Summary
- Developers have cheeky jabs at each other in games as Easter eggs, like ‘Seriously’ achievements.
- Games like Dead Rising and GTA include subtle jabs at each other in achievements and missions.
Normally, game developers would tell you that they’re all part of one big collective. While they might be working for different teams, companies or publishers, every game developer out there is striving towards that same goal: creating awesome video games that we can all enjoy.
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Still, that general sense of camaraderie hasn’t stopped some developers from firing a few cheeky shots across the bow at other games and developers by including some sneaky secrets within their games. With that in mind, here are some examples of developers feuding with each other via Easter eggs, references and more.
Just a reminder, these little jabs are mostly good fun, and shouldn’t be treated as genuine bad blood between developers. ‘Mostly’ is doing the heavy lifting here, as Rockstar is known for going for the jugular.
8
Seriously Achievements (Gears of War, Europa Universalis IV, Planets Under Attack)
No, Seriously…
Anyone who was playing on Xbox Live in the early days of the Xbox 360 might’ve cursed the Gears of War series for its achievement list, specifically because of its Seriously achievement. This cruel task forces you to obtain 10,000 kills in public online games, though the one-life-only, round-based nature of Gears online makes the grind for 10,000 kills an arduous one.
‘Seriously’ was a staple of Gears going forward, becoming the byword for ‘I’ve done everything possible’, but other games would take the sheer amount of kills needed and try to up the ante. Planets Under Attack ‘Seriously?!’ forced players to destroy one million of the enemy’s population, while Europa Universalis IV’s own ‘Seriously?!’ on PC wanted players to kill 10,000 enemies in just one battle. All for just one measly gamerscore, too.
7
Zombie Genocider Achievements (Dead Rising, L4D, Prototype, Dead Nation)
That’s A Lot Of Dead Zombies
Dead Rising is perhaps best known for two specific achievements: 7 Day Survivor, which tasks you with lasting for a full week in Willamette Mall during the Infinity Mode, and the Zombie Genocider achievement, where you have to kill 53,594 zombies; the exact population of the town of Willamette. While 7 Day haunted players, Zombie Genocider became a running joke across video games.
Left 4 Dead decided to one-up Dead Rising with its Zombie Genocidest, with a required kill count of 53,595. Prototype followed-up that shot with its Trail Of Corpses achievement, where players had to defeat 53,546 enemies. Capcom ultimately had the last laugh though with Dead Rising 2, which included Z-Genocider 2: Genocide Harder for 53,596 kills, along with Zombie Genocide Master for 72,000 kills.
The PlayStation-exclusive Dead Nation was a little late to the party, launching a couple of months after Dead Rising 2 with the trophy Genocidary for 53,597 kills.
6
True Crime Vs. GTA
A Life Of Grime
Grand Theft Auto was (and still is) the undisputed king of open-world crime games, so when True Crime came along, following in GTA’s footsteps, of course the young lion had to fire a few shots at the head of the pride. True Crime: Streets of LA included billboards titled Jock Straps, with a logo that looks awfully familiar to the Rockstar Games logo. Rockstar responded to this barb with its own billboard in San Andreas, titled ‘True Grime: Street Cleaners.’
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There are many titles that have tried to imitate Grand Theft Auto, and would argue that some have even surpassed Rockstar’s series.
For some reason, True Crime went back for more with the second game, New York City. During one of the side missions, protagonist Marcus makes a complaint about how he’ll have to fly remote-control planes, a clear jab at some of GTA’s more infamous missions. Mercifully, the feud ended there, largely because the True Crime series died almost immediately afterwards and Rockstar decided there’s no fun in beating a dead horse.
Monkeyin’ Around
You’d think that stealth games would stick together in the shadows, but apparently not. The PlayStation 1 and 2 eras of gaming were filled with spy thrillers and stealth games, meaning players had their pick of sneaky lads, like Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid, Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell and Gabe Logan from Syphon Filter. Still, that didn’t stop Konami from making a sly jab during MGS 3.
