The hunt for Easter eggs has been a long standing tradition in video games. Since 1978’s Adventure, we’ve been fascinated by the hidden secrets behind our favorite games. Since the games industry is a collaboration of people coming together to create, we can see a good many secrets hidden behind the scenes of our favorite games. In celebration of this Easter Sunday, the staff has helped compile some of the best Easter Eggs we have come across in our years of gaming.
My personal favorite easter egg is one I never found during my first playthrough of Super Mario RPG. There are quite a few hidden little secrets in Mario’s trek to the back door of Bowser’s Keep, but it isn’t until you head back into Toadstool’s castle that you are able to find this secret. Once you rescue the princess and fight Yaridovich, you can either move forward through the game or decide to run back to the Mushroom Kingdom. I went forward the first time, but the second time was a more leisurely affair.
When I went back to the kingdom, I found a friendly companion to greet me. Now mind you this was a pre-Super Smash Bros. world we were looking at. This kind of nerdy crossover appeal was the stuff of legends. Finding both Link and Samus sleeping up for their boss battles was some excellent fan service and still remains one of my favorite Easter Eggs in gaming.
World of Warcraft has one of the most expansive worlds I’ve ever had the pleasure of exploring in a video game. Blizzard has hidden dozens of different Easter Eggs throughout Azeroth, but one of my favorites was the first one I ever truly noticed: Haris Pilton. She is a vendor located in Shattrath City who only stocks the finest wares. Among these are anything from a Black Diamond Ring to a ”Gigantique” bag, neither of which serve any practical purpose (aside from the “Gigantique” bag being an overpriced, yet equippable bag).
She also sells the Gold Eternium Band, another ring that represents eternal love. So if you’ve ever wanted to show your significant other that they are truly important to you via a World of Warcraft gesture, head on over to Haris Pilton in Shattrath City and she will most definitely help you out.
Halo 3. God, Halo 3. I remember it like it was yesterday; the golden age of the 360, when our infinite excitement for the world of possibilities the new console offered balled up and exploded in one single manifestation: playing Halo 3 all day, every fucking day. It just so happened to coincide with the birth of YouTube gaming culture, and searching for new easter eggs, tricks and machinimas was almost as fun as actually playing the game.
Favourites? Perhaps the dumpster which would actually fly if you got in it and kept jumping. Or the grunt you can find who rips into the Master Chief with a ‘jerk store’ joke. No wait – flipping the Elephant.
The Grand Theft Auto series is just full of Easter Eggs. From the beating heart of Liberty City to the top of the bridge in San Andreas, Rockstar are fans of rewarding its players for exploring. Of all these Easter Eggs however, the one that sticks out most is in GTA III. My friends and I discovered this one while looking for hidden packages back when this game was new. It’s in southern Staunton Island, near the spot where you have to escape the SPANKED up suicide bombers.
There is a space where you can jump into with the help of a large vehicle. At first, we thought it was some kind of glitch or design flaw (which it likely was), but then we noticed the following message written on the wall: “YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO GET HERE YOU KNOW.”
It was 3 AM or so, probably, and my best friend and I are in another all-nighter with Super Mario 3D World. As it just so happens, we both happen to be nuts for the Legend of Zelda series, so it seemed a bit surreal to find something oddly familiar smack-dab in the middle of Star World Level 1, one of the final levels of the game. Lighting these two “unsuspecting” lanterns caused a nearby wall to descend and open up the way to what would usually be a short segment where Mario and friends run among the clouds grabbing as much stuff as possible. This time, however, we landed on these big black boxes in space that lit up with every step. Fortunately, we weren’t just tired and imagining things; something was definitely happening.
It didn’t take us long at all to realize we had actually landed on top of a giant 8-bit Link from The Legend of Zelda. The best part of it all was that familiar treasure-finding chime once we completely unveiled the Hero of Time. To top it off, the game then went into this silly but badass remix of the Legend of Zelda main theme song. While not one of the most hidden easter eggs, it was definitely a lovely little surprise and still one of my favorites in an already massive game.
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