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Months before release, Bungie opened a public multiplayer beta to anyone who bought Crackdown. It wasn't just a marketing gimmick, in the space of three weeks the beta pulled in more than 800,000 unique players, effectively turning early access into one of the biggest live playtests in gaming history up to that point.
Once you've finished the game and unlocked some of the cosmetic outfits, one option for Ellie is a bright yellow tracksuit that's unmistakably lifted from Uma Thurman's Bride in Kill Bill. Given how far Ellie's come by the credits, it's a fitting look for her.
Before Annie became the tiny fire-wielding girl with a bear, she took cues from Lina Inverse, the explosive teenage sorceress from the anime Slayers. Riot originally planned for Annie to be a teenager too, but they eventually settled on a younger child instead, and looking at her now it's hard to imagine her any other way.
Since the original game launched on PlayStation 3, Naughty Dog snuck actual PS3 consoles into the environment as a little in-joke. You can spot one under Joel and Sarah's TV right at the start, and another later inside Larry's TV & Stereo store, complete with a couple of DualShock controllers on a nearby shelf.
The bank heist that opens the game takes place somewhere you can never actually walk to during normal play. The only way to even glimpse the area is by getting a Dodo airborne and flying over it.
Rather than relying purely on models and green screen, the production built two full-scale, functioning ships for the film: real-life versions of the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman that could genuinely sail.
Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, the voices behind Joel and Ellie in the games, both turn up in the HBO series - just not as Joel and Ellie. Baker plays James, part of David's group in season one, while Johnson appears as Anna, Ellie's mother, giving longtime fans a proper nod without any recasting confusion.
The first season was brought to life by Vancouver studio Wind Sun Sky Entertainment under CEO Catherine Winder, using a mix of roughly 80% traditional hand-drawn animation and 20% CG. It's part of why the early episodes have such a distinct, slightly old-school comic feel compared to a lot of modern animation.
On the original release of the game, a spray-painted face is tucked into a rock edge on Mount Chiliad's northern slope, and it bears an uncanny resemblance to Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad. It has nothing to do with the Chiliad mural conspiracy and serves no purpose whatsoever, and in the enhanced version of the game it was quietly swapped out for a drawing of a rooster instead.
The Temple of Trials, the opening dungeon almost everyone complains about, only exists because Interplay's publishers took one look at the finished game and demanded a proper tutorial. The devs had to bang it out in a matter of days right before launch, which is basically why it feels bolted on. It's still one of the most hated openings in RPG history.
