Top 20 Creepiest Video Game Easter Eggs
#20: The Giant Squid
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“Assassin’s Creed II” (2009) The modern era entries feature multiple fights against mythological creatures. But back in the “Assassin’s Creed II” days, seeing one came as a major shock. Underneath the Santa Maria della Visitazione church in Venice lie hidden tombs. In one partially submerged area, you’ll need to pull a lever. If you look into the water after doing so, you’ll spot a giant squid lurking beneath. It was completely unexpected and frankly alarming as players had no idea if it was friendly or not. When you try pulling the lever again, a tentacle will reach out and take a swipe at Ezio, likely causing a lot of swift exits
#19: The Alien
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“Animal Crossing: New Leaf” (2013) “Animal Crossing” is one of the cutest, most delightful gaming franchises in existence, but even it has a creepy Easter Egg. In the 3DS’ “New Leaf,” it was possible to unexpectedly make contact with an extra-terrestrial. If you had a TV and happened to be tuned in on a Sunday or Monday at 3:33 AM, you’d experience static before seeing a brief message from an alien. The Easter Egg was brought back in “New Horizons,” appearing at the same time but on Saturdays instead. Players have tried decoding what the Alien says, which seems to be spoken in heavily edited Japanese. Without a concrete answer, we’re left to fear for the safety of our villagers.
#18: The Children of Goldshire
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“World of Warcraft” (2004) Adorable yet demonic children are a staple of the Horror genre. Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft” included its own group of spooky youths that someone should really keep a closer eye on. In Goldshire, at 7 AM server time, you can follow a group of six children as they leave their house and walk around the surrounding areas. Creepily, they will always stay in the same formation, which happens to form a pentagram. You can follow them back to their house around 7:40, where they’ll head to the second floor. Here, you can hear all manner of creepy things, including a woman crying and the voice of C’Thun saying things like, “You will die.”
#17: The Ghost Girl
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“Pokemon X & Y” (2013) With a gigantic landscape and plenty of shops, Lumiose City from “Pokemon X & Y” is one of the grander locations in the series. Though it may be bright and bustling, it also houses one of the creepiest Easter Eggs in a Nintendo game. Once you reach the second floor of the Fighting Dojo, the lights will flicker and what appears to be a ghost girl will appear behind you. She floats forward, tells you you’re “not the one,” and floats off. Players have been trying to figure out this spectre since the game’s release, but there are no answers as to who she is or why she’s there.
#16: The Cask of Amontillado
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“Fallout 4” (2015) The “Fallout” series is known for great Easter Eggs, one of which pays homage to literary Horror icon Edgar Allan Poe. During the “Old Guns” mission of “Fallout 4,” you’ll head to Fort Independence, referred to by the Minutemen as The Castle. Inside the tunnels, you can find several bottles of Amontillado wine. Some are near a hole that is halfway covered, showing a skeleton chained to the wall inside. The scene references Poe’s short story, “The Cask of Amontillado,” in which the lead character murders someone in a similar vein. It’s a wonderful nod, but it couldn’t have been a pleasant end for the in-game character.
#15: Idle Effects
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“Fatal Frame” Series (2001-14) “Fatal Frame” is already a terrifying franchise. But it turns out players aren’t even safe from the scares when standing still. The series has included wonderfully spooky effects throughout for when the player takes too long to move. In the first game, bloody handprints would cover your screen. The second and third games’ idle effects are even creepier as they cause static on your screen and project images of ghostly faces. Considering the whole point is avoiding ghosts since you can’t really fight back, these idle screens put many players on edge. It’s extra touches like these that have made “Fatal Frame” a favorite for Horror gamers.
#14: Gertrude Braithwaite’s Fate
“Red Dead Redemption 2” (2018) There are all manner of nasty individuals in “Red Dead Redemption 2,” though we’ll admit the Braithwaites are among the top. At their manor, the family keeps young Gertrude locked away due to her physical deformities and mental instability. They choose to do so rather than send her to a proper institution as they feel it will give the family name a bad reputation. During the epilogue where you play as John several years later, you can return to the Braithwaite manor to check up on her. Sadly, she never made it out of the outhouse. Looking inside, you’ll only see her skeleton, hinting that she likely starved to death.
