6 Creepy and Crazy Gaming Easter Eggs

For almost as long as games have been made, developers would slip in hidden bits and pieces of code, areas and surprises. And, for just as long, players have spent hours trying to find these “Easter Eggs”. More often than not, they’re fun or brilliant, or offering something that’s as exciting as it is unexpected. Then there are those other times… times when the Easter eggs are almost impossible to find, bone chillingly creepy or, worst of all, more disappointing than Duke Nukem Forever. Here are:

6 Creepy and Crazy Gaming Easter Eggs

1. 13 Years and The One Ring; Final Fantasy IX

The Final Fantasy game franchise has come a long way, and boasts a massive fan base – a fan base that has come to expect Easter eggs and surprises in every game. Considering how many side-quests the games tend to have, it’s only logical that not all of the Easter eggs would be easy to find. But when it came to FFIX it took a grand total of 13 years for the very last one to be discovered.

So how do you find this Easter egg? Well, one of the side-quests that you get in the game involved talking to one of the Nero Brothers – apparently a sibling is missing. All too eager to help, you go out and beat the boss… but instead of going on with your life and your oodles of other quests, you’ve got to walk back and talk to them again. This time another sibling is missing. Back to the boss! Then back to the siblingss, back to the boss, back to- Well, you get the idea. After a ridiculous amount of rinse and repeat, all the siblings are finally safe and back home – and you can, finally, go inside and loot the house.

For all that effort, you’d expect something pretty fantastic, right? Maybe some kind of legendary weapon? If only. No, your reward for this extensive rescue mission is a ring. A tiny, insignificant little piffling Protect Ring. So is it worth it? Unless you’re determined as all bloody hell to complete every damn quest in the game, this trek through the annals of disappointment is one to skip.

2. Feel Honoured by My Name; Donkey Kong, Atari 400

Look, we get it. You’re a developer, and you spent five months pouring your heart and soul into the conversion of a game from one platform to another. You feel entitled to some kind of recognition. So, naturally, you stick your initials into the game – hidden, of course, until somebody finds a way to unlock them. And eventually somebody did… 26 years later.

Why did it take so long? Landon M. Dyer – the developer – buried the code to unlock the egg so deep that the only reason someone went looking for it was because Dyer mentioned its existence. So why didn’t he just tell someone how to get to it sooner? After all, why stick the code in there if you don’t want it to be discovered in the first place? As it turns out, even he forgot how to unlock it.

But the world is full of people who have too much time on their hands, and one of these people finally decided to just go through the code and figure it out. Step 1 – achieve a ridiculously specific high score. Step 2 – Lose all your lives but one. Step 3 – Commit suicide by fall with your last life. Step 4 – Reset the system to level 4 difficulty. Reward - Go to Main Screen and look at three tiny letters at the bottom.

Congratulations – most disappointing reward ever.

3. Is That…Luigi?; Luigi’s Mansion

When it comes to anything Mario related, the general expectation is for something light-hearted and funny. And why wouldn’t you expect that from their Easter eggs? For years, Super Mario has been about silly fun – or frustrated rants, if you’ve ever played any Ross levels on Super Mario Maker. Occasionally the Mario-verse does wander into the more sinister, but never has ‘creepy as hell’ been something you’d associated with the jumping Italian Brothers.

And then there’s Luigi’s Mansion. The game has its flaws, sure, but there’s no denying that it’s another Mario franchise classic. Unlike most of the games, though, Luigi’s Mansion has a definite darker edge – and nowhere is that seen more clearly than a rather creepy Easter egg hidden in the loft. There are a lot of people who ascribe the chilling scene to a glitch, but Nintendo themselves have never confirmed or denied the true nature of that shadow.

When the power blacks out, go answer the ringing phone on the third floor - the one in the middle - and wait. Soon enough the lightning strike, and that strike will wreck your childhood as it casts a shadow on the wall. A shadow that eerily resembles Luigi, hung from the rafters.

Well, there goes whatever childhood innocence I had left.

