Easter eggs in video games tend to be silly references, humorous messages, secret content, or just something generally lighthearted for players to stumble across and hopefully get a bit of a laugh out of. That’s not always been the case, though, as some secrets were uncovered and ended up causing quite a bit of controversy.
As a result, game publishers and developers have gotten themselves in trouble, often resulting in someone getting fired, patches being pushed out, or even entire batches of games being recalled to remove the supposedly-offensive stuff. All because of some programmers and the like sneaking in pop culture references and very cheeky jokes.
1 South Park Pilot
Tiger Woods 99
An employee working at Electronic Arts (better known just as EA these days) got the company in a world of trouble after the person in question got a video of the pilot episode of South Park appearing on copies of Tiger Woods 99 for the PlayStation. While inaccessible through the console, it could be watched on the PC.
In December 1998, a kid who didn’t know any better popped the disc into his computer’s CD drive and clicked on a file called ZZDUMMY.DAT, which played the very rude video in question. The mother, after being informed by the child, complained to Electronic Arts about what was found. The company ended up recalling the first 100,000 copies and fired the employee.
2 Lara Croft Reference
Shadow Warrior
Shadow Warrior was very much a spiritual successor to Duke Nukem 3D, with interactive environments and pop culture references galore. In the shareware episode for the game, the level ‘Dark Woods of the Serpent' features Lara Croft of Tomb Raider trapped behind bars in a secret area. After approaching her, the protagonist will exclaim: “she raided her last tomb!”
Eidos ended up sending an unhappy letter to the developers at Apogee, as Lara’s design in the shareware episode was a bit… risque. So, when these levels were carried over to the main game, they gave her a more faithful design for this Easter egg, which remains intact in the HD redux version.
3 A Satirical Jab Gone Awry
POSTAL 2: Paradise Lost
Postal 2
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Released
- April 13, 2003
- Developer
- Running with Scissors
- Genre(s)
- FPS , Open-World
Released 10 years after POSTAL 2’s release, its respective DLC, POSTAL 2: Paradise Lost, appeared on digital storefronts. It was impressive what the developers stuffed into such a dated engine, and fans were very pleased. Game journalists, however, weren’t so chuffed at the Easter egg regarding a gravestone dedicated to the demise of games journalism in 2014.
This was a reference to the online movement #GamerGate, a consumer revolt for the sake of ethics in games journalism, and a pushback against the shady things going on back then. It received baseless accusations of simply being a misogynistic movement from some critics. The video game storefront GOG, who shared this Easter egg and the controls to “salute” (i.e. urinate on the grave in-game) caught flak for this, too.
4 Keyboard Cat And Nyan Cat
Scribblenauts Unlimited
It’s not every day that an Easter egg results in a lawsuit, yet that’s exactly what happened with Scribblenauts Unlimited. References to some ancient internet memes – that being a feline playing a keyboard and a cat with a poptart cat flying in space singing a goofy tune – were included in this puzzle game as secrets.
Their creators, Charlie Schmidt and Christopher Torres, had copyrighted these videos and wanted compensation, and consequently filed a lawsuit to the game’s publisher, Warner Brothers. Eventually, it was revealed in late-2013 that the case was settled, and the two were paid. Talk about some expensive kitties…
5 Shirtless Men Galore
SimCopter
Jacques Servin, a programmer on SimCopter, wanted some more gay representation in the game. He also wasn’t happy with loosely-dressed female NPCs being implemented, either. So, he decided to pull a prank to get back at his employers. It would trigger when playing the game during his birthday, his boyfriend’s, the company’s, or on Friday the 13th. Shirtless men would be seen walking around the streets while holding hands and kissing.
After this was discovered, Servin was fired from Maxis. The company issued a patch to remove the content from over 50,000 distributed copies. Considering that Servin was subjected to unhealthy amounts of crunch time, he didn’t seem to mind too much.
6 Debits
Blood 2: The Chosen
Blood 2: The Chosen was a janky, broken game on release – a far cry from its cult-classic predecessor – and the developers couldn’t do much about it with the severely limited time they were given to work on it. Still, for those who actually managed to get through the game and stuck around long enough to watch the credits, some secret ‘debits’ will appear afterward.
Potshots are taken towards Geoff Keighley, “senators [...] who continue to bash violence in games”, pirates, game developers who only want to make profits, and more. The developers and publisher had no idea who wrote and implemented them, and thus a statement was made. Copies were created to patch out this Easter egg, but there are still versions of the game out there where they remain.
7 A ‘Cheeky’ Error Message
Halo 2
Halo 2
- Platform(s)
- Xbox (Original) , PC
- Released
- September 4, 2004
- Developer(s)
- Bungie
- Genre(s)
- Shooter
Halo 2 was destined to be bigger and better than the first entry in the series, and it bowled the gaming world over with its brilliance. It did get delayed a few times during development, though, and it even ended up with ‘Partial Nudity’ on the box thanks to the ESRB. Nudity, in a Halo game?! It couldn't be Master Chief, he's always in power armor. Was this some kind of blunder?
Not really. The PC version of the game had a secret image of a man showing his bare bottom to the camera as part of a joke error message if the game crashed when using the map editor. Microsoft had to confess to the ESRB to avoid potential controversy, hence the delay. After all, with the infamous ‘Hot Coffee’ mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas stirring trouble with the press, publishers had to come clean with this sort of stuff, no matter how obscure or difficult it was to find.
