A Deus Ex Easter Egg Hunt

We often play through games and completely miss the Easter Eggs that developers leave for us to find. More often than not we encounter them but aren’t aware of their significance. Kotaku reader Sam Timmins has been playing through Deus Ex: Human Revolution and has done some research into the Easter Eggs he has found.

“After finding my first Deus Ex: Human Revolution Easter Egg, I decided it could be a fun side quest to collate all the Easter Eggs I found and share them with you all,” he says.

“A lot of these Easter Eggs touch on not only gaming, but also pop cultural references that may have influenced the development team, which gave us the brilliant game that is Deus Ex.”

The Egg: The Three Seashells
Location in game: Hengsha Court Gardens
What is it?: A bathroom with a toilet, no toilet roll on the wall, just an alcove shelf with three seashells.

Where is it from? “DEMOLITION MAN” [1993] , a Stallone sci-fi action movie set in a future “San Angeles”.

[ "No toilet paper. There's Three seashells?!" Scene from Demolition Man: ]

[ Stallone ditches the shells, figures out how to get toilet paper:]

The Egg: Star Wars Episode 9: The Search For More Money
Location in game: FEMA Plant, Detroit
What is it? In an email for “DETWKS0012″ about “Clean up of parking area”, the last line includes:
“P.S: Episode 9 tonight? If so, let’s go early. I hate waiting in lines.”
Where is it from? From the clues of “waiting in lines” and “Episode 9″, it’s not hard to figure out the writer means going to the cinema, that there will be a long queue and that the title includes “Episode 9″.

Star Wars has been adding to the saga since 1977, and fans have asked/demanded a sequel trilogy – Episode 7 to 9 – since the 1990s. (Looks like George – or the new I.P owner – finally gave in!)

The Egg: The Radios’ Music
Location in game: Anywhere with a small radio present.
What is it? Usually you’ll hear a guy bitch and moan much like any talk radio host, but between his rants, you’ll get a random music track. The music tracks are from the soundtrack to “Deus Ex” [2000] !

(In my playthrough, the most commonly heard one is the UNATCO track, heard in the UNATCO base in Deus Ex. This was my favourite egg, since I’ve been a fan of the series since I first got the Deus Ex demo in 1999/2000.)

The odd thing about that? This game is based *before* “Deus Ex”. Temporal Paradox much? Or do the people of 2052 love hits from 25 years ago?
(Well, okay, I guess *I* still like 80s hits…)

The Egg: Robocop [Egg One]
Location in game: Detroit Police Department
What is it? There’s a room for Detective Alex Murphy, namesake for the hero of the “Robocop” saga.
(Robo-what? It’s a cult 1987 movie which grew into a trilogy, TV show, cartoon, comics and games. If you liked “Starship Troopers”, it’s the same genre and writing/directing team.)

The Egg: Robocop [Egg Two]
Location in game: Detroit Police Department, Detective Murphy’s room.
What is it? A fellow officer asks Alex if he’s heard of “this cop movie”.

The Egg: Robocop [Egg Three]
Location in game: Detroit Police Department, Detective Murphy’s room.
What is it? Murphy’s computer contains an email from his wife *Ellen*, about their son *Jimmy*, discussing his partner *Lewis* too.
(The odds of these all being similar to the movie is astounding!)

The Egg: “Forever Alone” face
Location in game: Random places Post It notes are stuck to items.
What is it? A sketch which is part of the “Rage Comics” MEME.

What exactly is it from?: Rage Comics, which can be found on “a series of tubes” as Senator Ted Stevens put it (or as we put it, The Internet).

The Egg: Veronica Mars is still in the Detective business!
Location in game: Brent Radford’s computer.
What is it? An email from user “veronica_m”, giving details on a person Brent was checking out.
Where is it from? “Veronica Mars”[2004] , a TV series about a teen girl detective. In Human Revolution, she would be about 40.

The Egg: Sexy Fun Time (Was Here).
Location in game: (Can’t quite remember. Oh like you can?)
What is it? A computer on a bed, pillow at head height, two sex toys on the sheets, tissues and a pump bottle (of oil? Lube? Mayo?) by the bed. Well, it’s good to know in the future Internet sex shows/video chat friends/recording for your partners will still exist.
Where is it from? Pretty much every pop ad up on The Internet.

The Egg: Blade Runner [Egg One]
Location in game: Deckard’s computer.
What is it? Deckard’s computer, password being “UNICORN”. Of course it is.
Where is it from? BLADE RUNNER [1982] , a cult sci-fi movie starring Harrison Ford, directed by Ridley Scott, a major influence on this game.

The Egg: Blade Runner [Egg Two]
Location in game: A monitor. