Easter Egg

An Easter Egg is an intentionally hidden cheat or hidden content in video game,also confirmed as ''Secret.''

Overview

Easter Eggs can be hidden treats, homages, trivia, or anything developers wish to hide, with the intention of being found, within a game. The placement of an Easter Egg is typically such that they usually take some hunting to find, hence the name.

Examples

Easter Eggs have appeared in games for literally decades. Developers simply can't help but put in references to their favorite things and people, including themselves.

Adventure - 1979 - Atari 2600

Warren Robinett, the developer of Adventure, hid his name and title within the game for players to find. Since Atari at the time was not in the practice of crediting its developers with the work they produced, Warren decided he'd do it himself. This serves as one of the first known Easter Eggs in gaming.

Battlezone - 1998 - PC

Hidden within the very first level of the game was the Rave Gun, a weapon which fired balls of powerful energy in bursts of color which flashed across the screen in time to a pounding trance techno beat.

Doom II - 1994 - PC

Doom II actually contained several easter eggs, including the severed head of Producer/Programmer/Level Designer John Romero on a stick. Oddly enough, the head also functioned as the final boss' "weak point" in the game. Additionally, the player could access two extra levels not included in the normal level progression of the game. These levels were created using many assets from id Software's previous games, Wolfenstein 3D and Commander Keen.

Fallout - 1997 - PC

Among the many easter eggs players with high luck stats can find while wandering between the city's are, A large Godzilla like foot print with a corpse inside, a used car dealership and a crashed U.F.O containing a ray gun and a photo of Elvis.

Grand Theft Auto IV - 2008 - Xbox 360, PS3, PC

One of several easter eggs found within GTA IV is within the Statue of Happiness (Liberty City's version of the Statue of Liberty), where the player can find a huge beating heart, dubbed the "Heart of the City".

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - 2002 PC, PS2, Xbox

An actual easter egg.

An actual easter egg was discovered close to a helipad, where the player had to get to the helipad in order to jump to the building and fall through the window. The easter egg read 'Happy Easter'.

Heavenly Sword - 2007 - PS3

At the end of Chapter 3: Part 8, the player can see the godly armor and Blades of Chaos used by Kratos in the God of War franchise.

Halo: Combat Evolved - 2001 - Xbox, PC

As with all Halo games, Bungie filled Halo 1 with plenty of secrets and easter eggs, including cryptic symbols on weapons, secret music tracks, and a Grunt that explains his desire for the food nipple. And several Marathon icons could be seen, from Bungie's older games Marathon icons can be found somewhere, in all Halo games.

Halo 2 - 2004 - Xbox, PC

In several multiplayer levels, the developers added photo's of themselves: they were hidden in tough to access parts of the level, or even in the skybox. Also skulls where hidden in each level of the campaign, a special effect was granted apon finding them and lasted until the console was shut down. Just like other Halo games, Marathon icons could be found in several places.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 2008 - Wii

Utilizing Solid Snake's taunt on the Shadow Moses stage, players can listen to various, often humorous radio conversations between Snake and and various Metal Gear Solid characters about Snake's current opponents.

Titan Quest: Immortal Throne - 2007 - PC
Easter Egg Scrolls from Titan Quest: Immortal Throne

A number of easter eggs were added to Titan Quest via the Immortal Throne expansion. The largest was a secret cave that could be found on the beach near the beginning of the fourth act. The cave had a locked door baring entry that would only open if the player was carrying an other wise useless item called The Overlord. The Overlord was a small turtle shaped object (a nod to the number of oddly placed turtles that could be found throughout the entire game) which could only be dropped by the final boss, Hades. Once the player gain entry to the cave they would be faced by a wide variety of powerful monsters that looked like creatures from every act of the game but typically had very different ,or vastly exaggerated, powers. Amusingly, each of these creatures were named after members of the development team. Other smaller easter eggs included small scrolls marked by the symbol of a turtle which could be found on rare occasions in normal loot drops. These scrolls had writing on them that varied from simple jokes, such as a letter from a styr in the beastman army to his loved ones, to serious poetry.

Name	Platforms	Developer
Angels Online	PC	Q Entertainment
So Blonde	DS, WII, PC	Wizarbox
Mafia II	PC, PS3, X360	2K Czech
White Knight Chronicles: International Edition released on Feb. 2, 2010	PS3	8-4, Ltd., Level-5 Inc.
Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter released on Nov. 24, 2009	XBLM, PC	Croteam Ltd.
Left 4 Dead 2 released on Nov. 17, 2009	MAC, X360, PC	Valve Corporation
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves released on Oct. 13, 2009	PS3	Naughty Dog, Inc.
Halo 3: ODST released on Sept. 22, 2009	X360	Bungie Studios
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People released on July 7, 2009	PC	Telltale Games
X-Men Origins: Wolverine released on May 1, 2009	WII, PS2, DS, PSP, X360, PC, PS3	Amaze Entertainment, Inc., Griptonite Games, Raven Software

Concept Name:	Easter Egg
Appears in:	179 games
First appearance:
Aliases

	Il Piantissimo
	Jimmy Gibbs Jr.
	Butter Bean
	Lola Del Rio
	Solid Snake
	Guybrush Threepwood
	Laharl
	Johnny Sasaki
	Dopefish
	Master Chief
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