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Look closely at WoW's original launch cinematic and you'll notice something missing: no gnomes, no trolls. Both races were added so late into alpha development that they never made it into the trailer, long after the other six playable races had already been locked in.
Near Bleakwind Basin, a skeletal arm reaches up out of a small lake clutching a sword, a nod to the Lady of the Lake handing Excalibur to King Arthur. A second sword-in-stone reference can also be found elsewhere in the game, both playing on the same legend.
The whole battle-at-Osgiliath detour for Frodo, Sam and Gollum doesn't exist in the book at all. It was written purely to give Faramir a redemption arc on screen, and there's even a knowing line where Sam mutters they shouldn't even be there.
Just before Loki and the variants head into the vault, there's a small toy helicopter sitting around with "Thanos" written on the side. It's modelled on a helicopter Thanos piloted in a 1979 Spidey Super Stories comic, a simplified Spider-Man tie-in most people have genuinely never heard of.
Robin Williams was reportedly a keen Alliance player. After his death in 2014, Blizzard added a quiet tribute on an island off the southern coast of Talador: rub the Ever-Burning Lamp there and one of his most famous characters appears.
In one of the very first rooms of Nacht der Untoten there's an old dentist's chair just sitting there. Hold the action button on the wheel at its base and you'll hear the drill start up along with a man screaming. Nobody needed that in a zombie survival map but here we are.
Mario and Luigi watch their own cringey ad back in a place called Punch-Out Pizzeria, complete with newspaper clippings of Little Mac's boxing exploits pinned up on the walls. It's a nice little shoutout to Nintendo's Punch-Out!! series tucked into an otherwise unremarkable diner scene.
Riot's never confirmed it outright, but the resemblance is hard to ignore. Nidalee's whole look and vibe, a jungle-dwelling huntress who runs around with a big cat companion, lines up closely with Nävis, a character from the French illustrated series Wake. Coincidence or quiet homage, nobody at Riot has ever really settled the debate.
