Very few things bring gamers more joy than a well-hidden Easter egg. Like a secret gift from the developers (one that you often have to work really, really hard for), Easter eggs have been baffling, surprising, and delighting gamers since the ‘70s.
But, for the millions of hours of gameplay and thousands of titles, which Easter eggs are truly the best? In this blog, we venture as far back as Atari and as far afield as Fallout’s wastelands to bring you back a list of the best-ever Easter eggs. Consoles at the ready!
What Is An Easter Egg?
An ‘Easter egg’ is a hidden feature, message, image, or piece of information within an electronic medium such as gameplay, film, TV, or software. Easter eggs have been hidden in video games since the 1970s (more on this later) and usually take the form of a reference to another game or a hidden video sequence to unlock. Typically, Easter eggs are hidden in games by their creators as a fun way to connect with players and identify their creations.
Easter eggs do not affect regular gameplay and are optional (if you find them, that is). That being said, Easter eggs can be a highly intriguing and satisfying element of a game to stumble across when traversing remote areas, trying unique controller button combinations, or performing a specific sequence of actions.
Read on for some legendary video game Easter egg examples.
The First-Ever Easter Egg
If you were wondering where the idea for video game Easter eggs came from, you’ll have to travel back as far as 1973 to DEC’s Moonlander, where the first known instance of an Easter egg can be found.
In the game, players can opt to fly their digital version of the Apollo Lunar Module across several of the game’s screens. If players travel horizontally enough, they will encounter a McDonald’s and, if they land next to it, their astronaut can visit it and order “Two Cheeseburgers and a Big Mac to go!”.
Albeit primitive by today’s gaming standards, Moonlander’s exciting hidden feature encapsulates what it means to have an Easter egg in a game: a surprising little add-on that delights those who have the patience (and luck) to find it.
Atari’s Legendary Easter Egg
If you’ve read up on video game Easter eggs before, you may well have thought that Atari’s Adventure (1979) has the first example — but you’d be wrong. While Moonlander takes that title, Warren Robinett, Adventure’s developer, made an early Easter egg that’s become famous among retro gamers.
As gaming legend has it, when Adventure came out, Atari was actively not publishing the names of their programmers in order to prevent them from being headhunted by rivals. Frustrated by this policy, Robinett secretly programmed a sophisticated set of steps in which players could carry an invisible pixel and find a secret room containing the message, “Created by Warren Robinett”.
Apparently, an unsuspecting teenager stumbled upon this hidden feature about a year after the game was released — and the rest, as they say, is video game history. Again, while not actually the first video game Easter egg, Atari’s Adventure can certainly be credited with being the most inspirational — inspiring a generation of developers to add similar hidden features to their games.
Black Ops 2: Retro Within Modern
Fast forward some thirty years, and you come to our next great Easter egg: the nod to retro gaming hidden in Call of Duty Black Ops 2.
While retro gamers aren’t necessarily known for being the biggest fans of The Call of Duty franchise, perhaps Activision was trying to spread the love with this Easter egg.
In the game, if on the Nuketown map, players can find a number of creepy-looking mannequins. If players manage to shoot their heads off within 30 seconds, the nearby TV will display the Activision logo before allowing you to play a handful of Atari classics like Kaboom!, River Raid, HERO, and Pitfall II. We’ve got to give Activision some praise for this one as, though not the first time retro games feature as an Easter egg, the unexpected and left-field nature of this one definitely left players feeling excited.
Doom II: Kill John Romero
Often heralded as one of most impressive early first-person shooter video games, Doom enjoyed a meteoric rise to video game fame in the ‘90s. So, when Doom II Hell on Earth came out in 1994, it was an instant hit and presented players with new features, including a bizarre Easter egg of one of its creators’ heads.
During the final boss fight against the Icon of Sin, players can shoot the icon with a rocket launcher, type in the game’s no-clip cheat code, and enter the demon’s head to find the unnerving head of Doom’s designer, John Romero. In this unusual Easter egg, the head speaks to players backwards, saying, “To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero”. And, if players do just that, the game ends. Pretty meta, huh?
