There are three constants in this world; death, taxes, and Gears of War Easter eggs. Gears of War 4 features plenty of new secrets to uncover and explore, and we’ve got high hopes that the new series curators at The Coalition will include tons of weird, wonderful, and downright bizarre Easter eggs in the world of Sera. They’ve promised plenty, so join us as we dig deep and find everything worth sharing in the latest Gears.
Gears of War 3 featured an overabundance of Easter eggs, including secrets that fans have only just recently discovered. If there’s even a fraction of the secrets in this game, then we’ll have plenty to talk about. Keep scrolling to find our guide, and drop us a comment if you’ve found something especially cool that we missed.
Easter Eggs, Secrets & References Guide
[Updated 11/2: We’re still searching for new secrets. Check back often for the latest updates!]
Easter eggs are everywhere in Gears of War 4 — in the achievement titles, in the multiplayer skins, and in-game. Naturally, there will be campaign spoilers in the content below, so beware if you haven’t finished the story yet. When you’re ready, let’s take a look at everything we’ve found so far.
Riding the Reaver
You can ride the Reavers (flying tentacle creatures) that land in Act 1 – Chapter 0: Prologue just by killing the pilots and pressing [X] when you’re underneath them. Not a bad little secret! Not only do you get direct control of their movements, you can also launch rocket barrages from their launchers.
Who knew Reavers were so obedient? You can even exit / enter the Reaver mount as often as you like. This is a pretty fun way to take out the remaining Locust bad guys — just remember, don’t use the Hammer of Dawn on the Reaver, you don’t want to kill the pilot and the mount at the same time.
Monster Sightings on HARBOR
The monstrous Leviathan hides beneath the waves of the multiplayer map Harbor, and you can see the best for yourself. All you have to do is shoot six little Leviathan statues — in order — to summon the great beast from the briny deep.
[Video by TheRazoredEdge]
After blasting all six statues, activate the mysterious switch at the Longshot spawn and the Leviathan will emerge. It’s an impressive sight, and totally worth checking out. Watch the video above for exact locations on all six statues, and the order you’ll need to shoot them.
Goal! And the Cole Train Rap Returns
A short, partial Cole Train audio cue returns in Gears of War 4 during an Act V sequence where you command a giant DB mech. Fighting through the Swarm enemies toward the dam, you’ll get a tooltip to press [B] for a melee kick.
To hear the audio and score a ‘goal’ — kick the car on the ledge on the left. If you manage to kick the vehicle through the ‘V’ shaped trees, fireworks will spark from the trees and returning favorite character Cole Train will croon for you.
Fenix Flips Out & ‘Dom’s Toms’ Grenades
Enjoy an angry rant from Fenix and a clutch of explosive Easter egg tomatoes with this secret Greenhouse unlock. All you have to do is destroy all the tomato plants in the Act 2 – Chapter 2 Greenhouse area. Smash every red fruit in the area to hear Fenix’s righteous, f-bomb fueled (and probably improv’d) audio.
- Start Act 2 – Chapter 2 and exit the mansion though the underground tunnels.
- Continue into the Greenhouse and clear the area of DBs.
- Smash every single tomato planter in the greenhouse. All of them.
- Only the taller tomato planters matter. The smaller pots don’t count.
- When all the tomatoes are destroyed, Fenix will rip your squad a new one — and the ‘Dom’s Toms’ tomato grenade will spawn to the right of the exit door. Look for a tomato plant without a planter.
Where to get the Tomato Grenades: After the rant is over, the ‘Dom’s Toms’ grenades will appear at the tomato plant to the right of the greenhouse exit door.
The ‘Despicable You’ Freeze Gun
Freeze jerks solid with the amazing ‘Despicable You’ Ice Blaster, a hidden, optional gun you can only acquire in Act 1 – Chapter 0: Prologue. The blaster comes with 12 shots, can’t be reloaded, and turns enemies into ice with one shot. You don’t even have to be accurate, the Easter egg gun explodes with a burst of frozen energy.
- Here’s how to find it:
- Play Act 1 – Chapter 0: Prologue on Insane difficulty.
- After clearing the bunkers, you’ll enter a long corridor past the tunnel with the massive door. Fight through the enemy soldiers.
