It’s kind of inevitable that in-game secrets don’t stay very secret for very long. Gamers are typically a bit obsessive-compulsive about this stuff. But every once in a while, there’s a secret so secret, nobody works it out in the traditional secret space of a month or so. And by the time someone does work it out, everybody’s playing something else, anyway.
I’m going to bet a case of whiskey that you’ve no idea about at least one of these. And if anybody claims otherwise, that case of whiskey is a secret too*.
***WARNING: SPOILER BOMBS DROPPING IN 3-2-1…***
Warden Sharp’s secret office extension in Batman: Arkham Asylum
This one makes the list because it was so well-concealed, nobody knew anything was even there to be discovered, prompting developer Rocksteady to drop a public “coughcoughthere’ssomethingthereguyscoughcough” hint about it six months or so after the game launched.
It doesn’t turn up on the in-game map, it isn’t marked in Batman’s detective vision mode, and it’s not even accessible until after you’ve completed the game.
As you enter Warden Quincy Sharp’s office in the Arkham Mansion, there’s a nondescript, unremarkable, and totally featureless wall just to your left. It’s the one tagged with “NOTHING TO SEE HERE LOL” in invisible neon pink spray-paint.
Slop all your explosive gel on the wall, and KA-BOOM! What’s this? It’s Warden Quincy Sharp’s panic room. Or something like that. Its most significant feature, perhaps, is a map of Arkham City on the wall – which looks for all the world like an in-game map for… Batman: Arkham City. Holy sequels, Batman!
Dead Space spells it out for you
Granted, he was probably somewhat preoccupied what will all those Necromorphs and severed limbs and insidious corporate scheming and everything, but if Isaac Clarke had paid a bit more attention to the game’s chapter titles, the ending might have been a little less traumatic. Or maybe they don’t teach acrostics in space school.
• New Arrivals
• Intensive Care
• Course Correction
• Obliteration Imminent
• Lethal Devotion
• Environmental Hazard
• Into the Void
• Search and Rescue
• Dead on Arrival
• End of Days
• Alternate Solutions
• Dead Space
…And so does Call of Duty: Black Ops
Only, it’s somewhat more subtle. At the start of every chapter, there’s a sort of mission briefing in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. The first line always includes a series of numbers, and a NATO designate. In order, these are:
• 15-18 X-RAY
• 9-19 ROMEO
• 0 ECHO
• 8-5 ZULU
• 4-5-1-4 NOVEMBER
• 20-8-5-18-5 OSCAR
• 23-1-19 VICTOR
• 23-8-15 XRAY
• 14-15 XRAY
• 2-15-4-25 INDIA
• 9-19 SIERRA
• 14-15-20 DELTA
• 8-5-19-1-25-19 ECHO
• 8-5 DELTA
• 9-19 XRAY
Assuming the X-RAYs are to be understood as breaks (and, yes, they are), the NATO designates read: REZNOV IS DED. Then, with some basic alphanumeric decoding (1=A, 2=B, etc.), the numbers come out as the rather more inscrutable: OR IS HE DEAD THERE WAS WHO NO BODY IS WHO NOT HESAYS HE.
With a bit of expert reorganising, punctuation, spelling correction, and contextual assumption (just like a real military despatch!), this turns out as:
Reznov is dead. Or is he dead? There was no body; he is not who he says he is.
But wait, there’s more! Friendly fire is disabled throughout the game – it’s impossible to even aim at an ally. But after escaping Vorkuta, you can shoot and stab Reznov to your treacherous heart’s content. Why? BECAUSE HE’S TOTALLY NOT REALLY THERE. You might’ve known about the warden’s office, you might’ve known about Dead Space’s dead giveaway, you might even have known about Black Ops classified intel – but you did not notice that, did you?
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