Sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference between Easter
eggs and clues that video games share a universe. Just so happens that, sometimes,
they're both. Let's take a closer look at some video game universes with startling connections.
The Uncharted and The Last of Us series are two of PlayStation's biggest and best first-party
exclusives. But did you know that one is actually a sequel to the other? Well… kind of, at least.
In Uncharted 3, there's a newspaper with a headline reading:
"Scientists are still struggling to understand deadly fungus" — an intentional reference to
The Last of Us. At the time of Uncharted 3's release, however, The Last of Us had
yet to be formally announced, and that newspaper wasn't actually supposed to remain in the game.
Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann candidly told Kotaku :
"We just completely forgot about it. We screwed up."
Fortunately for them, they ended up getting away with it
without spoiling their then-upcoming announcement.
"What took you so long?"
Japanese video game designer Hideo Kojima likes to fill his games with Easter eggs.
And that's why his graphic adventure game Policenauts offers plenty of clues
that it shares a universe with Snatcher and Metal Gear Solid.
Policenauts has tons of Snatcher references. In addition to a few direct cameos from the cyberpunk
adventure game, there's a Snatcher calendar in Jun Ishida's office, and Victor Jurgens uses the same
brand of sunscreen found in both games. There's also a Snatcher target in the police station's
shooting range that plays a remixed version of the game's "Pressure of Tension" song when it's hit.
In Metal Gear Solid, you can find two promotional posters for Policenauts in the Nuclear Warhead
Storage Building, with a third popping up in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
Drebin 893 drinks a soda called is named after the addictive drug in Policenauts,
and there's even a bar named after Solid Snake in Policenauts' Old L.A.
And that's just scratching the surface of the cosmic clues — happy hunting!
The Red Faction series from Volition and THQ tells the story of the titular faction's
resistance against the oppressive reign of the nefarious Ultor Corporation, set
amidst a sci-fi future of dystopian proportions. Meanwhile, the Saints Row series from Volition and
THQ — along with latter day publisher Deep Silver — chronicles the story of the Third Street Saints,
a street gang turned global crime organization who face rival criminals and corrupt law enforcement
during their ongoing slapstick quest for domination. While the first game in the series
was a relatively straightforward GTA clone, later entities… well, they got a little wild.
"You can't kill me! My people will avenge my death!"
"Not with a bang… but with a whimper."
As luck — and the cheeky developers of Volition — would have it,
the events of the Red Faction series actually take place in the future of the Saints Row universe,
and the nefarious Ultor Corporation is the link.
"The Ultor corporation has been using a secret R&D
lab to conduct unethical experiments on the citizens of Stilwater."
In case you missed it, the episodic expansion packs Ultor Exposed and Corporate Warfare
for Saints Row 2 are probably the most overt references to Red Faction's big bad adversaries
in the Saints series. The first of these two DLC packs lays the groundwork for exposing the
megacorp's seedy operations, while the second installment offers players a chance to, quote,
"put a permanent end to Ultor's corruption" head on. The result:
one of the craziest canonical crossovers in video game history.
Remedy Entertainment's connected universe is more intricate than many fans realize.
Remedy's 2010 game Alan Wake is a bizarre trip through alternate dimensions. As the title
character searches for his missing wife, he begins to see elements of a story he wrote coming to
life. The endings of Alan Wake and its follow-ups left its hero's fate unclear, which has tormented
fans for years. But did you know references to Mr. Wake have shown up in Remedy's newer titles?
Quantum Break, released in 2016, features several callbacks to Alan Wake. For instance,
a chalkboard in the game seems to describe events from Alan Wake.
Not only that, another Easter egg revealed live action footage of Alan Wake himself.
Then came 2019's Control. Through documents discovered during Control,
players learn that the game's Federal Bureau of Control investigated the events of Alan Wake, but
unfortunately didn't find much. Footage of Alan can also be found in a hidden area of the game.
Finally, Control's AWE expansion brought Bureau Director Jesse Faden into conflict
with Emil Hartman, a mad psychologist with ties to Alan and Alice Wake.
The Malaysia-inspired island of Panau is the setting of Just Cause 2, the 2010 open world
action-adventure game from Avalanche Studios and Eidos Interactive . It tells the continuing story
of chaotic hero Rico Rodriguez and his battle against some of the world's craziest militant
dictators. Interestingly enough, Panau also makes a subtle appearance in Sleeping Dogs, the Hong
Kong-based action adventure from United Front Games and Eidos parent publisher Square Enix .
One Easter egg from Sleeping Dogs definitively places these two games in the same universe.
If your timing and radio station are correct, you'll hear a fun little
advertisement that shouts out the familiar setting of Just Cause 2:
"For a relaxing getaway,
visit the island of Panau, an exotic location where beauty and luxury are an everyday pleasure."
French video game publisher Ubisoft made its reputation by developing some of the
most immersive open world games on the market — games that emphasize exploration and branching
narratives over linear storytelling and guided adventures. It's no surprise,
then, that Ubisoft would decide to set a few of their fan-favorite franchises
in a shared universe; but the clues aren't always up front.
Fortunately for us, the modern-day sequences of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag offer some clarity.
Set in the offices of a video game development studio known as Abstergo Entertainment — a
not-so-subtle front for Abstergo Industries, aka the Templar Order, the Assassins' rival
faction — these sequences provide several distinct references to Ubisoft's Watch Dogs and Far Cry 3.
