Easter egg hunt for gamers: these are the 17 best Easter eggs
Easter eggs are hidden special features in games. However, your childhood experience of searching for Easter eggs will be of little help, as most of them are so well hidden. Nice as I am, I've put together some of the best Easter eggs for you.
Easter egg hunts don't have to stop as you get older. And you don't even have to move. Most game developers have fun hiding funny and quirky things in their games. From surprise birthday parties, to supposed reward cakes, to secret cow levels, there are no limits to your imagination. Here are my 17 favourites, all of which I found personally of course - with Google 😉.
Wolfenstein The New Order: Retro levels
The biggest surprise about Wolfenstein The New Order was that an "ordinary" shooter could still be so much fun even in 2014. The countless Easter eggs have contributed their article. My highlight is a playable retro level in the style of the 24-year-old Wolfenstein 3D - but with modern graphics. To do this, you have to go to the top floor of the resistance fighters' headquarters and go to sleep.
GTA V: Thelma and Louise
The cult film by Ridley Scott makes a brief guest appearance in GTA V. You fly by helicopter to Chiliad Mountain between 7 and 8 pm. There you discover two women in a car surrounded by the police in front of a precipice. If you feel like it, you can get behind the wheel yourself and test the flying ability of the classic car, just like in the original.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Jar Jar Binks
Possibly the most hated Star Wars character is also up to mischief in Star Wars The Force Unleashed. There is a trophy room in the Imperial Kashyyyk level. In it you will find various figures from the Star Wars universe. These include a Jar Jar Binks frozen in carbonite. In this form, he is surprisingly bearable.
Star Wars: Battlefront: Headbutt
Based on a scene from Star Wars IV in which a Stormtrooper bangs his head on a door, a similar moment occurs in the game. You just have to look closely. It's a wonder there aren't more incidents with these plastic buckets on your head. You can't see anything underneath. Now I also realise why the clone troopers shoot worse than any villain in eighties action films.
Doom 2: John Romero's head
One of the few Easter eggs that I discovered myself back then 💪. Behind the wall of the final boss, in a hidden room, you will find the impaled head of developer John Romero. In front of it, you can hear a demonic voice mumbling something. Played backwards, it says: "To win the game you must kill me, John Romero!" (To win the game you must kill me, John Romero!). Which, as a good boy, I did. And my parents still say I never obeyed as a child.
Excel 97: Flight simulator
How is Excel not a game? Poppycock. What else are you supposed to do with it? Accounting? Haha you guys are funny 😂. Better press the F5 key in Excel 97 in an empty table and type X97:L97. Then use the Tab key to jump to M97. Hold down CTRL and SHIFT and click on the diagram wizard in the toolbar at the same time. The flight simulator will then start, which you can control with the mouse. Unfortunately, this no longer works with my Excel 2016. Then I'll just keep working.
Battlefield 4: Megalodon
Enemy battleships are the least of your worries on the Nansha Strike map. If you gather around a certain buoy in the sea, a gigantic shark will suddenly appear to invite you on a free tour of its digestive tract.
Max Payne 3: Piano
Part 3 was no longer made by Finnish studio Remedy, with Rockstar taking over the project instead. Although the GTA makers put their own stamp on the whole thing, they remained true to the original in one respect. If you let Max strum on the various pianos scattered throughout the game, he ends up producing the flawless melody of the first instalment. De Siebesiech.
Far Cry 4: Early ending
With a little patience, you can earn a very special and early ending in the fourth Far Cry. After the intro scene, when the villain Pagan Min gets up to torture some poor soul, you simply have to sit still as instructed. After about ten minutes, Pagan returns and, as promised, takes you to the shrine where the protagonist scatters his mother's ashes. The end.
Metal Gear Solid 5: Happy Birthday
You are asked for your date of birth at the start of the game. If you play the game on that day, you will be surprised with a small birthday party on the base.
Diablo 2: Cow level
In the first part of the cult action role-playing game, rumours about a supposed cow level kept popping up. You only had to click on the cows outside the village often enough. Unfortunately, it remained a myth. However, the developers at Blizzard didn't have to be asked twice and added a corresponding level in the sequel. To do this, you combine Wirret's leg with a portal book in the Horadrim cube while standing in the hunters' camp.
Fallout 4: Vault-Tec-Hotline
During the intro scene, before the world undergoes an atomic cleanse, you see a Vault-Tec poster in your own house. The phone number on it can be dialled in the real world and someone actually picks up. Already worked with Fallout 3.
Dead Island: Friday the 13th
In the jungle of the zombie slasher game, you encounter the famous psycho killer with the ice hockey mask during a side quest. And as it should be, you get a bloody machete as a reward for killing the Jason Voorhees doppelganger.
Mortal Kombat: Reptile
In the classic fighting game, there were not only numerous combos to figure out for the bloody finish hits. If you manage two perfect victories in the pit level without blocking and top it off with a finish Him, you will meet the green-clad ninja. With just seven playable fighters, that was still something special.
The Witcher 2: Assassin's Creed sends its regards
Someone must have missed the haystack. Geralt of Rivia encounters a corpse on one of his adventures that is strongly reminiscent of the famous high jumper from Assassin's Creed.
Monkey Island 2: Surprising demise
You can't actually die in the Monkey Island games. Sierra games were notorious for this. However, if you dangle for more than ten minutes in the pictured scene in the second piratesque adventure about Guybrush Threepwood, the candle actually sinks the rope and you die. For a brief moment at least. Because Guybrush is telling the story and he can't possibly die. After all, this isn't American Beauty.
Adventure: The very first Easter egg
The first official Easter Egg was hidden by Warren Robinett in the 36-year-old Atari game Adventure. Because developers and designers were not recognised by name anywhere at the time, Robinett secretly added a hidden room to his game in which he outed himself as the creator.
Do you know any other Easter Eggs? Write us your favourites.
Being the game and gadget geek that I am, working at digitec and Galaxus makes me feel like a kid in a candy shop – but it does take its toll on my wallet. I enjoy tinkering with my PC in Tim Taylor fashion and talking about games on my podcast http://www.onemorelevel.ch. To satisfy my need for speed, I get on my full suspension mountain bike and set out to find some nice trails. My thirst for culture is quenched by deep conversations over a couple of cold ones at the mostly frustrating games of FC Winterthur.