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Before landing on the battle royale route, Treyarch had actually been building a mode called Career meant to continue Black Ops III's story, set in a post-apocalyptic 2070s and built around 2v2 combat between two rival factions. It got scrapped in early 2018 over technical issues and rough playtest feedback, which is what opened the door for Blackout to take its place.
Steven Knight wrote Peaky Blinders not long after directing Jason Statham in the film Redemption, and reportedly wanted him for the show. Statham's schedule wouldn't allow it, which might have been for the best given how central a convincing Brummie accent is to the whole thing.
When Steve mutters "Hail Hydra" to get the scepter off Sitwell, it's not just a throwaway gag - it's a direct nod to the Secret Empire comic run, where the real Steve Rogers turns out to be a sleeper agent for Hydra and uses that exact phrase to prove his loyalty.
A lot of the team behind this game had also worked on the original trilogy back when they were younger, and came back to it as parents themselves. Christopher Judge has described playing Kratos in this story, a father learning to actually show up for his son, as something close to an apology to his own children.
Tucked away in Winter Contingency is a tiny, scaled-down Skirmisher model that takes two players working together to actually reach. Once the civilians clear out of the building near your objective, a crouch-jump onto a ledge gets you close enough to spot it.
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.
Giving Claude a voice would've meant motion-capturing dialogue at a scale that just wasn't practical back in 2001, so Rockstar kept him mute early on to save themselves the headache. It wasn't until Vice City came around that a talking protagonist was even considered.
That closing credits sequence where each actor's name appears over a still of their character wasn't a random stylistic choice - the filmmakers have said it was directly inspired by the way the original Star Trek TV series used to roll its cast credits.
Keep an eye on your fireteam roster in a few missions and you might spot a soldier tagged 'MRTY,' with 'O-Donnell' printed underneath. It's a little in-joke honouring Marty O'Donnell, the composer behind the game's score and pretty much the entire Halo sound.
In the game, Joel finds a devastating note written by Frank to Bill before Frank takes his own life. The HBO show flips the whole scene around - it's Bill who leaves the letter, addressed to whoever finds his house after he and Frank die together. Same heartbreak, told from the opposite direction.
