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Back in April 2008, producer Leslie Benzies told The Times that GTA IV's production costs had climbed to somewhere around $100 million. At the time that absolutely smashed the previous record for game development spending, which had been set by Sega's Shenmue at roughly $70 million.
Conleth Hill played the eunuch spymaster Varys, but he wasn't the only Hill on the crew. His brother Roland worked behind the scenes on the show's sound design and racked up three Emmy wins for it as production sound mixer, which is a pretty good family double act for a series about secrets and whispers.
If you're playing with the Wild Wasteland trait switched on, head southeast of Goodsprings early in the game and you'll find a skeleton inside a blown-out refrigerator. It's a direct callback to the moment in the fourth Indiana Jones film where he survives a nuclear blast by hiding inside a lead-lined fridge, except in the wasteland, that plan clearly didn't work out so well.
The flying machine and tank Ezio uses in-game were real Leonardo da Vinci designs, but neither was ever constructed in his lifetime, he reportedly worried about his blueprints falling into the wrong hands and included deliberate errors in his notes.
The weekend exotic vendor Xur, hooded coat, backpack, and unsettling stare, bears a strong visual resemblance to the mysterious Merchant from Resident Evil 4. His tentacled face has also been noted by fans as a nod to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.
Dustin's claim that he has 'no collarbones' actually points to a genuine condition called cleidocranial dysplasia, which Gaten Matarazzo was born with. The Duffers wrote it directly into the show as an explanation for why the character was missing teeth in the earlier seasons, turning something very personal to the actor into part of Dustin's identity.
Early on, Genji and Hanzo weren't two brothers at all — they were a single cyborg ninja hero with a big grab-bag of tricks. Devs realised that was way too much character crammed into one kit, so they split it into two, and honestly the brother rivalry angle works a lot better than one guy trying to do everything.
Nolan had wanted to shoot on IMAX cameras for years, and this was his chance - The Dark Knight became the first non-documentary feature ever filmed with them. Only a handful of sequences got the full IMAX treatment, but it set the template for how he'd shoot every Batman film after.
In its first week alone, the game sold through more than 2.7 million copies worldwide across disc and digital, making it the fastest-selling first-party PS4 title released up to that point.
Glitching into the Palazzo Ducale's private quarters reveals the exact chess position from the cutscene where Carlo Grimaldi assassinated Doge Giovanni Mocenigo, though the candle they played under is oddly unlit, and the sky outside turns blood red, likely an unintended lighting bug.
