Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
- #1. New Game Teaser [Bayonetta 3]
- #2. Edgerunners Easter Eggs [Cyberpunk 2077]
- #3. The Truth [God of War Ragnarok]
- #4. Doom E1M1 [Dying Light 2]
- #5. Demon Wind [High On Life]
- #6. The Singing Bush [Saints Row]
- #7. Regression [Elden Ring]
- #8. Lucky Cat [Hitman 3]
- #9. MissingNo [Vampire Survivors]
- #10. Lost In The Backrooms [Phantom Hysteria]
Hunting for Easter eggs is just what we do here. The best Easter eggs aren’t just references — we need more substance, more depth to our ridiculous secrets that serve no gameplay purpose. Easter eggs are like the cherry on top of our video game sundae. It isn’t required, but we sure love to see it. And 2022 provided some pretty great Easter eggs. Not all of the Easter eggs on our list are particularly complicated, but they’re all special in their own way. It warms our gaming hearts that developers are still so dedicated to providing secret, silly experiences in their games. Easter eggs keep us exploring and talking about games. And these are the 10 Easter eggs I just had to talk about in 2022.
Want more secrets in 2022? Don’t miss our lists for 10 secret endings, 10 best secret bosses, and 10 best unlockable weapons, armor sets and characters.
The Best of 2021:
Best Secrets, Unlockables & Weapons Of 2021 | Best Levels Of 2021 | Best Easter Eggs Of 2021 | Best Secret Endings Of 2021
#1. New Game Teaser [Bayonetta 3]
The 2022 Game Awards featured lots of announcements to get excited for, but one announcement wasn’t that surprising to avid players of Bayonetta 3. A new adventure game call Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon already debuted much earlier — in Bayonetta 3!
After completing the game, players could purchase a special in-game item called the Old Picture Book. The book seemingly does nothing. To open it, Bayonetta needs to find three hidden keys. The book leads into a playable teaser for the storybook-themed adventure featuring a young Cereza on her earliest witch adventure. You can still play through the teaser right now if you have a copy of Bayonetta 3. Hiding a game announcement in your own game (and making it playable!) is a top-tier Easter egg. One of the greatest ever, and one even fans could’ve easily missed after their first playthrough.
#2. Edgerunners Easter Eggs [Cyberpunk 2077]
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is one of the most stylish anime of the season, and a surprise smash-hit on Netflix. The animated adaptation of the Cyberpunk universe explodes a corner of the dystopian world that doesn’t get that much love in the main game — going cyberpsycho. The show is pure animated chaos and fans can find multiple little references to the show in Cyberpunk 2077. Included in some of the recent updates, you can find fan-favorite Rebecca’s shotgun or get your hands on the David’s Jacket to match his look from the show.
By exploring a specific location, you even get a quick trailer for the show in Braindance form. You’ll meet with one of the characters too — Falco one of David’s crew and a former Nomad driver — meets up with the player to share that very special jacket. Rebecca, meanwhile, drops her famous pink-and-green gun in the center of the city where a pivotal scene takes place. We won’t spoil it, but if you’ve watched the show, you’ll know exactly where to look.
#3. The Truth [God of War Ragnarok]
If you haven’t finished God of War Ragnarok, I recommend skipping this entry and going to the next one. This Easter egg is a huge plot revelation that players can completely skip in the post-game, but it is also extremely cool. You won’t want to miss the Optional Aesir Prison Dungeon — located in Nifleheim and only accessible after completing the story. This mini-dungeon is fully explorable, with a small puzzle twist to traverse and lots of enemies from across the nine realms to battle. And there’s a doozy of a reveal at the bottom floor.
Because this game is so new, we won’t get into the details here. Just trust us. This is an incredibly fun revelation. The NPC you meet at the bottom of the prison isn’t a one-time encounter either. This NPC will go off on a journey of exploration, visiting all the realms — you’ll find them in different spots where you can have a little dialogue with them. This is some next-level commitment to endgame Easter eggs. If you need another excuse to fully explore and finish up your collectibles hunting, this is a good one.
#4. Doom E1M1 [Dying Light 2]
One of the weirdest and most complex Easter eggs of 2022 is dedicated to E1M1. The first level of Doom, the FPS that modernized the genre, is recreated in Dying Light 2. By completing an extremely long and complicated Easter egg, involving evil red duckies placed on a demonic summoning circle, you’ll enter a remade version of Doom’s infamous opening level. The graphics become incredibly pixelated, and you’ll get an infinite ammo shotgun to complete the course.
The doom Easter egg is the most complex, but there are other weird mini-game challenges. You can unlock a hoverboard mini-game, or fly on a witch’s broomstick through an obstacle course. And then there are all the developer weapons! Dying Light 2 is overstuffed with goofy Easter eggs, but hunting down E1M1 is by far the most involved, so it’s going on the list.
#5. Demon Wind [High On Life]
Fans of bad movies are in for a treat in High On Life. Early in the game, your intergalactic bounty hunter will encounter an NPC selling warp discs on the downlow. Warp Crystals are one of the secondary currencies of the game, which you’ll find while wiping out alien drug dealers. You can trade Warp Crystals for unique items called “Warp Discs” from an underground seller. Collect enough Warp Crystals, and you can summon little plots of land with weird activities.
What do Warp Discs summon? You can summon a tiny city called Cutie Town or help solve a pipe puzzle for an alien with potty training or unravel a philosophical conundrum with set of trolley tracks. There are more to explore, but our favorite has to be the Movie Theater. After summoning the Movie Theater, which costs three Warp Crystals, you’ll get to sit down and watch a full-length film that the developers licensed. The movie in question is Demon Wind, an absurd rip-off of Evil Dead with kicking magicians, exploding baby dolls and an angelic (?) final battle. The movie is a hoot for fans of goofy cinema, and you’ll get a bonus commentary track from the RedLetterMedia gang on Youtube.
