Do video games take themselves too seriously these days? It seems a while ago that we were discovering weird, silly little in-jokes and hidden details within games, more commonly known as "easter eggs" (due to their hidden nature and often difficult-to-find nature). 

It's fun to go down a nostalgic rabbit hole and revisit the whimsy behind these hidden gems, alongside their rich history. It's a good reminder not to take things seriously all the time, and that a good easter egg hunt can be just as fun for players.

The first known easter egg holds some interesting history - Remember Adventure, on the Atari 2600? Released in 1980. Within a secret room that was difficult to get to, players could find the name of the game creator written in 8-bit glory - Warren Robinett. The creator put this here during a time when Atari didn't typically give creators credit for their work. Giving yourself a secret credit screen is pretty cool, and this paved the way for easter eggs, as a homage to this first one. Since then, easter eggs have gotten more complex and wacky.

Doom also holds some iconic easter eggs that helped popularise the practice - both new and old games make an effort to hide something fun. 

From the original Doom 2 comes the iconic "head of Romero" - in which players could find the gory severed head of lead developer John Romero, impaled on a spike, hiding within the icon of sin. players could No-clip (using code idclip) to find this gruesome detail. Allegedly, Romero had no idea that this was in the game until it was too late to take out, and history remains. Similarly, the audio clip that plays when meeting the icon of sin is simply a reversed audio file, saying simply "To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero." - makes more sense when you realise whose decapitated head is hiding behind the icon of sin!

As a little bonus fact, did you know that if you open the console in Doom 3, and type any of the original cheat codes (such as IDCLIP, IDDQD, or IDKFA) a text line pops up saying "your memory serves you will!" a fun little nod to the older games.

The "dog ending" in Silent Hill 2 is a perfect example of the kind of quirky, weird easter eggs we know and love. Obtaining it was no easy feat either, requiring every regular ending (Leave, In Water, and Maria). With these on the same save file, you'd grab a key from a doghouse in a yard near Jack's Inn, head to the Nightmare Lakeview Hotel, and enter the observation room on 3F. Once ALL of that was done, the infamous dog ending played. 

The sheer absurdity of this in a horror game was iconic - the idea of a dog (named Mira by the way) being behind all the events in the game, after all the work needed to reach this ending, it felt aptly silly. 

↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A. You know what this is. but JUST in case you don't - the "Konami Code"! Another famous piece of gaming history, implemented by Kazuhisa Hashimoto, who was developing the home port of the 1985 arcade game Gradius. Finding it too difficult, he made the code to give himself a little boost - a full set of power-ups right from the get-go. He forgot to take the code out when finalising, and it remained in the final product. When players found it, it got shared quickly (naturally), and the rest is history. Nowadays, the code is still referenced in media of all kinds, a testament to its usefulness.

And now for one that's not exactly an easter egg, but it certainly blew a lot of young minds when first experiencing it - Psycho Mantis, from Metal Gear Solid, and his uncanny ability to read your memory card!

An amazing gimmick that, at the time, was mindblowing. Having a fictional character interact with our real world in a very... invasive way, by seeing what other games save data was present, and reacting accordingly, particularly at other Konami games. but the fourth-wall breaking didn't end there - from making your controller move on its own (it just vibrated) and needing to put your controller in the secondary port to be able to fight him - psycho mantis is the epitome of creative game design, that rarely gets seen these days.

As a little bonus, do you remember the little cheat booklets that would come with magazines? They would always have hints, tricks, cheat-codes and exploits for all sorts of games, right at your fingertips - literally! Nowadays, all these can be found online, but there was something much more endearing about having a little booklet to flick through, hoping one of your games was mentioned!

We want to see more easter eggs and little gimmicks like this again! While we're all for games being serious, it's good to remember to loosen up and remember the fun behind gaming too.

Do you have a favourite easter egg in gaming? Let us know in the comments below!