Easter Eggs in Games
Apr 4, 2007
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.
"There is no secret cow level."
The Secret Cow Level was born in the diseased mind of some unnamed Diablo player, who began spreading rumors that a cow appeared somewhere in the game, and clicking repeatedly on him would open a hidden level full of cows. He made it all up, of course, but the rumor proved so persistent Diablo's developer Blizzard added a cheat to Starcraft that read, "There is no cow level." Think of it as a sort of meta-Easter Egg in itself.
So developer Blizzard Software, ever keen to play along with user-created memes, added a real Secret Cow Level to Diablo II, complete with huge, halberd-wielding bovine monsters and its own boss, the Cow King. Players loved it, both for its off-the-wall presentation and, until it was toned down in patches, its excellent prospects for character experience and good loot.
 Diablo 2's secret cow level |
Does the Cow Level appear in any other Blizzard games? Take a look at World of Warcraft's Taurean player race: hulking, bipedal, weapon-wielding cows. Coincidence? You decide. Rumors of a genuine Secret Cow Level in World of Warcraft persist to this day, and the search continues.
"Ni!"
Monty Python characters -- and, specifically, the Knights Who Say Ni from the "Holy Grail" film -- seem to be a real favorite of bored massively multiplayer online game designers. Smash hit MMORPG Runescape gives players the message "This is not the mightiest tree in the forest," when players try to use a raw herring on a tree. World of Warcraft features a quest in the Coilfang Reservoir instance named "Bring Me a Shrubbery!", a quote from the film's characters. Guild Wars also named a quest for the Knights Who Say Ni, although it was only available for a few days over the Chinese New Year festival back in February.
"Chicken looks at you quizzically.
Not to say that World of Warcraft doesn't have Easter eggs, of course. In fact, the game's packed with in-jokes, many appearing as NPC names like goblin zepplin operator Hin Denburg (oh, the humanity!). There's a series of quests that bears a pronounced resemblance to the Zelda games, too. But perhaps the most appropriately themed quest starts on a farm over in the low-level human zone, Westfall.
On that farm, you'll find some chickens. Entertain one by performing the chicken dance (type "/chicken" repeatedly) and you'll get a simple quest. Follow the instructions and you'll be rewarded with your own pet prairie chicken that will follow you about faithfully until you put it away.
 Entertaining a chicken in World of Warcraft |
You'll be the envy of all your friends -- especially if you play as a Horde character on a player-vs.-player server, because grabbing one will require the cooperation of a friendly Alliance player. Good luck with that.
"Snake? Snaaaaaaake!"
Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear series is packed with secrets, Easter eggs, and hidden goodies. We'll pass swiftly over the opportunity to watch Meryl working out in her undies (yes, really, and no, we're not going to tell you how) and move on to more savory pursuits. Like, did you know that Mario and Yoshi make a guest appearance in Twin Snakes, on top of a desk in Otacon's office? Shoot Mario and you'll gain some health back.
Perhaps the most elaborate MGS Easter egg turns up in Snake Eater -- it's a zombie-bashing minigame that bears absolutely no resemblance to anything else in the game. To access it, save your game in the cell immediately after the torture scene. Reload that game and you'll be in Guy Savage's world. Snake wakes up after the game is over, and expresses relief that it was all just a dream -- though, honestly, having just been brutally tortured and imprisoned, we're not sure Guy's reality is any better than Snake's in this case.
Dopefish Lives!!!
That's dope as in stupid, not dope as in...well, anything else. Dopefish was the creation of Tom Hall, co-founder of legendary first-person shooter studios, id Software (Doom, Quake) and ION Storm (Deus Ex, Anachronox). Hall, when working on Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy in 1990, sketched a "stupid little fish," and Dopefish was born.
Dopefish has appeared in more games than John Madden, counting Quake, Battlezone, Max Payne, Hitman 2, and SiN Episodes: Emergence among his (her? who knows?) credits.
 It's Dopefish! |
Although Dopefish's debut appearance in Goodbye Galaxy was as an enemy, these days it's more usually seen in hidden rooms, graffiti, posters, or secret text -- often accompanied by the catchy slogan "DOPEFISH LIVES!!!"
"There are no Easter Eggs up here. Go away."
So reads a sign on top of the Gant Bridge in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. There might be no Easter eggs up there, but there are plenty to be found in other areas of the game, to say nothing of its other episodes. For example, ever tried visiting any of the web sites in the GTA3 radio ads? Most of them point to real spoof sites put up by Rockstar. Take www.petsovernight.com: It offers "little bundles of love" -- including kittens, stomach parasites, and sharks -- shipped overnight, straight to your door.
 Helpful notice in Grand Theft Auto |
Connections between Vice City and Scarface are too easy to make to really count as Easter eggs, but there's at least one Vice City location that qualifies for the term. It's near a Pay 'n' Spray location on the eastern island -- there's an apartment building with a blood-drenched bathroom and handily placed chainsaw that strongly resembles the movie's brutal opening. There's also -- literally -- an Easter egg to be found on the other island near the news channel building.