One Sick Puppy
If you’ve ever played any of the Silent Hill games, we’d forgive you for not believing us when we told you that an Easter egg ending of Silent Hill 2 features a loveable puppy controlling the entire game. Yes, you read that correctly.
If players successfully locate the bone-shaped “Dog Key” (found in a dog house, West of Rosewater Park) after completing three regular endings (In Water, Leave, and Maria), then they can head to the observation room and, after watching the videotape, unlock the dog ending.
In this humorous Easter egg, the mastermind controller of the events of the game is hysterically revealed to be a shiba inu called Mira. Loved by fans who find her, Mira has now featured in a few Silent Hill games, providing some well-needed comic relief from the horrors of gameplay.
Assassin’s Turkey?
Ok, this might not be the best Easter egg, but it certainly is one of the zaniest — and we’re always here for off-the-wall things.
In Assassin’s Creed 3, if players can locate a turkey roaming free and feed it a treat while entering the classic Konami code (Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A), the turkey transforms and is awarded its very own Assassin’s hood. Perhaps not the most exciting Easter egg, there’s something so funny and uncharacteristic about the developers of such an epic game as Assassin’s Creed spending time making a hidden feature where turkeys don headgear.
Fallout’s Fridge Fiasco
If you’re an Indiana Jones fan or have watched The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, you’ll have no doubt heard the outrage about the infamous “fridge scene” where the nation’s favorite fedora-wearer survives a nuclear blast by taking shelter in a fridge. Critics and fans alike have largely put their differences aside with this one, both agreeing on how unrealistic this survival tactic is.
As it happens, the makers of Fallout: New Vegas also had some thoughts on Indy’s fridge antics, turning him into an Easter egg in their game. If players roam the Mojave Wasteland for long enough, they’ll stumble upon the fridge-bound remains of Indiana Jones — fedora and all — suggesting that the Atomic War in Fallout was just too much for the fridge trick this time.
GTA’s Actual Easter Egg
In the most meta move on this list, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City features an actual Easter egg as their Easter egg. In the northernmost end of the city, players can find the VCN building, which houses the Easter egg. Jumping onto the helipad on top of the smaller neighbouring building gives players a strategic vantage point from which to jump through the nearest window of the VCN building and into a room with the Easter egg. (Note: the window looks like it’s made of glass, but you can actually jump through unscathed).
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Name one thing that Star Wars fans hate more than Jar Jar Binks. We’ll wait.
Well, when playing The Force Unleashed, players can see this Gungan get his comeuppance in a secret Easter egg. All you need to do is explore the trophy room in the Imperial Kashyyk level of the game and you’ll find Jar Jar well and truly frozen in carbonite. While The Force Unleashed is sadly not considered canon since Disney took over (so this is not an indication of the official fate of Jar Jar Binks), it’s fun to dream that the Gungan was shut up once and for all.
Creepers In The Cave!
Last on our list, we had to include the Minecraft Easter egg in Borderlands 2 — a hidden feature completely unexpected by players.
Yes, the Borderlands series is full of Easter eggs, but this one really gave us the creeps (literally). If you venture into the Caustic Caverns, you might just stumble upon some Minecraft-esque diary blocks; hit these with a melee attack, and you’ll be ambushed by creepers from all angles. On top of this, Borderlands 2 players are also given a second Easter egg where they can find Minecraft skins for their characters — a fun addition that players had no idea would be happening until the game was released.
Gaming Decor At Displate
If all this talk of gaming has made you miss your favorites, why not browse our gaming and retro gaming collections today? From classic Atari games like Adventure to Black Ops and Borderlands, we’ve got posters of the best-loved games out there.
In the meantime, for more interesting gaming lore, tips, and things you didn’t know, keep up with the Displate blog.
