This is a quick overview of the almanac of iconic Easter eggs found by all egg hunters (gunters) in the vast gaming community.
Easter Eggs
The term ‘Easter Egg’ has been coined from the holiday activity of hunting for hidden eggs. In popular culture, an Easter Egg refers to a hidden message, picture, video or ending to a film or game. The famed director Alfred Hitchcock had hidden cameos in most of his films; a simple but exciting Easter Egg.
Ready Player One
After reading this I suggest you grab a copy of ‘Ready Player 
One‘ by Earnest Cline. The story follows a young child growing up in a near future wasteland where fossil fuel is running low and the economy is going down the toilet. Fortunately virtual reality exists and anyone can be and go where ever they want. This is called OASIS and was created by the billionaire James Donovan Halliday, who before he died decided to create the world’s greatest Easter Egg hunt, where the winner will inherit his fortune. The book is a fantastic read with heaps of pop culture references and gaming nostalgia. Cline has included Easter Eggs in the novel; hidden within the pages in his book Cline added a secret Easter Egg which then sends the reader to websites with ever increasing gaming challenges. This first person to complete these challenge and finish the Easter Egg was to win a real replica DeLorean from the movie Back to the Future.
Adventure
The first, notable gaming Easter Egg was created in the 1979 Atari game ‘Adventure‘. In this game you must navigate your player around the map collecting keys to get through the maze. In one area there is the option pick up a secret key and carry it around the map; if you take the key to a particular area in the map a message appears across the screen reading “Created by Warren Robinett”. At the time, Atari did not credit the game developers for their work. This hidden message was Robinett’s way of getting credit for his work. This opened the doors for developers and they discovered more and more ways to hide secrets in their games. They advanced from their own names to messages and images.
Cheat Codes
More recently developers have included Easter Eggs that work as cheat codes. Way back in 1985, Kazuhisa Hashimoto was working on the arcade game ‘Gradius’. He didn’t want to actually play the whole game during the testing process so he developed a shortcut that gave him a full set of power-ups. This let him live long enough to easily get to where he needed to without dying. When the game went live in 1986, the code was still there. To get full power-ups, all a player had to do was enter a certain code. This has become one of the most iconic cheat codes, known as the Konami Code. Every gamer and his dog can quote this code: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, START. It became even more widely known from the game ‘Contra’ where, when entered at the start screen, gave the player 30 lives and was placed in the game by the creator. It was then discovered by players and became infinitely notorious with in the gaming community. This code too has been used numerous times since. It shows up in many games and has become a pop culture reference.
You can find this code appearing in places like:
Non-Konami video games like Half Life 2, Just Dance and Rocket League.
If entered in a number of websites you’ll get a pleasant surprise.
It appears in the movie Wreck It Ralph as a code to unlock a security door.
Several TV shows, including The Simpsons and Family Guy.
Grand Theft Auto
Other than this iconic cheat code there are thousands upon thousands of cheat codes. The most known game for cheat codes would have to be the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ franchise. If you have played a ‘GTA’ game you have most likely entered a cheat code or two while playing. These games were riddled with cheat codes that change everything from aesthetics, environments, God mode, weapons and vehicles. It was always great for when you got half-way through a level for the 99th time, only to realise you still weren’t going to pass it. So instead you could just punch in the tank code and storm through the level in style.
If you are interested in some of the classic codes for GTA, you can check them out at HERE.
GTA also is filled with little Easter Eggs scattered all over the maps including references to other games, movies and pop culture as well as little hints left by the developers.
Hidden Areas
John Romero is the face of ‘Doom 2′ in more ways than one. When you are in the final stage of the game the last boss is a demonic monster on the wall. It yells out a loud noise which sounds like unholy growls, but when reversed and undistorted it says, “To win this game, you must kill me, John Romero“. This is the work of the audio team who recorded Romero’s voice and added it to the game. With the help of a no clip cheat you are able to pass through the demon wall and can find John Romero’s head impaled on a wooden stake; the name of developer of the game.
Another hidden area is in a game everyone has played at least once, “Mario“. This hidden area is reached by using the game physics in such a way to allow the player to get on top of the level. If successful, you walk over the end tunnel into a room with three more tunnels; these tunnels give you access to an underwater level which is not meant to be played in the game. This level is known as the negative level as the level number is shown as -1. This level is impossible to finish as it is a loop; once you get to the end it will just restart the same level over and over again.
Personal Favourite
Personally, my favourite Easter Eggs are placed within the ‘Call of Duty‘ series. This combines my two favourite game genres; zombies and first person shooters. The ‘Call of Duty‘ zombies franchise have been including Easter Eggs in their games ever since they started with ‘World at War: Nazi Zombies‘. The Easter Eggs in these games are sometimes a hidden picture, sounds or objects. What makes the CoD franchise Easter Eggs special is that they are used to give you more reason to play. In the more recent games they have added bonuses for players that have completed the eggs, these include guns, perks, ammo or more importantly whole story lines. I have been following the Samantha story line ever since the first Zombies game and they show no sign of slowing down. The basic story mode used in Zombie maps is pretty minimal; the basic waves of zombie hoards where you join a game, kill zombies and last as long as you can. But when you start to unravel the Easter Egg, a story line starts to take shape and the game starts to make more sense. These Easter Eggs are found by the gaming community with little to no help from the game designers and developers. This make the hunt a competition to see who can be the first to finish the Egg and see what special loot or bonus you will receive.
Lauren’s Favourite Easter Egg
My favourite in-game Easter Egg would have to be in Bioshock Infinite. They’ve planted instrumental and unique versions or real songs around the world for you to discover on your own. My favourite of these was ‘God Only Knows’ by The Beach Boys sung by a barbershop quartet on a floating ship-like thing. Finding that (or at least knowing where to look for it) made me smile the entire time I was listening to it, making the theme of the floating city Columbia so much brighter.
Josh’s Favourtie Easter Egg
Not much to say on my end, I would kill for the time to search for every little Easter Egg in every little game. But my back catalogue is big enough as it is. So I’ll settle for an easy favourite.
CD Projekt Red. Making fun of Ubisoft before it was cool.
Julian’s Favourite Easter Egg
Play as Steve in Borderlands. Equip yourself with a cubic head and teal and purple pants. The Easter Egg that gives these to you allows to to truly show Creepers what you think of them. Run in and gun them down in one of the greatest gaming crossovers in Easter Egg history
Have a look through some of your favourite games and see what Easter Eggs you can find!
P.S. We are considering holding an annual Easter Egg hunt in a game chosen by the viewers if there is enough interest at Easter time. Stay tuned!
For now, happy gaming and let the hunt begin!
Also, don’t forget to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and join us on Steam! Be part of our discussions! We’d love to hear from you.