For instance, the "Security Systems Presentation"
offers a blatant reference to the primary city-wide hacking mechanic of Watch Dogs:
"Nowhere is our expertise more apparent than in our flagship product,
'ctOS ' – a ground-breaking proprietary security-software operating system."
Meanwhile, the Abstergo Entertainment database entry for "Ocelot" obliquely suggests that Far
Cry 3, the video game itself, could actually be yet another virtual construct of the Animus.
"Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?"
The science-fiction stylings of NieR: Automata from PlatinumGames and publisher Square Enix
seem like a far cry from the medieval fantasy of Drakengard from Cavia Inc.
and Macrospace — but these two action-RPGs are separated by a lengthy span of sequels
and studio changeovers, so they actually exist squarely in the same universe.
The description of NieR: Automata on the game's official website tells us its story takes place
in "the distant future." That future is, in fact, a far-flung time period following the
events of Drakengard, which chronicles the dark fantasy story of the deposed prince Caim and his
efforts to stop the malevolent Watchers from destroying the world. Game scholars understand
the "E" ending of Drakengard — in which Caim and his dragon pal Angelus travel across a dimensional
boundary to fight the Queen Grotesquerie in modern day Tokyo — to be the canonical ending that leads
into the 2010 hack-and-slash RPG Nier, which is itself a direct forerunner of NieR: Automata.
Don't worry if you're confused. You're not the only one.
In NieR: Automata, quote, "Mankind is driven from Earth and takes refuge on the Moon."
Now, with the full history laid out before us, we finally understand that particular
Earth to be the alternate-history Earth of Drakengard, known as Midgard.
With ample evidence of a UFO conspiracy that interlinks the
background narratives of Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2,
it's safe to say that Rockstar Games is no stranger to shared game worlds.
But did you know that Manhunt from Rockstar North was also set in the GTA universe? A variety of
evidence suggests that it is: notably, the very location of the game's controversial narrative.
Manhunt takes place within the fictional setting of Carcer City,
a ruthless lampoon of America's Rust Belt, where street gangs rule the night. GTA fans who paid
enough attention will probably recognize Carcer City from one of its many subtle appearances in
the series; it's been mentioned at least once in every Grand Theft Auto release since GTA 3,
including the Stories spinoffs developed for handheld consoles.
"In nearby Carcer City,
a good day for order as police chief Gary Schafer was cleared of corruption charges."
And if there was any doubt, James Earl Cash — Manhunt's sociopathic
protagonist — appears on wanted posters within the Grand Theft Auto universe,
most notably in locations like the Police Department in San Andreas . Crime might not pay,
but in Rockstar's shared worlds, it'll definitely make you famous.
With its focus on a single-player campaign, Battlefield: Bad Company from DICE was a bit of
a departure from the tried and true formula of the fan-favorite FPS franchise in 2008. But the game's
humorous narrative, along with its introduction of highly destructible environments, made it a smash
hit. GameSpot called it, quote, "quite simply one of the most fun shooters released [that] year."
DICE was also responsible for Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, the 2016 sequel of their unique
sci-fi action platformer, also from 2008. Catalyst expanded the story and gameplay of the original
and took a few narrative liberties in its effort to round out the lore behind Faith
Connors and her death-defying run through The City. DICE looked to their previous titles to
establish a "real world" element for the dystopian future of Mirror's Edge by placing the boys from
Bad Company directly into the expanded narrative of Catalyst via audio files.
"Did you just call Gabriel Kruger 'Gabe?'"
"Yeah. We're on a first-name basis. It's a bromance! You know!"
Valve Corporation's legendary first-person shooter Half-Life changed the video game industry forever
when it hit personal computers in 1998. It tells the heart-pounding story of theoretical physicist
Gordon Freeman and his dimension-shattering discoveries at the Black Mesa Research Facility.
And curiously enough, Black Mesa would prove to be part of the game's connective tissue to another
Valve title, Portal, the award-winning 3D puzzle-platformer released in 2007.
Portal takes players on a wild ride through the Aperture Science laboratories
as they try to unravel the enigmas of the artificial intelligence known as GLaDOS
and learn for themselves that the cake is a lie. Astute gamers will recognize
oblique clues in GLaDOS' dialogue that reference the events of Half-Life,
along with a tongue-in-cheek PowerPoint presentation. Furthermore,
Aperture founder Cave Johnson mentions his Black Mesa rivals by name multiple times in Portal 2.
Whether or not industrial espionage is healthy for business, it certainly made for one sweet spinoff.
"Cave Johnson, new owner and CEO of Black Mesa. That's right. You've been
bought. First order of business: We're renaming you under the Aperture brand."
Due in 2022, The Callisto Protocol is a survival horror game set in the furthest
reaches of outer space. The game places players in the shoes of a prisoner in Black Iron,
a prison located on Jupiter's moon Callisto. When aliens attack the facility, it's up to
the prisoner to fight the invasion and get out alive. Developed by Striking Distance
and directed by Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield, the terrifying-looking
game seems like a far cry from the setting of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. However, as a
Striking Distance rep confirmed for IGN, the two games are actually linked by a shared universe.
In an interview with GamesRadar, Schofield said that although a few hundred years and plenty of
space separates PUBG and The Callisto Protocol, hardcore fans would most likely be able to pick
up on references to the wider PUBG universe throughout the game. Schofield explained:
"We're helping PUBG Corp right now as a team of writers, working on the lore for PUBG and its
universe. It's not going to be really deep, but there will be little connections here and there."
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