#13: The Joker Lives
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“Batman: Arkham Knight” (2015) Rocksteady’s “Arkham” series was at an interesting point heading into the finale. Batman’s greatest foe, the Joker, had died at the end of “Arkham City.” While there were plenty of other rogues to be fought, Joker still stuck around in Batman’s psyche to torment him further. For players who decided on a second playthrough, the Clown Prince of Crime had one last trick up his sleeve. The game opened the same way, with a close up on Joker’s face as he was cremated. However, this time, he sprung to life, screaming, before laughing maniacally. It was the perfect jumpscare as none of us were expecting it.
#12: Bodies in the Sea
“BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode Two” (2014) With multiple versions of the same character, “BioShock Infinite” can get a little confusing. At the beginning of Episode Two of its “Burial at Sea” DLC, players learn the Elizabeth they were playing as in the first episode died and that the one here is an entirely new one. As you head towards the tower into Rapture with the Lutece Twins, you may feel inclined to look in the water. Those that did made a startling discovery: corpses floated beneath the surface. They can be hard to make out; some players believe they’re alternate versions of Elizabeth while others believe they’re characters from the main narrative. Regardless, corpses in the water are creepy no matter what.
#11: Robbie the Rabbit
“Silent Hill 4: The Room” (2004) First appearing in “Silent Hill 3,” Robbie the Rabbit is an in-universe fictional character and one of the mascots of Lakeside Amusement Park. He usually appears as an Easter Egg, with his inclusion in “Silent Hill 4” being his most alarming. The game is centered around protagonist Henry’s apartment, with other areas being seen and reached through holes inside. At one point, you can look into Eileen’s room and see the rabbit doll sitting on the bed. However, if you look again after she’s been taken to the hospital, Robbie will be looking and pointing directly at you. It’s just the right level of unexpected creepiness that made us want to shut off the game.
#10: The Statue of Happiness
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“Grand Theft Auto IV” (2008) The Grand Theft Auto series is known for its sense of humor, which can veer wildly between biting social satire and well, everything Trevor Phillips has ever said and done. We’re not sure which category this one falls into, though. The fourth game in the series is set in Liberty City, a thinly-veiled stand-in for New York. Grab a helicopter and head for the city’s equivalent of the Statue of Liberty, and head inside to discover that it has a giant, beating heart. Why? Who knows? Who says these games don’t have heart?
#9: The Witch
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“Payday: The Heist” (2011) Robbing a bank is a pretty tense operation as it is… or at least that’s what we hear…and the last thing a bank robber needs is a zombie breathing down their neck. This level from the heist simulation game takes place in Mercy Hospital, a location players previously explored in Left 4 Dead. There are considerably fewer zombies now, but the place isn’t entirely free of the undead. If the power cuts out, peek through the window of a particular door and you might just catch a glimpse of a witch, a particularly spooky Left 4 Dead enemy. Just don’t look at her too long!
#8: Headcrab Screams
“Half-life 2” (2004) Backwards dialogue always has a natural unsettling vibe to it, no matter what it actually ends up being. But in the case of “Half-life 2,” we kind of wish we didn’t know what the Headcrabs were saying. These nasty little parasites will latch onto a victim’s head, where they take over their body and force them to do its bidding. As these sci-fi zombies lurch towards you, you can make out garbled moans. Players who took the time to reverse their audio found the profoundly disturbing Easter Egg that they’re just speaking backwards. They’ll scream things like “Help Me!,” implying the Headcrab’s host can still feel and think while under its control.
#7: Haunted Hitman
“Hitman: Contracts” (2004) Given the number of people he’s sent to the great hereafter over the years, we wouldn’t be at all surprised if Agent 47 has a pretty big parade of angry spirits following him around. And just cause he’s an emotionless killing machine doesn’t mean that we’re immune from a scare. In the mission Traditions of the Trade, the ghost of a man can be spotted in the gloomy halls. Naturally, 47 doesn’t bat an eye at this, but it sure gave us a fright. And because there’s pretty much nothing that 47 can’t kill, you can even take the specter out with a garrotte for a quick achievement.
