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The game finally fills in a piece of Chloe's background that had only ever been hinted at before, confirming she's half-Indian and half-Australian, which gives her hunt for the Tusk of Ganesh a much more personal weight than just another treasure job.
The finale's title, 'Felina,' is an anagram of 'finale,' but it's also a quiet tribute. A 16-year-old superfan named Kevin Cordasco, who was terminally ill, got to visit set and meet the cast before he passed away — and his name was worked into the episode's credits.
During the Fremennik Trials, there's a way to dodge the combat challenge entirely — a bloke called Thorvald will let you skip it if you bring him five sardines. There's even dedicated dialogue for using the sardines on him directly, except it turns out he was just messing with you the whole time.
In the Strangers and Freaks mission 'The Last One', Franklin meets a hunter who claims he's been chasing a Sasquatch for nine years. That's a deliberate reference to GTA: San Andreas, released exactly nine years before GTA V, where rumours of a Bigfoot sighting first took hold of the community.
Tucked away in a hidden room on the Crossroads map (from the United Offensive-style content) is a giant cow, which most people reckon is a cheeky nod to Saturday Night Live's 'More Cowbell' sketch. Very random, very Treyarch.
Joss Whedon didn't shortlist anyone for Ultron. James Spader was his one and only pick from day one, apparently because Spader's got this weirdly hypnotic voice that can sound calm and menacing one second and dry and funny the next. Spader used his own natural speaking voice for the recording sessions rather than putting on anything artificial.
Early on, the working names for the leads were Joel 'Miller' and Ellie 'Williams,' but Naughty Dog dropped surnames entirely for the finished 2013 game. Fans kept using the old names anyway, and eventually the studio made it official - 'Miller' was confirmed as canon in Part II, and Neil Druckmann later confirmed 'Williams' for Ellie himself.
Sara Sorvad, the orphaned civilian you meet in the opening level, was originally meant to stick around and travel with Noble Team as a science advisor for the rest of the campaign. That thread got dropped early, and she never appears again after Winter Contingency in the final game.
Production designer Arwel Wyn Jones tucked some genuinely eerie details into Eurus's glass cell in Sherrinford. Look closely at the floor and walls and there are scratch marks showing where a toilet, shower, table and bed could all slide out of hidden compartments, meaning she could be left completely alone with nothing visible at all if needed. There's also a round ceiling grate that's a deliberate visual echo of the well she trapped John and 'Redbeard' in as a child.
When the Hot Coffee content came to light, Australia's Attorney-General opened an investigation, and on 29 July 2005 the game actually lost its rating entirely, meaning it couldn't legally be sold there. Rockstar had to submit a cleaned-up version a few months later to get it back on shelves.