#6. The Singing Bush [Saints Row]
Saints Row (2022) didn’t set the critical world on fire, but it did attempt to recapture some of the Xbox 360 era magic with lots of irreverent Easter eggs all over the environment. Attentive players could find hidden alien monoliths, giant desert combs, and other absurd stuff refencing the developer’s favorite films. My personal favorite Easter egg of the bunch has to be the Singing Bush — on an island south of the city, this bush just won’t stop singing royalty free songs in an extremely high-pitched voice. The Singing Bush is a refence to the similar yodeling plant from the comedy vehicle The Three Amigos — and it is just as annoying here as it is in that movie.
Even better? Take a picture of the Singing Bush to unlock it permanently at your base. Now you can place the singing bush in your pad and listen to its sweet songs forever. That’s the detail that really puts this Easter egg over the edge. It isn’t every day you get to take the dumb references back home with you.
#7. Regression [Elden Ring]
One of the most cryptic Easter eggs in Elden Ring also reveals important lore. For all the lore implications, check out our full Regression guide here — we won’t spoil the reveal, but we will talk about this mysterious hidden quest. While investigating the origins of the Golden Order with an NPC, the player Tarnished will explore the capitol. A statue with a strange message resides deep in the capitol city. Examining the statue of Radagon, founder of the Golden Order, reveals this message: Regression alone reveals secret.
In the early days of Elden Ring’s release, this puzzle confounded players — and due to buggy quest-givers, most wouldn’t even realize this was part of a larger storyline involving Brother Corlyn and Goldmask, two devotees of the Golden Order. To solve the riddle in Lleyndell, players need to track down the beloved pope-hat turtle Miriel and purchase the spell Law of Regression. Using the spell at the statue reveals a twisted secret that cuts to the core of Elden Ring’s bizarre storyline. Depending on your investment, this reveal elicits a shocked gasp or an indifferent shrug. For us dorks that got way too invested in this Game of the Year contender‘s story, this is an awesome little reveal.
#8. Lucky Cat [Hitman 3]
Hitman 3 released a free new map in 2022 — and that’s cause for celebration. Not only do we get an incredible new map to play around with, we also get yet another weird Easter egg. In the base version of Hitman 3, you can have a chat with a talking hippo, get abducted by aliens, or unlock a hidden ending by waiting around. The new Ambrose Island map is packed with absurdist humor and strange methods for killing your targets. You can dig up a secret buried treasure and claim the pirate sword inside or blow up both targets with a pirate’s cannon. But this is easily the weirdest secret.
By shooting golden cat statues — lucky beckoning cats in Japan — Agent 47 can summon a giant cat. It took players time to finally solve this secret. After shooting one cat, another will spawn at a different location on the map. And this is a sprawling map packed with seemingly pointless rooms to explore. The find them all without a guide, you’d need to scour the entire island after every golden cat shot. Shoot the last cat statue and the giant cat will rise from the lagoon. The cat even rewards you with a prize. A pile of fish! Perfect for slapping your target silly.
#9. MissingNo [Vampire Survivors]
The most infamous Pokemon of all time appears as a playable character in Vampire Survivors, another massive indie hit that took everyone by surprise in 2022. This game is already packed with Castlevania references — that’s to be expected, if you squint some of the enemies look like they were directly copied from a Castlevania game. But I didn’t expect MissingNo. The glitchiest secret character is in reference to the buggy Pokemon players could find in Pokemon Red & Blue; a mess of undefined pixels. Hence Missingno is an abbreviation of Missing Number.
And you can “catch” MissingNo in Vampire Survivors. Called MissingN[] in this version, you’ll have to travel far past the boundaries of the world to unlock him. With Hyper Mode and Hurry Mode enabled, you can run until the world itself becomes a glitchy mess, and strange winged enemies with eyes spawn. Defeat lots of these enemies and MissingN[] becomes available to purchase from the character shop. He joins other weird secret characters like Legion from Castlevania, a little ghost, a silhouette of a sprite, and a sentient Christmas Tree. Vampire Survivors is a weird game.
#10. Lost In The Backrooms [Phantom Hysteria]
You probably haven’t heard of Phantom Hysteria — a new entry in the ghost-hunting with friends multiplayer genre. Phantom Hysteria is different than the rest, giving you all the weapons you need to blast ghosts back into the afterlife. This might be an Early Access game at the moment, available on Steam here, but it has my favorite Easter egg of the year so far. By exploring a dark basement in one of the stages, you can find a hidden message that states “Don’t Read This” — spend a moment reading it, and you’ll drop through the world.
And you’ll land right in the Backrooms. If you haven’t heard of the Backrooms, just check out some of the videos here. Essentially, it is a mysterious realm of seemingly randomly generated walls with a sickly yellow aura. The Backrooms is kind of like being trapped in an infinite ugly office building. The maze is absolutely gigantic here, and you can very easily get lost for a long time — luckily some helpful graffiti points you to an exit. I’m sure we’ll be seeing many more elaborate Backrooms Easter eggs in the future. This one doesn’t even feature a rampaging monster. We’re still early in the creepypasta life cycle. There’s time.
Sure, there are lots of Backrooms games on Steam, but the real essence of the setting is accidentally stumbling into it and getting lost yourself. That’s something this Easter egg does very well.
That’s some of our favorite Easter eggs and extremely weird secrets in 2022. These things are secret, so let us know what we missed from your favorite games!
