(bright music) - [Presenter] Video game secrets and Easter eggs are often tricky to find, but here are some that took
years and years to discover. We've kind of touched on
some of these in the past, but we figured we'd round up
all the good examples here. We got a whopping 25 examples
for you with our sources and stuff linked in a
description down below. But let's get started off with number 25. Now, "Fallout" games are so
stuffed full of Easter eggs and secrets that some of them
might slip through the cracks. Take this Easter egg for example. We'd wager that a lot of people found it, but just didn't get the reference at all, and there were like three of them stacked on top of each other. This one wasn't even discovered. It was actually revealed by the guy who made it, Joel Burgess. The first part of the Easter egg is maybe the most well-known if you manage to find
it, which isn't likely. This whole secret is
in an unmarked location called the Vitale Pumphouse,
located behind a door that requires the most
referenced video game code of all time, 0451. (button clicks) (door opens) Inside is a skeleton and a gun. The gun is called The Gainer, which is meant to be a
reference to his friend and fellow game dev, Steve Gaynor. The skeleton is a reference as well. It's an opposed, similar
to an infamous death scene from the game, "Snatcher",
one of the earlier games of infamous game developer, Hideo Kojima. So, there's a lot of layers to this one that we'd probably never get if the guy who made it didn't just come out and explain what it was all meant to be. (tense music)
(game graphic beeping) (gun firing) - [Character 1] Reacquired. - [Presenter] Now, next over at number 24, "The Last of Us" cordyceps Easter egg. There's a secret in the
prologue to this game that's been hiding for seven years, discovered by Anthony Calabrese and created by game
designer, Kurt Margenau, who all but confirmed
the secret on Twitter through a kind of convoluted
sequence of actions you can make it, so
actual real life pictures of a cordyceps-infected ant will appear on the TV
in the upstairs bedroom. Now, what you have to do to make the image appear is so arbitrary. No wonder nobody really found this thing. You have to go into the bedroom,
then go down the stairs, then quit the game and load the auto save, then go back up the stairs
and into the bedroom, and for some reason, the
ant will be on the TV. It's all messed up and weird and gross. These are the kinds of Easter eggs it takes years for people to find, like one where you just have
to try literally everything, even if it doesn't make sense, and hope that something happens. (dog braking) Now, next, at number 23,
we have "Black Ops III" and the spinning heart. Sometimes, Easter eggs are so secret that they're not even meant to be found. This was created by "Black
Ops III" game developer, Drew Marlowe, who explicitly said that this wasn't meant to
be found by the public. It went three years
before anyone found it. The thing is, it was
never found legitimately. The only way anyone even knew it existed was through decompiling the game code and figuring out the triggers from there. Multiple individuals came together to actually find this thing that is credited on this Reddit
post by lacking a good name. So, they deserve all the
credit for finding it. The steps you have to follow to trigger this thing are
convoluted and extremely specific. Just look at these instructions. They're ridiculous and
pretty hard to pull off, even when you know exactly what to do. If you manage to do everything right, then you get this nice little tribute to the game devs family, complete with a spinning heart object. Isn't that nice? (character shrieking) Now, next over at number 22, even games as big as "GTA V" can have secrets that
just go undiscovered. This one took only about
three years to find, but considering how hugely
popular the game was and still is, is pretty impressive. Discovered, at least as far as I know, by a Twitter user named, KarmaIngram1, there's a phone number that you can call that triggers a random
explosion somewhere nearby. That's all it does. (button clicking) (bomb explodes) And it's a completely random number. I have no idea how they found it. Maybe just from randomly guessing codes, but hey, either way, this was eventually found to be a thing. This has nothing to do with the actual big mystery of "GTA V", the whole Mount Chiliad secret we've talked about a million times. But with that never really
seemingly mounting to anything, we're stuck with the Easter
egg table scraps like this. It's nothing incredible, but it's shocking that it went undiscovered
for as long as it did just by the sheer number
of people playing "GTA V". (keypad clicking) (bomb explodes) (character screaming) Now, next at number 21,
we have "The Witcher 3" and the Uncle Sam Easter egg. This is a game obviously that's just like a treasure
trove of Easter eggs. Every time it seems
like we've seen 'em all, someone else somehow manages to find one hiding somewhere else. This is a relatively small Easter egg and it's one that people have at least been aware of for a while. Some people managed to
find the texture for it after digging through the game files, but it didn't become widely known until a YouTuber named xLetalis made a video about it in early 2024. They technically didn't find this though at a Reddit user posted about this find a few months before their video. But either way, this is an Easter egg that went relatively