- Before reaching the stairs up, look in the back-right side of the path to find an open garage door to a full cargo hangar. The ‘Despicable You’ Ice Gun is inside.
That’s all you need to know to get your grubby hands on an awesome gun. Learn more on our complete guide right here:
Dom Is Back… In Zombie Form
Best friend of Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago gets his own special multiplayer tribute skin. In a series as over-the-top violent as Gears, we weren’t expecting a gentle return of this fan-favorite, level-headed COG soldier — but did anyone really want dead Dom back? We’d be happy to have a living Dom, but that isn’t the direction The Collective went with the tribute skin. Just take a look.
See that red-eyed shambling corpse on the left? That’s Dominic! We don’t see many zombies in the Gears series, even thought it started out as a horror-themed action-shooter. Maybe Zombie Dom is meant to coincide with the spookiness of the October 6/10 release date? It’s the same month as Halloween, and everyone knows October is the creepiest month of the year.
Oh my god, they killed Carmine! Again!
Early in the adventure, you meet another Carmine in Act 1 – Chapter 4. During the attack on the settlement, Carmine defends the area bravely with a mounted turret… before getting crushed by a DB pod. It looks like that’s the end of yet another Carmine. But, just to be clear, we don’t actually see Carmine die in this scene — there’s a chance he made it out alive!
Living isn’t really a thing the Carmine family gets to do often, unfortunately. Here’s a list of all the in-game death the expansive Carmine family has experienced.
- Gears of War 1: Pvt. Anthony Carmine was killed by a Locust Sniper.
- Gears of War 2: Pvt. Benjamin Carmine was killed by Nemacytes in the Riftworm’s stomach acid.
- Gears of War 3: Pvt. Clay Carmine narrowly survived, changing the family’s fortunes — for one game, anyway.
Clay Carmine’s life (or death) was put to a vote in 2010. By purchasing an avatar shirt on the Xbox Live Marketplace with either “Save Carmine!” or “Carmine Must Die!” — fans were able to rescue the poor guy.
Achievements Unlocked: Reference.
The achievements in Gears of War 4 are filled with references. Some are references to previous Gears titles, (Zen and the Art of Reloading, Seriously 4.0) but most are related to our media-obsessed culture. Let’s showcase just a few:
- Achievement: Now That’s a Knife!
- This is a reference to Crocodile Dundee — the ’80s brief love affair with Crocodile Dundee still hasn’t ended, and the knife scene still has enough cultural cache to survive until 2016.
- Achievement: I Live. I Die. I Live Again. / Oh What a Day! What a Lovely Day!
- Here are a couple of Mad Max: Fury Road references. Interestingly, both are spoken by the Warboy — when you get right down to it, Warboys are basically manic COG soldiers? … no? Well, their quotes do fit for the bloody energy of a multiplayer session.
- Achievement: Job’s Done
- Warcraft is a massive franchise, but this reference to the basic construction Orc from the original is a pretty deep pull, even for fans. This achievement is for completing waves in Horde mode, and completing Horde mode means you’ll be building all sorts of emplacements with the Fabricator. In a roundabout way, this is basically an achievement for building. Zug zug!
- Achievement: I Have a Very Particular Set of Skills / Skills That Make Me a Nightmare
- The oft parodied but never quite duplicated menace of Liam Neeson’s phone-speech (prominently showcased in trailers and commercials) from the original Taken.
There’s way more, but we’d just be listing references if this continues too much longer. Needless to say — you’ll probably spot a reference when those achievements pop as you dig deep into Gears 4.
Even more Gears of War 4 guides:
- Gears of War 4: Act 1 – All Collectibles & COG Tags Locations Guide
- Gears of War 4: Act 2 – All Collectibles & COG Tags Locations Guide
- Gears of War 4: Act 3 – All Collectibles & COG Tags Locations Guide
- Gears of War 4: Act 4 – All Collectibles & COG Tags Locations Guide
- Gears of War 4: Act 5 – All Collectibles & COG Tags Locations Guide
Found any Easter eggs missing from our list? Let us know in the comments and we’ll add your suggestions, along with some recognition for your work!
