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Mason's mission to decode a mysterious numbers broadcast isn't just a Hollywood invention. Numbers stations are a genuine Cold War phenomenon, shortwave radio channels that read out strings of digits believed to carry coded messages to field agents, and some have never been officially explained even decades later.
San Andreas was the first game in the series to give its protagonist actual RPG-style body stats, letting CJ bulk up, slim down, or let himself go depending on how the player fed and exercised him. It's a system the series never fully brought back in later entries.
There's an unlockable item in this one that pulses whenever a nearby treasure is worth investigating, a handy little nudge for anyone who wants to comb through every corner of the Western Ghats without missing loot.
The Jotunheim murals depicting Kratos's journey never actually use his Greek name. Instead the giants inscribe him as Farbauti, which in Norse mythology is the name of Loki's father, tying the whole prophecy back into who Atreus is going to become.
Japan and Germany didn't get the mission cut, but they did get it rewired. In those versions, if you actually fire on the civilians during 'No Russian' instead of just walking through it, the game slaps you with an instant Game Over screen.
When One Piece Film: Red was gearing up for release, the weekly anime handed its opening slot over to the movie's own theme, 'New Genesis,' for a short run of episodes. It only aired that way in the Japanese broadcast due to licensing restrictions, making it a fairly rare case of a movie song briefly taking over the TV series it was promoting.
Athene's Unholy Grail wasn't always called that. It started out as the Chalice of Discord before Riot renamed it in honour of Athene, a well-known World of Warcraft streamer who reportedly brought thousands of players over into League. Not a bad way to say thanks.
When it launched, this sequel didn't just do well, it smashed the all-time opening weekend record, easily outpacing the previous record holder and pulling in nearly three times what the first Pirates film made on its own debut weekend.
The whole game came together in just 22 months, with a solid 6 of those spent purely in pre-production before the team even got properly stuck into building levels.
Even though Reznov's role in Black Ops II is little more than a cameo, his dog tags are still obtainable as a collectible reward in the Kill Confirmed multiplayer mode. It's the kind of thing only die-hard fans of the character would ever bother chasing down, but it's a nice bit of continuity for a character who barely appears in the sequel's story.
