is actually very cool

Strange. Can it be the cheats that are causing these glitches and crashes in Chicago?

it's only a memory flow for 1.0

big if true

i dont really feel this is the ghost. this video doesn't address the fact that the ghost event is seemingly triggered at the start of the level because when you make your way near the club, THAT'S when you hear the commotion and upon investigation, find the doors open and the dead bodies. Also the report claims that before the player was killed, he heard an uncloaking sound. I haven't double checked myself but I don't think the x-ray gun sees cloaked enemies? Overall my theory is that someone on the Rare team put in an easter egg and is being extremely tight lipped about it. If this was a memory leak causing a bug we wouldn't have such similar reports with such a dramatic feel to the reported events.

Amazing insight bro, thanks a ton!

Why not get a ROM of the 1.0 version of the game, being as you own the Cartridge?

This doesn't add up with the sound of the cloaking device

That is good intel! Can't wait for the big Ghostbusting to happen!

i managed to recreate the ghost. i thought it had something to do with combat simulator NOPE. it has something to do with the next level. ok so if you continue into the next level and melee the guard and leave the other guard alive right b4 he uncloaks exit out of the level go back into Chicago and the "ghost" is there. i posted on another video with my save state and i repeated the same steps a couple times and i finally figured out how to reproduce this.

6:38 These guards are being alerted via sound, not than the actual explosions. Guards do detect sounds and some guns are louder than others just like in goldeneye (where it was more of a factor than in PD, silo and bunker in 2 in particular could turn into a slog if you used the k7 too much and speedrunning in facility makes use of sound detection) and the sound of the explosions was high enough to alert everybody to that particular spot in the club (you see a few patrol routes cross directly above). Sound-alerted guards arent immediately hostile, they just draw the guards to investigate, and investigating guards run to their destination and then slowly walk around and scan the area (14:07). its also why the FBI agent only started calling for backup when he saw you after having been drawn in by the sound. Guards are not supposed to teleport as the crow flies; rather once they're summoned to an area, they choose a path from predesignated nodes and then follow them to their destination. guard travelling behaviors are different based on whether they're loaded in or not. Guards who ARE loaded in travel relatively inefficiently: they weave and deviate slightly from their pathing, and they even run more slowly. Guards who ARE NOT loaded in travel efficiently, directly from point A to point B without deviating, and run faster. Pften times they often skip through entire doors. The reason they do this is to help them get to their destination faster and catch up to you for the sake of gameplay (this also applies to Jonathan and Elvis and any other ally you have to escort, they will be faster if you dont watch them). If there is an obstruction in pathing like a crate or locked door or other object, loaded-in guards will often not be able to compensate. You can see this when the guard is seen stuck in a looping kneeling animation on the staircase through x-ray. You see him, so he's loaded in and travelling normally. In this case, the obstruction is presumably the stairs themselves, which have a difficult design for the bots to navigate. When you are NOT looking with x-ray, any guards summoned by the sound of your explosions are able to compensate by skipping the stairs completely and often ending up right in the club. The reason why they appear behind you when you go in the foyer is because it's a separate room, and the club itself is unloaded when you arent in it or looking at it. Both point A and point B thus are both completely unloaded, making it very convenient for the game itself to move stuck travelling guards in. It's also why the surrendering guard disappeared; the room is unloaded, and surrendering guards are designed to disappear when you look away. The room unloaded, the guard is not being observed, so he is removed. The easiest way to observe unloaded guard behavior in a way applicable to this video is in Escape's bomb rigging sequence with Jonathan. If you leave the room while he's rigging the wall, guards will immediately appear inside the room shooting him. These guards DO NOT spawn in the room itself; they spawn in the cryo lab you originally came from, and are stuck behind the maintenance hatch from earlier. You can hear them if you stand by the door and even preemptively kill them with the SuperDragon's grenades. Nothing can open this door once locked, even guards, so they're stuck and their pathing is obstructed. As soon as you step outside the room and look away, their "Point B" destination is unloaded, so their pathing behavior changes and they skip through the door into their destination to participate in the event. The Pond Punk is probably the single most drastic example of this behavior in the game because the area is so unused and remote and the pathing into it is so poorly designed for guards, Rare likely never bothering to account for how external guards will get in.