Developers reveal the best Easter eggs they've hidden in games
From hiding games within games, to rewriting an RPG's script live to mess with streamers
Easter has come and gone now, and here in the RPS treehouse we lounge with bellies full of chocolate chatting about our favourite little surprises in games. Alice O has already asked you, dear reader, what's your favourite video game Easter egg? It appears some game developers have been pondering a similar question on Twitter, and revealing the best Easter eggs they've hidden in their games - from hiding games within games, to live coding an RPG to rewriting an RPG's script live to mess with streamers.
The question was posed on Twitter by game designer and developer, Jan Willem Nijman, who's worked on games like Nuclear Throne and Minit, and the responses in the thread do not disappoint.
First, a personal favourite from the Sad Dragon Age Girls Fan Club.
I did the concept for Solas when you first meet him in Dragon Age Inquisition. A wolf jaw around his neck in plain sight. https://t.co/ZoNOj5xySL
— Nick Thornborrow (@Nthornborrow) April 4, 2021
If you've not played Dragon Age: Inquisition, (spoilers!) you find out right at the end that Solas is the Dread Wolf Fen'Harel - an elven wolf god who was kinda the baddie all along. Some people claim they noticed the necklace and knew from the start: those people are liars.
Next up is a game that terrified a streamer when a character started describing him. It reminds me a little bit of Doki Doki Literature Club and how the game would search your files for your real name to freak you out.
Lenna's Inception polls a server for custom dialogue sequences, meaning we can mess with streamers live https://t.co/Zxy4a5ceyN
— Tom Coxon (@tccoxon) April 5, 2021
If you're curious how it works, here's a little explainer from the game's website:
"Prior to release, I set up a way for the game to check with a server for dialogue files written for a specific seed. That way if we spot someone streaming the game, we can take the seed, write some dialogue uniquely tailored for that streamer, and have it played back on the stream minutes later. Like live coding, it’s a bit of a high-risk high-reward strategy, because any bug could crash the game in front of thousands of people."
Judging from that one reaction, I'd say it was worth it.
Now, it wouldn't truly be an Easter egg thread if Frog Fractions wasn't involved.
I hid Frog Fractions 4 inside of Frog Fractions 1.
— Jim Stormdancer (@mogwai_poet) April 4, 2021
Frog Fractions got a Game Of The Decade version last year, and in that game you could buy a little hat for your frog. Except, it wasn't just a nice cosmetic thing, it was essentially a key to unlocking the elusive Frog Fractions 4. As a reminder, Frog Fractions 2 was also hiding in a faerie village-building game. Though, wait, technically that game was Frog Fractions 3. Jim Crawford said the ARG to find it was actually Frog Fractions 2. Maths games, eh?
These two just made me laugh. I wonder what other odd things developers and voice actors have said to fill in random noises.
lol a bunch of the minit voices are us saying “McDonalds” all cut up
— Jan Willem Nijman (@jwaaaap) April 4, 2021
Sticking with strange sounds, here's an unexpected Wilhelm Scream.
In #OriAndTheBlindForest, this Spitter only spawns once Mt. Horu is accessible. If his body hits a volume on the bottom right of this canyon, the Wilhelm Scream triggers! 🔊
— Beau Anthony Jimenez (@thebeauanthony) April 4, 2021
Easily the most NOTICABLE Easter egg I've added to a game, the others are more covert... 😉 https://t.co/puyciBdio3 pic.twitter.com/YuXm0waK4I
I'm the sort of person who will point out a Wilhelm Scream whenever I hear it in a film or game, so that tickled me. I feel obliged to go looking for it when I play Ori now.
And last but not least, a "dril" Tweet that made it into Fallout 76.
I put my favorite dril tweet that wasn't about asimo in fallout 76: https://t.co/cPRtkRC7jD
— Zach Wilson (@covernode) April 4, 2021
Honourable mentions go to the Assassin's Creed synchronisations in Uncharted, the giant background cheese wheel in Dragon Age 2, and the developer who vented their feelings in random spam emails in Cook, Serve, Delicious 1 and 2.
These are just a few of the best ones that caught my eye, but do take a look at the whole Twitter thread to see more fun Easter eggs you may not know about.
