Easter Eggs in Games

Aside from a chocolatey springtime treat, what's an Easter egg, and what does it have to do with video games? The origin of the term is lost, but it refers to an in-joke, pop-culture reference or other gewgaw surreptitiously inserted into a piece of software by its creators.

Often Easter eggs are funny. Sometimes they're helpful, allowing you to level up faster or skip hard sections of the game. Sometimes they're subversive, like Maxis' Sim Copter, which included hidden pictures of kissing men in one designer's protest against what he saw as intolerable working conditions.

Most of them are more savory, however, and here are a few of our favorites.

Lost: Calico Cat. Answers to Jonesey.

Bungie Software crammed its Halo games full of Easter eggs, and seemed to get a real kick out of tantalizing egg-hunters with cryptic clues on how to find them. Some are easy to find, like the bulletin board on the Pillar of Autumn ship that's packed with notices bearing in-jokes, humorous for-sale notices, or Alien references. Many are much harder, like a blood-spatter heart bearing a letter "M" drawn from bullet holes. Known as the "Megg", it was created by Halo designer Jaime Griesemer as a message for his girlfriend Meg, and requires a tremendously complex 23-step process to view.

A bullentin board found in Halo

If anything, Halo 2 takes this Easter egg obsession to the next level. Halo 2 is packed with at least 15 hidden skulls, each of which changes the gameplay, and usually not in a good way. One, found on the Outskirts level, turns off the game's HUD altogether. Another, found on the Arbiter level amid a circle of dancing grunts, enables "Grunt Birthday Party" mode, which causes any headshotted enemy to explode violently. Others turn enemies invisible, give them more health, or disable your shield recharge.