In 1999, the Swedish game development company Refraction Games released Codename Eagle.
A war-based first-person shooter set in an alternate history timeline featuring expansive
outdoor environments and a multitude of usable vehicles.
The game received mixed reviews but managed to peak the interest of a fellow Swedish game
development company known as Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment, acronymed as DICE.
Refraction Games was later acquired by DICE in 2000 and using the in-house Refractor Engine
the expanded team began development of a successor to Codename Eagle.
Battlefield 1942 was released in 2002 and was an instant success.
It was built upon the same formula and many of the concepts introduced in Codename Eagle
but instead featured a more realistic and historically accurate setting.
Set in World War II, it featured massive open battlefields, a class system, multiple game
modes, and a vast variety of vehicles and weapons.
While you did have the ability to play against bots in single-player, the focus and main
attraction of the game was the unscripted and chaotic nature of the massive online 64-player battles.
Battlefield 1942 was, no doubt, a pivotal moment in online multiplayer history.
Two years later, in 2004, the company released the first, of many, sequels in the form of Battlefield Vietnam.
Battlefield 2 became the third installment in the franchise and was released in 2005 to critical acclaim.
This time, the war switched from historical reenactments to a fictional modern setting.
This new direction proved so successful that most Battlefield games from here on out would
focus solely on modern military combat.
Though a few exceptions slipped through the cracks.
Battlefield: Bad Company was the first game in the series to feature a fully fledged single-player
campaign as well as destructible environments thanks to the newly developed Frostbite Engine.
And the upcoming Battlefield 1 will be the 15th installment in franchise and the first
to take place in the first World War.
Given that DICE is a Swedish game developer, there's a ton of Swedish-related easter eggs
and references hidden throughout the franchise.
And you know, given the fact that I'm Swedish myself, why not cover a few of them.
Claymore's in Battlefield 2 has the text "DENNA SIDA MOT FIENDEN" printed on the front which
is Swedish for "THIS SIDE TOWARDS THE ENEMY".
In Battlefield 3, the rolling text on the M-COM stations is actually a Swedish folk
song called "Ack Värmeland, du sköna" or "Värmlandsvisan" and sounds like this.
At various locations in multiple installments it's possible to find easter eggs in the form
of tiny sand castles with a small Swedish flag planted on top.
The sand castles in Battlefield 3 also include a Norwegian flag to celebrate the increase
in Norwegian developers on the team.
The absence of a Danish flag is also cause for celebration.
At various locations in Battlefield 4 you can find pieces of paper from the Swedish Tax Agency.
You can also find beer bottles with the brand label "Bakis" which is slang for "Hungover".
The phrase "STOR LÅDA MED SAKER I" can be found printed on the side of various wooden
crates which translates to "LARGE BOX WITH THINGS IN IT".
After a patch was released for Battlefield 4, a maypole could be found on the
Community Test Environment version of Hainan Resort.
The maypole is a reference to midsummer which is one of the largest holidays celebrated
here in Sweden and will also trigger a common midsummer carol.
As previously mentioned, following the acquisition of Refraction Games in 2000, the team began
development of a game that would later be released as Battlefield 1942.
However the Battlefield franchise could have been very different as a military first-person
shooter set in World War II was not the initial concept for the game.
Between 2000-2001 DICE worked on a title known as Urban Combat with a focus on, well,
urban combat and was essentially a cops-and-robbers game.
Multiple early prototypes where developed but nothing was ever revealed to the public.
And while the game worked on paper the team could never get the concept to work in practice
so the game was eventually canceled in favor of a military shooter.
Now, as some of you might have already guessed, this idea and these early prototypes would
almost a decade later serve as the inspiration for Battlefield: Hardline.
Some of the radio chatter and miscellaneous quotes heard during gameplay in
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 are actually taken from real life military communications.
For example, these lines can be heard while operating a UAV.
These samples where extracted from US military footage of a strafing run in Iraq.
In a similar fashion, the teaser trailer for Battlefield 3 includes a voice
clip of someone yelling "Holy shit!" in panic.
This was taken from an actual recording of a
US Air Force pilot evading multiple incoming surface-to-air missiles.
Soon after Battlefield 4 was released, keen-eyed players noticed multiple hints which alluded
to a prehistoric megalodon shark being included as an easter egg somewhere in the game.
It was eventually discovered that if 10 players gathered around a buoy on the map Nansha Strike, this happens.
However, certain hints suggested that a similar easter egg
could also be found on the map Paracel Storm.
For example, this hint on the map Lumphini Garden shows an outlined map of Paracel Storm
along with the phrase "The monster is real!" written in Chinese.
Another hint, found on the side of a metal crate, depicts a rebus that reads:
Paracel Storm + [Something] = Megalodon.
Avid fans continued to search for this elusive easter egg for several months but still came up empty handed.
Which is not surprising as in early 2015 it was revealed by a DICE employee that the megalodon
easter egg on Paracel Strom had never been activated as it had never been fully completed
and could thus not be triggered in the first place.
While DICE had initially intended to complete the easter egg, it was eventually deemed too
resource demanding and too similar to the easter egg on Nansha Strike and thus all related
assets were eventually removed from the game.