4. I Am the Master Mind; Silent Hill 2

As far as terrifying games go, Silent Hill needs no introduction. Over the years this franchise has given us some of the most horrific experiences and disturbing imagery. The best advice I was ever given about this series was to avoid playing it in the dark. I didn’t listen, but that’s a story for a different time. The point here is that the Silent Hill games are about as creepy and twisted as it gets to begin with – but somehow the secret ending of Silent Hill 2 just makes the whole thing worse.

To unlock the ending, you need to play the game at least twice. Somewhere during your second run you might just manage to get your hands on a bone-shaped key. A weird thing to find, but alright. That bone-key opens a secret room, and inside you find the mastermind, the monster behind all the horror that you’ve been experiencing…

… a dog sitting in front of a control panel. Coincidence? Nope. The game itself quite bluntly says that the fluffy little bugger is responsible for all the trauma the protagonist has experienced. It also claims that everything now makes sense, so...

Naturally the protagonist falls to his knees at the revelation that a dog is responsible for his nightmare. Said dog trots right over to hand out sympathetic licks – which is completely unfair, by the way. How are we supposed to stay angry at an affectionate pup?!

5. Message from A Killer; California Speed

As mentioned before, Easter eggs are supposed to be exciting or, at least, just a little bit of fun. But if they can be neither, well, then they might as well be the kind of Easter egg that has no place being there except to freak you the hell out. Enter California Speed, an old school racing game. The game has no story, no plot, nada. The only point of the game is to drive your car as fast as you can and hope to cross the finish line first. That’s it. The end. Basically, not the kind of game you’d expect any kind of Easter egg from to begin with.

And yet…

While you’re driving in circles like a maniac, you might get random glimpses of sign boards all along the road. Most of them don’t mean much – they’re just there to add a little something to the game. With the… crap graphics of the time, there’s not much to expect from these signs. Not really. But if you look closely, you might spot one that’s not like the others. That particular sign has a rather disturbing message for our racers:

“Sometimes... God takes mommies and puppies away... And sometimes... Just sometimes... I do.”

Well, shit.

6. Singing in Obscurity; Portal 2

This is, by far, my favourite Easter egg. Portal 2 is a lot of fun to play, whether in single player or in co-op mode. The puzzles are challenging and entertaining, but it’s the different machines in the game, and their personalities, that add a little something extra to it. Especially the little turrets… They’re not your friends. They’re not supposed to be your friends. And yet they’re adorable (if your little heart didn’t break at the first poor cries of “I’m on fire!”, you’re a monster).

Portal 2 also comes filled with fun Easter eggs. For example – and beware spoilers here if you didn’t know this already – those adorable little turrets? They were made to protect baby cribs. That’s right – they’re tiny, red-eyed babysitters.

Now if you like exploring things thoroughly you might just discover four little turrets standing together. Not too unexpected… until the four of them break out into a melancholy little song. The song, as it turns out, is called "The Turret Wife Serenade". But who are they serenading? Why? How is it that these four lonely turrets (and the one fat turret opposite them) came to be here, singing all by their lonesome selves?Honestly, we don’t know – but that hasn’t stopped the fan community coming up with their own reasons and theories. A particularly heart-wrenching theory is presented by a fan called RedSquidz:

“They'd experienced a rather unusual suffering. Not a suffering from lasers. Not a suffering from being knocked over, or a suffering from being smashed away with weighted cubes. No, they suffered from something unconventional. They suffered from silence. From days, months, perhaps years of inactivity; water slowly eroding the testing chambers around them; iron rotting away from oxidation; power cells slowly corroding and depleting. There was nothing there to keep them stimulated - nothing to shoot at, nothing to trigger them into activation. And so, with their lights beginning to dim, they cried out. They sang, sang against the heavy quiet, sang out to find fulfillment and purpose and meaning, sang to fill the empty world around them - to keep their very souls alive and from slipping into the silence themselves.”

If that lonely Easter egg scene wasn’t sad before, you can bet your arse that it is now. You’re welcome.

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