unknown for nine years. Yes, it's been that long
for "The Witcher 3". So, to see this one, you
have to clip through the wall of the office in Novigrad and you'll find this texture on the wall with a pointing guard and a message that says CDPR needs you. It's a parody of those
famous World War II I think recruitment posters featuring Uncle Sam and it's just hiding in a
random spot under Novigrad. Now, down at number 20,
one of my favorites, the "Resident Evil 4" mystery person. Discovered by a YouTuber
named Slippy Slides, there's a mysterious
individual you could see if you look extremely closely at a specific spot after the cut scene where the helicopter crashes
near the end of the game. Playing the game normally,
this is not easy to see at all, even if you know exactly where to look. Of course, with the game
being available on PC, players have just used a no clip mode to get a closer look at this guy, which appears to just be a
random person in a green coat. (footsteps pattering) Nobody knows exactly who
this is supposed to be or why they're in the game at all. If it's a dev, then it's not anybody people
have been able to identify. So, the actual name of this
Easter egg is still a mystery. It took 12 years for anyone
to even notice it was there, and we still don't know who it's meant to be or why it's here. I love a good mystery like this. Now, at number 19, it's
"Batman: Arkham City" and the Calendar Man's secret date. Now, it took almost a year for anyone to find the Hidden Room
in "Batman: Arkham Asylum" and that was only answered through dev's heavily hinted
at the secrets existence. Players managed to find most
of the secrets in Arkham City, including a hidden room,
teasing the third game. But there was one secret that went unnoticed for I
think like a good three years. Once again, it took the developers heavily hinting at it for it to be found. In Arkham City, you can find Calendar man locked
up beneath the courthouse. Depending on the day,
he'll have a new message, and players pretty quickly discovered all the obvious ones like Christmas, New Year's, Easter, stuff like that. There was one message
everybody missed though. This one was only said if
you set your console date to the day Rock Steady was founded, and not just in the month and
the day, but also the year. If done correctly, Calendar
Man gives a cryptic clue about being there in the beginning and being there in the end. - I was there at your beginning, and I will be there at your end. - [Presenter] Which ended up
being a hundred percent true as you can spot Calendar Man in the crowd during the golden ending for the final game in the
trilogy, "Batman: Arkham Knight". Pretty wild, huh? Now, next, over number 18, we have "Gears 3" and the locust hunt. You'd think Easter eggs obsessives would have found everything in something like "Gears of War 3", these games love their little secrets. But for whatever reason, this one took five years
for anyone to find. Credit for the discovery
goes to YouTuber Tac-Com who explains in a video
how this secret works. What you have to do is
shoot three hidden coins in the level, House of Sand. If you do it in the right order, then you'll trigger this
secret shooting gallery. That's like a take on "Duck Hunt". (character screaming) (gun firing)
(character evil laughs) (gun firing) (character evil laughs) Now, it's a pretty elaborate
little secret with a new area and new game mechanics and everything. Usually, you don't see this kind of effort put in this small of an Easter egg. But "Gears" games always
put in the extra work when it comes to this
stuff, and we love this one. We have "NieR: Automata"
and skipping to the ending. This was discovered by Lance McDonald while exploring the game's code, and this secret allows players
to skip from the prologue of the game all the way to the, quote, unquote, "true ending", starting off at the end credits. This method to unlock the
secret is really obscure and probably why it went undiscovered or unnoticed for so long. As stated by the director
of the game, Yoko Taro, it was 3 years and 10 months before this final secret was discovered. The trick here is that you
need to beat the big boss fight of the prologue, then
stand between two sets of barrels in the boss room. Then, you need to input a special code, which as some people have pointed out, was also in another platinum
game, "Bayonetta 2". And if you do it right, then you've skipped
through the entire game. - [Character 2] Have anything
you would like to say to... Who are suffering because they
cannot finish near Automata? (notification chimes) - [Presenter] It's not
a satisfying victory, and it's completely meaningless if you're playing the
game for the first time, because it literally just skip
straight to the end credits. But for people who want to
experience the game's kind of unorthodox climax again, well, this code maybe will save you some time. (robust music) Next, over number 16, sometimes
Easter eggs aren't meant to be found, and other times, they're absolutely supposed to be found. But just again, for whatever
reason, nobody does. And this secret remained hidden in "Mass Effect 3" for nearly 10 years and wasn't widely known
until the developer who put the secret in went on
Reddit and spilled the beans. To trigger this secret, you have to walk through the solar panels at the start of the Mars