However, thanks to the Community Test Environment version of the game, the incomplete easter egg
was later included in the CTE version of Paracel Storm.
To trigger the easter egg you had to land on a wind turbine, get struck by lightning,
climb a palm three, and finally shoot a mysterious light in the ocean.
If done correctly, a UFO will then appear inspecting the surface with a search light
before plunging into the ocean.
Only then will the megalodon surface from beneath the depths.
In the third mission of the single-player campaign in Battlefield 3 there's a sequence
in which you have to stab a rat with your knife.
The animal rights organization known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, acronymed as PETA,
condemned the sequence writing in a press release that the game "...treats animals in a sadistic manner."
They also claimed that this type of violence has "a brutalizing effect on the young male target audience."
Out of all the things in the Battlefield franchise.
This is where they draw the line.
I mean, it would be somewhat understandable if the protagonist casually interrupted otherwise
perfectly normal missions to stab some rodents every now and then...
Yeah, you know what? I just forgot to do something.
But no, you actually have to kill the rat because if you don't, you get shot in the face.
Then again, PETA once got mad at Obama for swatting a fly so their opinions
are practically invalid at this point.
A select few weapons in Battlefield: Hardline and one pistol in Battlefield 4 have a unique
reload animation that have a 1/10,000 chance of being activated.
This is the reload animation of the Unica 6 in Battlefield 4.
And these are all the unique reload animations in Battlefield: Hardline.
Before the announcement and subsequent release of Battlefield 2142 in 2006, DICE included
a few references to the upcoming title in Battlefield 2.
For example, a vehicle on the map Midnight Sun features a license plate with the number
2142 and a wristwatch on a billboard display the time as 21:42.
Now, subsequent titles in the franchise have included similar allusions to a possible sequel to the game.
For example, on the map Operation Riverside in Battlefield 3 you can find this futuristic
drone near the edge of the map and in both Battlefield 3 and 4 you can find these plastic
containers with the number 2143 printed on the side.
Than there's the fact that the entire Final Stand DLC for Battlefield 4 is practically
a distant prequel to 2142.
Now, given that Battlefield 1942 received a sequel in the form of Battlefield 1943,
many have assumed that these findings mean that Battlefield 2142 will at some point receive
a sequel in the form of Battlefield 2143.
However, DICE has neither confirmed nor denied the rumors and thus we're left to speculate.
Even though Germany in Battlefield 1942 is based on the Third Reich, references to fascism,
Nazism, or Adolf Hitler is nowhere to be found.
For example, iconic Nazi symbolism such as the red and white swastika flag has been replaced
by a modified version of a flag used by the German Empire.
The cross in the middle of the flag, which can also be seen elsewhere in the game, resembles
a symbol know as the Balkenkreuz which was used by the German military.
All of this was done in order to release the game in Germany as Germanic law
is very strict about the use of Nazi symbols.
While the megalodon easter egg is quite spectacular, it's far from the most complicated.
One of the most elaborate easter eggs in all of Battlefield, and definitely the most intricate
easter egg I've ever seen myself, can be found on the map Dragon Valley.
As far as I can tell, most of this was uncovered
and pieced together by a popular YouTuber known as JackFrags.
So this is nothing more than a showcase of what other people have already found.
Okay, the easter egg begins with seven minuscule buttons hidden across the map.
One is located underneath a concrete block.
A second underwater.
A third under a walkway.
A forth behind a furnace.
A fifth under a rock.
A sixth on the edge of a building.
And a seventh is located inside a tree.
I don't know how they fou- It's inside the tree!
Each button controls a random number of twenty lanterns attached to the ceiling of a building
in the center of the map.
The lanterns can be toggled on or off so it can be assumed that all twenty lanterns need
to be lit in order to progress.
But it's actually quite difficult as more than one button can control the same lantern.
So if I press this button, one of the lanterns is turned off.
But if I then press this other button, the same lantern is switched on again.
But after a few hours of back and forth, it is actually possible to light all twenty lanterns.
This will activate a hidden keypad next to the building.
Pressing any key on the keypad will cause the lantern above to blink.
This is actually Morse code and once translated it reads.
This cryptic message is a reference to the map Zavod: Graveyard Shift and under a large
rock along the northern edge of the map, a strange sound can be heard.
After increasing the speed and applying some noise reduction, it sounds like this.
This is a sample taken from the animated series Battlefield Friends.
So back to the clue, if we take the longest word and the succeeding word from the lyrics we get "LITTLE BIRDY".
We obviously can't multiply letters so if each letter is replaced with its corresponding
numerical position in the alphabet and each number is sequentially multiplied, we get:
83,980,800,000.
Inputting the code into the keypad will trigger yet another Morse code message. This time, it reads.
If we head over to the water tower and then wait for two minutes, yet another button will appear.
Interacting with the button will activate a yet another keypad.
As we input the final code received in the final Morse code message, the easter egg has
finally been completed.
After all that hard work, you unlock a unique camouflage known as DICE LA.
What I love the most about this easter egg is that many of the codes and solutions
will be different in every play-through.
So to complete the easter egg and to acquire the camo for yourself you must go through
the entire process on your own.
It's gonna be really interesting to see what lies hidden in Battlefield 1.