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To wield the Hidden Blade, Altaïr had his left ring finger amputated, letting the blade slide cleanly between his other fingers when triggered by a cord-pulled ring. It was both practical engineering and a symbolic rite of passage into the Brotherhood, one later Assassins like Ezio wouldn't have to go through once the design was improved.
The massive portal battle where every hero shows up at once took roughly 1,400 visual effects artists working flat out, and they only had around sixteen weeks to pull it off. Given how much is happening on screen in that sequence, that's a genuinely wild turnaround time.
Remember Badger rambling to Skinny Pete about a Star Trek episode where the crew has nothing to do? Fans loved it so much that an animator actually turned his rant into a proper animated short, which is a pretty rare case of a throwaway scene spawning its own spin-off.
By the time the dust settled, Among Thieves had racked up more than 200 Game of the Year awards from outlets all over the industry, a haul that still gets brought up whenever people argue about the best games of that generation.
A random bit of trivia that always gets a laugh: Penn Badgley's first name reportedly comes from the tennis ball company Penn, not any family name or tradition.
Jagex didn't exactly give players time to get hyped. Dragonwilds went from official announcement to a surprise Early Access launch in just 15 days, which is unusually fast for a spin-off carrying this much weight on its shoulders.
Mario and Luigi watch their own cringey ad back in a place called Punch-Out Pizzeria, complete with newspaper clippings of Little Mac's boxing exploits pinned up on the walls. It's a nice little shoutout to Nintendo's Punch-Out!! series tucked into an otherwise unremarkable diner scene.
Odin and Thor, the two Northern Inuit dogs who played the direwolf pups Summer and Grey Wind, weren't treated like ordinary animal actors. Their owner had them insured for a million pounds apiece, and over the years following the show they went on to meet roughly 400,000 fans through appearances and tours.
Hardy put on around 30 pounds to hit roughly 200 pounds for Bane, but he's only about 5'9', so on top of the muscle he wore three-inch lifts just to look properly imposing next to Christian Bale, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman.