mission in a specific way. And if you do, then the Mars Rover will roll up to you and
give you a little nod. Now, this is one of those Easter eggs clearly they put some effort into. It's a new model and it has
its own unique animation. But I guess the method defining it was just a little too hidden, because "Mass Effect Legendary Edition" came out before this secret
was widely reported about. (tense music)
(wind blowing) Now, over at number 15,
"Halo 3's" happy birthday. I mean, Bungie loved putting
strange little secrets and Easter eggs in their games that seemed to be designed primarily to entertain the developers, the people behind the scenes. Take this one for example. If you set your console
date to December 25th and start the game, then
in the loading screen, you can use the thumbs sticks to pan down and see a secret message that just says, Happy Birthday, Lauren. This was put into the game by programmer, Adrian Perez, for his wife. Bungie actually hinted at
the existence of the secret. So, it's likely that
someone has found it before, but it wasn't widely known until a YouTuber named Lord Zedd posted a popular video about it. This was seven or eight years after "Halo 3" originally came out. So, this is one Easter egg that
went unnoticed for a while. Now over at number 14, one of the most popular
speed running games of all time, "Punch-Out!!", is a game people have figured out really front to back, the top to bottom. But even with all that scrutiny,
there was one little secret that managed to slip through the cracks. It took a whopping 29 years
for anyone to figure this out, but if certain fights, if
you pay close attention to the bearded man in the crowd to the left of the fighters, he'll nod at the exact right moment for you to hit a knockout punch. (video game effects whirring) The circumstances to trigger
this are a little more complex than just waiting for the guy to nod. But if everything actually
is correctly set up, then it'll work every time. This one was discovered by a YouTuber named Midwestern Housewives and all the props go to them. Next over at number 13, hidden in the pretty good co-op campaign for the previous gen version of "Splinter Cell: Double Agent is this elaborate "Call of
Duty" zombie style Easter egg, which has multiple steps that
span the entire campaign. It took more than four years for anyone to properly
explore this secret. So, credit for finding
it goes to Julian Dunay, if I'm saying that right, who has unfortunately
deleted the video for it, probably because it was posted on Vimeo. There was a time when people
would just put random stuff like this on Vimeo, but YouTube took over. But anyway, it just so happens that Julian wasn't some random guy. He was with his friend who was the level designer
who created the Easter egg. It really is a complex thing
involving finding hidden coins and vending machines and
giving things to hidden seals. And then, there are even dead ends. So, if you give the seal the wrong thing, then you'll fail the quest. Yeah, I forgot to mention there are seals, like literal seals, like the animals. (footsteps pattering) (triumphant music) You are helping out five baby alien seals and trying to get them
back to their home planet. This is probably the most
elaborate Easter egg yet on here and nobody even knew about it until the actual
developer just went online and explained the whole thing. Next over at number 12, this more difficult
version of Akuma appears as a secret boss in
"Street Fighter Alpha 2", but there was actually a
secret method to play as him that remained hidden for nearly 25 years. Seriously, there's a secret character in "Street Fighter" that
almost nobody knew about. It wasn't until a modder named, Gizaha, reverse engineered the game to discover the steps
required to unlock Shin Akuma. Now, the requirements are
completely ridiculous. You have to beat arcade mode,
enter KAJ as your initials, then start the game over, select the mode, and hold down a certain button combo on the second controller. Then, select Akuma and hold down start plus another button to actually get this Shin Akuma. (attack slams) - [Announcer 1] KO! - [Presenter] It's a marvel. This thing went undiscovered for so long, 'cause everybody loves "Street Fighter". At least some people knew about it though. Like there's a Twitter post from Yamada Arthur
talking about it in 2015. But this secret was
mostly unknown until 2021. Now, number 11, let's talk
"Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze". It's no surprise that the
developer, Retro Studios, would sneak in a metro Easter
egg or two into the game. They did work on the
"Metroid Prime" series before making "Donkey
Kong: Country Returns" and "Tropical Freeze". But most people found the
Samus Ship Easter egg, and then assumed that was all there was. It took four years for someone to find the other Metroid Easter egg. Credit to this discovery
goes to Shane Marchis, who managed to find the
elusive alien creature hiding in the background of level 4-3. The trick to making it appear is to go through this underwater tunnel, then turn around, and
then go back through it. So, to get to where the Metroid is, you have to deliberately take damage. It's an intuitive and easy to miss secret, but that's why it was so hard to find. And there it is. Next over at number 10, it's "The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker" and a secret method to instantly kill the
