5 of the Best Gaming Easter Eggs in Recent Years

Doom

Bonus round! While certainly not a recent release, in preparation for the anticipated Doom comeback next year, let’s take a look back at one of the forefathers of the video game easter egg. The Doom franchise has come out with some brilliantly innovative and actually quite creepy easter eggs, that most likely served as inspiration for many other games, such as:

1. The Head of John Romero: In Doom II, this very well hidden and eerie easter egg is probably the most well-known of the series if not of all video games.  During the final boss, you’ll hear a gravelly, satanic voice speak to you.  If you reverse this recording, you’ll hear the words ‘to win the game you must kill me, John Romero’.  John Romero is one of the minds behind Doom and id software, and using a cheat (or two) you’ll find his real face behind the original head of the boss.
2. The game will literally mock you for dying in Doom 64 – all you need to do is wait around for a while after dying and moments later messages will start to appear at the top of the screen, teasing you for your appearance and your performance.  Even though it’s a scary game, it still manages to find its sense of humor.
3. Doom 3 is already creepier than the others due to its improved graphics and more realistic environments.  But there are several jump-scare easter eggs thrown in for good measure – just in case it wasn’t scary enough for you.  One of these includes the image of a skeleton with its mouth open – but blink and you’ll miss an original character being eaten by it if you take a closer look.
4. Possibly the scariest easter egg in the series is again in Doom 3.  If you find yourself in a bathroom, don’t stare in the mirror too long.  If you do, your character will become possessed by it and begin to age at super speed as the surroundings morph into a strange and bizarre background.

Have you found any other easter eggs from these games?  What are your favorite in-game secrets?  Let us know in the comments!

This post was originally written by Claire Pulpher.