Ten years after a devastating mass event, the nation's borders and the balance of global power have been redrawn forever. A superpower no more, its economy and government in ashes, the country's once-mighty military struggles to stave off complete collapse. As what's left of the nation's Special Operations forces, a mysterious group known only as 'Ghosts' leads the fight back against a newly emerged, technologically-superior global power.
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Fans have pointed out that Elias Walker, father to Logan and Hesh, looks a lot like Sergeant Elias from Oliver Stone's Platoon, right down to sharing a first name. There's a similar comparison drawn between the scarred, bandana-wearing Rorke and Platoon's Sergeant Barnes, which feels like more than coincidence given how much the campaign leans on grizzled war-movie archetypes.
Someone on the dev team clearly had a soft spot for hidden teddy bears. There's one wedged in a drainpipe you have to swim to on the map Flooded, another sat on a desk wearing a hard hat on Sovereign, a pair sharing drinks inside a half-closed cardboard box on Overlord, and a particularly stubborn one nailed inside a suspended pipe on Siege that's basically impossible to reach without spectator mode.
Poke around a shattered office trophy cabinet during the 'Struck Down' mission and you'll find a Rupee-shaped award engraved 'Awarded For: Most Bushes Cut And Pots Smashed', a cheeky nod to Zelda dungeon habits, sitting right next to a TARDIS-shaped trophy that reads 'Awarded For: Largest Interior With The Smallest Exterior'. There's even a third one poking fun at the Mayan apocalypse predictions that never came true.
In Extinction, there's a motel sign reading 'GIL'S LODGE MOTEL' that isn't just set dressing. Shoot specific letters on it in the right order to spell out LOL, and for the next couple of minutes every Cryptid your squad kills will burst into a shower of golden alien plush toys instead of the usual gore.
Wedged into a hidden spot along the shipping containers on the Freight multiplayer map is a tiny visual pun: a stop sign, a hammer, and a clock lined up in a row. Read them left to right and you've got 'Stop, Hammer, Time', a sly little tribute to MC Hammer that you'd only ever spot by wandering into spectator mode.
The Warhawk multiplayer map has a full set of garden gnomes tucked away in awkward corners, on top of water towers, wedged near dumpsters, perched on buildings, thirteen of them in total according to players who went hunting. Several are so well hidden that spotting them properly means dropping into spectator mode rather than just running the map.
Near the Federation spawn on the Prison Break multiplayer map, up in the tree canopy close to the waterfall, sits a monkey that looks distinctly unimpressed with the gunfight happening beneath it. It's an easy one to walk right past if you're not looking up.
Eminem contributed an original track called 'Survivor', featuring Liz Rodrigues, that was used to soundtrack one of the game's multiplayer trailers. Some players think the GIL'S LODGE MOTEL sign in Extinction is a wink at Gilbert's Lodge, a real family restaurant in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, where Eminem is said to have worked before his rap career took off. An instrumental version of the track also quietly plays over a radio during the 'Federation Day' campaign mission.
The four map packs planned for the Ghosts season pass were named Onslaught, Devastation, Invasion, and Nemesis, and if you line up the first letter of each one, they spell out ODIN, the exact same name as the orbital superweapon that anchors the game's campaign story.
The Devastation DLC pack didn't just add new maps, it let players suit up as the Predator himself as a playable character, complete with cloaking and that unmistakable clicking sound. It wasn't the franchise's first nod to the Predator films either; the base game already had a sign reading 'Slackjaw Tobacco' on the Warhawk map, a reference to the character Blain.