Forbidden Woods boss. This stuff, called forest water, which is part of a side quest here, it doesn't to have any useful functions, but if you collect it and hold onto it through the entire Forbidden Woods area, then you can use it on a
boss and kill it instantly. This wasn't widely known until a YouTuber named fish_waffle65 attempted the trick and it somehow worked. (video game effects chiming) (video game effects chiming continues) You gotta be careful with the water, 'cause one wrong move and you'll lose it. But if you wanna kill the
Forbidden Woods boss quickly, then just pour some water on it. This one wasn't known
until I think like 14 years after "Wind Waker" came out, which is a long time for anything, but especially a Nintendo
game as popular as this one. Now, at number nine, let's talk about the
original "Spider-Man" game for PlayStation 1. It was developed by Neversoft, the guys behind "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater". This game remains a fan favorite all the years to years later. So, it's actually pretty shocking that there's actually a secret in the game that nobody knew about
for almost 22 years. It's not even all that hard to find. It's just one of those things that just happened to slip by unnoticed. To find it, just go to the
third speed training section, find this section of wall,
and shoot some webs at it. It'll move to reveal a low
poly picture of the dev team. (robust music)
(compass beeping) Now, credit for this discovery seems to go to Reddit user, Luge 95 Ramos. Like a few of these, people probably did find this
Easter egg back in the day, but it wasn't widely documented anywhere, and most guides didn't mention it until he posted a video about it. One user in the comments
remembers finding it, which makes sense, because
it's not all that hidden, but for the most part,
this was widely unknown, or at least widely undocumented
for nearly 22 years. Next over at number eight, one of the all-time great Easter eggs went relatively unnoticed for years. It wasn't until 2010, nine years after "Wave
Race: Blue Storm" came out, did people finally find out
the secret to unlocking this, the evil or sarcastic announcer. Now, as far as we can tell,
credit to this discovery goes to a NeoGAF forum
poster named RaoulDuke who just dropped this code out of nowhere. They don't explain how they found it. I have no idea how they did.
So, there's no use speculating. It just exists. It's out there now. Maybe he's a developer, I don't know. So, change the audio wave
form to the correct settings and input the code and the announcer will switch from being the generically
pleasant announcer guy you're used to, and now
they're a total jerk insulting you left and right,
and it is absolutely amazing. - [Announcer 2] Ooh, a turbo. (speedboat humming)
(game graphic beeping) Super. You are about one second ahead So (faintly speaks) on the left. You're wasting my time. (speedboat humming)
(game graphic beeping) Waste of time. - [Presenter] Next, over at number seven, let's talk "Black Ops II" and Thor's hammer Easter egg
that took years to solve. This Easter egg wasn't unknown, but it took a long time for anyone to finally figure out what to do with it. In one of the earliest levels of "Black Ops II" in the campaign, you can find Thor's hammer in a little cave behind some bushes. (thunder rumbles) When you interact with
it, a message pops up that says that you are not worthy. For years, it seemed like
that's all there was to it, but about seven years
after the game came out, players finally figured out the trick. Credit goes to YouTuber, ManuWesker, for putting in the work for finding this. So, with the help of fans, they managed to figure
out that the trick to it is to reach the stairs near the hammer without being noticed. You have to play stealthily until the alarms go off automatically. Then, Thor's hammer will actually work. All it does is give you
infinite ammo for the Titus 6 and only the Titus 6, which isn't bad, but it it is not great. Hey, not every Easter egg that takes years to find is actually worth
the trouble after all. Next at number six, you
all know "Splatoon", right? You know that cute little multiplayer game it's supposed to be for all ages, but it's got a vulgar secret
hidden in plain sight. These games have their own language, and it took a group of dedicated players around five years to fully decipher it. The hardest part was finding
all the letters in the alphabet and translation efforts weren't made easy. But the many parts of the game where the language is just nonsense or translates just to filler text. Most of the text on
signs is pretty obvious. But there are some
satisfying surprises in here, like the language on the
clothing seller's shirt. This is Jelfonzo, and he cycles between
a few different pieces of apparel when he pops up, but there's one that's a white
shirt with a red splotch. If you take the text on that shirt and translate it to English, you get FU. It's a "Splatoon" shirt that
drops the actual full F-bomb. Now, a lot of people worked
to translate this language. They did a great job, but it seems like the person responsible for finding the shirt text was a Twitter user named rassicas. Now, over at number five,
"Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters". Found in the dream level,
