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At the Fallout 2 launch party, guests were handed a promotional plush gecko stuffed into a tin can, made to look like a bit of wasteland snack food. The original idea was actually 'dog meat in a can', but the team couldn't source a decent dog plush in time, so the gecko got the job instead.
Early on when Drake and Tenzin stumble across a pile of dead wolves in the ice cave, don't rush past it. If you look closely at the blood splattered in the snow you'll spot a single red paw print sitting among the mess, which is actually a nod to the Naughty Dog logo itself, tucked into the scenery where most players never think to look.
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.
In September 2005, a debuff meant to stay contained to a single raid boss, Hakkar the Soulflayer, escaped into the wider world through infected pets. The resulting outbreak spread through capital cities so effectively that epidemiologists later studied it as a real model for how populations react to disease.
Vice City wasn't originally meant to be its own game at all. After porting GTA III to PC, Rockstar started kicking around the idea of a mission pack that would bolt some new weapons, vehicles and missions onto Liberty City. The concept just kept growing until it made more sense as a standalone release, and that's how we ended up with an entirely new city instead of a glorified expansion pack.
Ekko's crew, the Firelights, are shown living in one of the only pockets of Zaun where actual trees still survive, a small hidden patch of green in an otherwise toxic, industrial city. It's a quiet detail that says a lot about how far Zaun has fallen environmentally without needing a single line of dialogue to explain it.
Long before he became a fan-favorite archangel, Tyrael crash-landed on Sanctuary as what looked like a falling star. It was the discovery of his shattered sword El'druin at the impact site that eventually led humanity to uncover the existence of the Nephalem.
As part of the marketing push around launch, Activision teamed up with directors Tony and Ridley Scott to produce a TV programme called Friday Night Fights, built around highlights from MW3 gameplay rather than anything scripted.
The massive stone carving known as Alduin's Wall, which kicks off the hunt for the Dragonrend shout, hides visual references to events from earlier Elder Scrolls games: the Staff of Chaos from Arena, Numidium from Daggerfall, Red Mountain from Morrowind, and an Oblivion Gate from Oblivion, all worked into the carved history of the World-Eater.
Buried in MW3's game files are references to a pair of Spec Ops missions that never made it to the final roster. Nobody outside the studio ever got to play them, and Infinity Ward never said much about why they were dropped.