#6: Jeane’s Past
“No More Heroes” (2007) If you’re playing a game by notorious Japanese developer Goichi Suda AKA Suda 51, you can bet there’s going to be weirdness to go around. No More Heroes is a hack n’ slash game that stars a wannabe assassin named Travis armed with a lightsaber he bought off Ebay. The game is a mostly lighthearted if incredibly violent action romp until you get to the climax where Travis meets his former girlfriend Jeane. The game fast forwards through her villainous monologue so we can get to the action, but slow the scene down, and you’ll hear Jeane’s incredibly disturbing origin story.
#5: Secret Message in Music
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“Celeste” (2018) The idea that playing some music backward to reveal sinister hidden messages has been around since the 1960s, maybe even before. Some have even accused rock groups of hiding secret satanic messages in their music, messages that can be clearly heard when you play the album backward. This charming 2D puzzle platformer pulls the same trick, but instead of making us hail Satan, it just creeps us out and leaves us kinda depressed. Play the audio from the Mirror Temple level backward and you’ll hear a ghostly voice talking about feelings of helplessness and depression before breaking down into sobs. Now that just bums us out.
#4: Jolene’s Ghost
“Grand Theft Auto V” (2013) There is a LOT to do in the fifth core installment of Rockstar’s open world crimefest, but if you can spare some time in between murder, mayhem, and robbery, you can do some ghost hunting. Head to the peak of Mount Gordo between 11 and midnight and look in the right direction through a scope and you’ll see the ghost of a woman. She’ll vanish if you approach, but head over anyway and you’ll see the word “Jock” written on the rocks. This indicates that she’s is the ghost of Jolene Cranley-Evans, the dead wife of Jock Cranley, a stuntman turned politician whose wife died under mysterious circumstances.
#3: P.T Radio Stations
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“Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” (2015) Oh, sweet, terrifying P.T. May you rest in peace, scaring digital angels forever. For those not in the know, this was a Playable Teaser for Silent Hills, a new Silent Hill game produced by none other than Hideo Kojima, with help from Guillermo Del Toro. The game was tragically axed by the developer, but it lived on in Kojima’s fifth Metal Gear game, where a radio can be found emitting the same spooky broadcast that can be heard coming out of a radio in P.T. His six-year-old daughter had the good sense to hide in the bathroom, but reports suggest he lured her out by telling her it was just a game.We’re glad that the game gets to live on somehow, even if it’s just in Easter Egg form.
#2: The Weeping Angels
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“The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” (2015) There’s not a whole lot of overlap between the worlds of The Witcher and Doctor Who. Sure, the Doctor may occasionally run into ghosts or monsters, but we can’t exactly see Geralt facing down any aliens. But then again, one terrifying villain from Doctor Who seems tailor-made for the Witcher franchise, and they make a cameo in the third installment. Find this quiet cemetery near Lindenvale and you’ll probably notice these angel statues. Turn away from them and then turn back, and you’ll discover that they’re now facing you just like the Weeping Angels from the show. Keep that sword handy, Geralt, cause this could get hairy.
#1: Infinite Fun
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“Sonic the Hedgehog CD” (1993) Most of the entries on this list make some kind of sense. This one, on the other hand, is just plain weird. If you load up this classic Sonic the Hedgehog game, just press Down, Down, Down, Left, Right, A on the controller. This will take you to the sound test screen. Enter FM #46, PCM #12, and DA #25 and you’ll be taken to this spooky screen, which features distorted images of Sonic himself, accompanied by unsettling boss music and some Japanese text which reads “Infinite fun, Sega Enterprises, Image by Majin” when translated. We know that "Majin" is the nickname of landscape designer Masato Nishimura. As for the "Infinite Fun..." we have no idea what that means, nor do we want to.