there's a giant floating crab. You can shoot it for a secret, but there's another little Easter egg here that nobody noticed for around 15 years. At least that's the case
according to vgfacts.com, which claims that this
secret was found in 2022. The trick to triggering the secret is to find the giant crab float, but instead of shooting it, just aim at it with your sniper scope
for around a minute. If done correctly, you'll
get a message that says, attack its weak point for massive damage, which is of course, a rib on the E3 2006 Sony press conference that will live on an infamy, you know, giant enemy
crab's a whole thing. - "Genji 2" is an ashen game, which is based on Japanese history. The stages of the game will
also be based on famous battles, which took, actually took
place in ancient Japan. So, here's this giant enemy crab attack its weak point for massive damage. - [Presenter] Now, "Silent Hill 2", it took almost 17 years for anyone to discover this specific one. So, Twitter user, punk_7890,
posted two secret codes that unlock bonus features in the game. Some of these people were aware of, they just didn't know how
to get them to work in-game. Previously, these features were
only found in the game code. Nobody knew how to actually use them. The two hidden features are a mini map and the ability to save anywhere, which requires some pretty
painful button combos to trigger. The real kicker is that those codes can only be used after finishing the secret
dog ending, the infamous one. So, there are a lot of restrictions for some features that
are mostly just kind of interesting rather
than actually helpful. (tensed music)
(footsteps pattering) Next, at number three, we have Mario hidden in
a "Sega Saturn" game. Now, in 1985, the Nintendo-Sega
rivalry was still red hot. So, this is pretty unexpected. This game, "Astal", was
meant to be a system seller. Its pixel art was some
of the best at the time, and while it's mostly
forgotten about today, it was kind of a big deal
for a fleeting moment. It took 26 years though
before anyone knew, but Twitter user, yoshinokentarou,
if I'm saying that right, managed to dig through the game files where they discovered this very
unusual depiction of Mario. These days with first
party games popping up on rival hardware all the time, this might not seem like a big deal, but back then, any crossover between something like Sega
and Nintendo was crazy. It was forbidden. It
was not going to happen. So, seeing a different version of Mario in a Sega
exclusive game, no less, it's just kind of interesting and weird. (character grunts)
(video effect chimes) Now over at number two, the "Titanfall" Timecop Easter egg. It took six years and the help of the developers for this Easter egg to finally be found. It started with Apex Legends
developer, frozenfroh, leaving clues online
after getting the blessing from the guy who made the Easter egg. Only a day later, a speed runner named, nextracer11, found the secret hidden in
the level, cause of effect. Now, the trick here is that you have to go to a certain spot, which in one timeline is a burning pit of fire, and shift time 88 times in a row. Done correctly, it'll make a door appear, which has a room with a bizarre tableau. (door cranks)
(tensed music) (gun fires) So, if you've seen the movie "Timecop", you might recognize what
you're looking at here. It's a scene where Van
Damme does the splits and electrocutes the bad guy, which sounds ridiculous because it is. But the movie rules and
this reference rules. Now at number one, "Spitfire" Channel F. It took around 42 years for
someone to find this thing. The game was "Spitfire", like I said, and it was a game for
the Fairchild Channel F, a relatively obscure console
from way back in 1976. It cost 170 bucks back then, which is now we believe
over $900 in today's money. It's expensive, but
look at those graphics. The only way this Easter egg was found was by looking at the
game code as a big block of raw pixel images and
looking for anything unusual. So, people doing this
managed to find a code which could be inputted by pressing three on the start screen. The password is long. It's like 48 individual characters, so there's no way anyone could guess it. And what do you get for all that trouble? A message that says,
done by Michael K. Glass. It was 1977. What did you expect? A big, crazy thing? Yes, it's technically
nothing mind-blowing, but it's an important achievement because it's actually older than the first reported
video game Easter egg by like two years. Most say that the first Easter
egg was found in the game, "Adventure", from 1979, but
it wasn't the actual first and neither was "Spitfire". The 1973 game, "Moonlander"
is the actual first, at least as far we know. "Moonlander's" secret wasn't
particularly well-hidden, while "Spitfire's" secret very much was. It didn't even work on original hardware. It only works if you
emulate it. It's all a mess. But if you wanna read up on it, it'll be linked into
description down below. It's a great story with
great research behind it, and all of these are, so
let us know in the comments what you think of these 25 Easter eggs that took a long time to discover. Be it fans on their own or with the help of the games creators, let's talk about this stuff. Now, if you like this video
and you like talking games with us every single day, click on the like
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