In the intro for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater’s bonus mode, Snake Vs Monkey, where Snake has to capture a bunch of apes from Ape Escape, Snake has a conversation with Campbell about the ‘mission’. Upon hearing that the mission involves a bunch of mischievous monkeys, Snake remarks that this might be a job better suited for Gabe and Sam, a clear reference to Snake’s sneaking brethren.
Ubisoft made a similar shot in Ghost Recon: Wildlands during a guest appearance by Sam Fisher, with Sam remarking that he was the last one left since Kojima had left Konami by this point, while the Syphon Filter series had long since been discontinued.
4
GTA Vs. Driver
They Did Tanner Dirty
The Grand Theft Auto series might have pioneered the open-world crime game genre, but it was actually the Driver games on PS1, specifically Driver 2, that showed players what a fully explorable city could look like in 3D before GTA 3. Whether Rockstar was inspired by Driver in creating GTA 3, or that 3D was just the next logical step for GTA, is unclear, but it’s no mistake that Rockstar took notice of Driver’s success.
In GTA 3, during the mission ‘Two-Faced Tanner’, you’re given the task of murdering the titular character, named after the protagonist of the Driver series. Rockstar even decided to give Tanner the feminine run animation too, just to lay the digs in a bit further. Driv3r features a retort against GTA, where you can find and kill various ‘Timmy Vermicelli’ NPCs, who are Hawaiian-shirt-clad dudes with oversized arms and water wings, a reference to Vice City’s Tommy Vercetti and the fact he couldn’t swim.
3
The Witcher 3 Vs. DLC Practices
Geralt Spittin’ Facts
Sometimes, jabs and barbs can extend past one specific series or company and target the entire gaming industry itself, which happened to be the case when CD Projekt Red decided it wanted to skewer DLC practices as a whole. Back in 2015, some developers jumped at the chance to turn every little thing into DLC or a microtransaction, as opposed to now when – oh, nevermind.
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There’s a long history of Atlas games to pull from.
In the DLC expansion for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt titled Blood And Wine, Geralt of Rivia can stumble across an embroidered handkerchief marked with the letters “d.l.C.” Once you pick it up, Geralt makes the remark that the handkerchief must belong to a nobleman because it looks very expensive for something so small. Say what you want about The Witcher 3’s DLC, but it was good value for money.
2
Dying Light 2 Vs. Resident Evil
The Dynamic Duo Didn’t Fare Too Well In Dying Light 2
Resident Evil sits at the pinnacle of the horror gaming genre, and typically, Capcom doesn’t tend to make references or jokes about other developers or games within RE. The series is pretty bonkers as it is anyway; it doesn’t need someone who looks like a Silent Hill character lurking in the background making jokes. Still, that hasn’t stopped developers from joking about Resident Evil in the past, with Dying Light 2 probably offering the most overt example.
During a main quest mission called Broadcast, you encounter an injured soldier with a boy band haircut that just so happens to be called Leon Kennedy. Before passing away, Leon tasks you with finding another missing soldier, Chris, who was known for punching doors, a clear reference to Chris Redfield and his boulder punching habits. Unfortunately for Chris, he’s faring worse than Leon, having become another member of the undead.
For some unknown reason (potentially an attempt to avoid retaliation from Capcom), Techland changed the last names shown on the dog tags to Keenedy and Bluefield.
1
Everyone Vs. Skyrim
Those Poor Knees
Back in 2011, pretty much anyone who loved video games was playing The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, which means millions of people were forced to hear that one dreaded voiceline: “I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee…” For whatever reason, it felt like every city guard would say it constantly, leading to the “arrow in the knee” saying becoming a meme in itself. After becoming a meme, references in other games followed, and they were relentless.
Not including appearances in other Bethesda games like DOOM or Starfield, which is basically the easter egg equivalent of liking your own tweet, arrow to the knee has been referenced in games like Borderlands 2, For Honor, Dead By Daylight, The Witcher 3’s Gwent minigame, Terraria, Stray, Palworld and Crysis 3. That’s far from an exhaustive list too, which just shows you how inescapable one meme truly was.
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