My favorite video game secret occurs during one part of the game Half-Life, where one of the scientists needs to scan their ID to open a door in the complex so that the game can progress.

I was insanely curious as to what would happen if I killed the scientist, thinking that I would most likely be stuck in the game, unable to go through the door I needed to have opened for me. At worst, I'd have to exit the game and restart from a recent save.

I decided to go ahead and give it a try, so I felled the scientist before he could open the door, and sure enough, the door remained closed as I expected.

As I prepared to quit the game, to my complete surprise, a turret emerged from the ceiling and began shooting at me. I kept running around the area, attempting to avoid the gunfire, but the gun always managed to lock in on me and pick away at me, bit by bit until I died.

I thought it was a very clever solution to a potential "dead-end" in the game.

I absolutely love how Dragon Age Inquistion created a letter for you to read at some old abandoned farm house that, basically, tells the story of Plants vs. Zombies inside the Drage Age universe. When I began to read it (and the associated codex, as well) I slowly got a smile that grew into a grin from ear-to-ear. It was just wonderful, and completely unexpected.

_jeb on a sheep and dinnerbone from Minecraft are two of my favorites

My favourite secrets are the strange things you find throughout Superhot, when you explore and parkour outside the usual play area of each level. In many cases, these are plausibly deniable as junk left behind by a lazy level designer. Assets like cars and chairs hover in mid air, or are half-buried in walls or floor. But others are clearly placed for the private delight of people like us. A fairground ride, a collection of typewriters, a shoal of sharks. Or, my favourite, a baffling reference to the already-baffling dog ending of Silent Hill 2.

I am so glad when games are just allowed to be odd.

Well, i think, and my favourite, its Drizzt's Easter Egg is the best! :D in Baldur's Gate Shadows of Amn

I loved Duke Nukem 3D E2L3 Warp Factor - specifically finding the bridge of the Enterprise-D. I was a huge Star Trek fan back then and loved that easter egg! The Really Ready Room was hilarious.

Super Metroid - Save the animals, and watch their escape pod (some pixels move horizontally across the screen) beat the explosion.

It was the first optional achievement that I recall. The first time I had experienced the end of a game being influenced by more than my gameplay, but my decisions. It was a trivial change, but it was based off of actions, instead of efficiency or speed. It most likely instilled my love of side quests over campaign story.

The original Blade Runners reference in Deus Ex : Mankind Divided's soundtrack (Safehouse OST, which plays in Jensen's apartment). You can hear the "Do you like our owl?" lines if you listen to it closely.

The stump disk swap joke in The Secret of Monkey Island (but only the floppy disk version, which came on four floppies).

If you look at a certain unremarkable stump in the maze-like dark forest:

[Look at stump]

Guybrush: Hey!

Guybrush: There's a hole at the base of this stump!

Guybrush: (crouching) Wow! It's a tunnel that opens onto a series of catacombs!

Guybrush: I think I can squeeze through--

[Insert Disk 22 and Press Button to Continue.]

[Insert Disk 36 and Press Button to Continue.]

[Insert Disk 114 and Press Button to Continue.]

Guybrush: Oh, well. I guess I can't go down there.

Guybrush: I'll just have to skip that part of the game.

* Others have mentioned a callback joke in The Curse of Monkey Island (Monkey Island 3), where Guybrush can poke his head through a hole in a tomb and sees this same low-rez pixelly location.

My niece who doesn't play video games was bored one day and asked if I had any games she would like. I fired up Monkey Island remastered because I loved that game as a kid.

We had a lot of fun. On monkey Island when she fell off the top of monkey island she got mad because I told her she didn't need to worry about dieing in the game when she started. When the Easter egg happened we were laughing for several minutes before play resumed.

I loved it in Detective Case and Clown Bot that when you go in one hotel room and walk all the way to the east, you enter a...ZX Spectrum boot screen! :D

"For all your software and networking needs contact TOMO"

I just love how this little piece of spam became a self-reference for a Wadjet Eye game being set in the "Blackwellverse".

I actively try to find it in everyone of their games set in the universe, despite the discouragement of: "TOMO is an illusion. TOMO does not exist. You can not find TOMO. You will fail before you even try."
.

I still want to believe, that one day we'll find TOMO to fix our software and networking issues...

The Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings

In the game, a dead Assassin's Creed character can be seen near the Bastille Gate on a bale of hay.

It feels like the leap of faith is not worth it, almost like playing that franchise over and over again.

One of my favorites was on Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence when you have to battle The End, an elderly sniper who is, to say the least, a bitch to beat. He hides throughout the woods and shoots you at random times. Snore. Well, if you left your PS2 running, or changed the Time/Date settings on your PS2, you could actually beat The End by killing him of old age/wearing him out.

The Justin Bailey code in the original Metroid was the only way I played that game. As a kid I didn't really know what it did other than make it so I could play as a lady.