Secrets are everywhere in video games these days. Whether it’s a hidden character, item or a secret the developers made for eagle-eyed players to find, there is always something waiting to be found. But not all secrets were created equal. Some are harder to find than others and some are just challenging to get to. Here are a few examples of such secrets.
1 Merasmus’s Television – Team Fortress 2
Considering the chaotic nature of Team Fortress 2, this easter egg is probably the one that requires the most effort on this list and the least rewarding. To get to the area you have to score in the secret goal on the Brickyard map. A secret goal only accessed by two players standing in specific positions near a guitar. Upon opening the area to get the secret, you now need to get both red and blue teams working together. With each player playing a different class and standing in a different spot. In the unlikely event team cooperation has succeeded, the players on the server are rewarded with an achievement, a badge and a very unappealing hat. Not a great reward for such a cooperation intensive secret.
2 Overdrill – Payday / Payday 2
So, we have gone from standing in specific positions to more standing in specific positions. Overdrill is a well-known challenge to players of the Payday franchise as it was present in both the first and second game. To start off the players must be in a group of four playing the First World Bank mission on the Death Wish difficulty. It also needs to be completed loud, which means players can’t sneak their way through the challenge. The next step involves standing. Players must s
tand in four specific positions facing four specific directions. Upon being given the signal that the Overdrill mission is active, players must wait in a 33-minute standoff while a drill opens the first door. Yeah, you read that right. 33 minutes. Once the wait is over, there is one crucial but risky task. A player must press all the correct floor tiles (in any order). Should they succeed, the group is rewarded with a reward of between 70 and 98 million dollars in Mayan gold and potentially some extra bonus money items. Failure leads to the team being gassed and their time wasted. While the reward is certainly worth it, it is a reward that is very well guarded.
3 Arkham’s Hidden Chamber – Batman Arkham Asylum
In the age of the internet, easter eggs are very rarely hidden anymore. So, it came as a surprise to fans of Batman Arkham Asylum when Rocksteady revealed one of their best hidden easter eggs. Rocksteady had decided to reveal it after months of people not finding it as they were afraid that it wouldn’t be found. Unsurprisingly, this may have been because no one could see it. No map displayed the room, nor could detective vision spot the wall that needed to be destroyed to access this room. And what a room it was as it teased the sequel to Arkham Asylum, Arkham City. The room was littered with the blueprints of the map of the upcoming game giving fans much to look forward to.
4 Kairo coffee – Kairo
Kairo is a Unity based puzzle game where the player must escape the grainy limbo that they find themselves in. However, the player can choose not to escape and get the secret ending. To get the secret ending the player must solve three secret puzzles, one of which requires the cooperation of four players in total. They must also locate 18 hidden runes and 4 hidden monoliths, each of which difficult to find in their own right. Once the player has collected and solved everything, they can enter an orange untextured room with a doorway marked “Secret Ending”. Entering the door graces the player with the world greatest hidden ending in a video game. Without spoiling its majesty too much, it involves a dinosaur and coffee.
5 Reptile – Mortal Kombat
Reptile was the first secret character to ever appear in a fighting video game. As such he got the hardest challenge to make sure he was worth getting. After all, the fighter had the moves of both Sub-Zero and Scorpion while also utilising increased speed. In order to get Reptile, the player had to accomplish a double flawless victory. Without blocking. Followed by a Fatality. All of which had to be done on the Pit stage after a shadow flies over the moon. These shadows don’t always appear only going to increase the challenge of trying to get to Reptile. Once all the conditions had been met, the player is able to fight Reptile on the lower stage of the map. While you couldn’t play as the character after beating him, it’s certainly worth the trails to get to fight him.
Know of any secrets that were too hard for us to find? Or are you a games developer that wants to tell us about a secret everyone missed? Tell us in the comments below.
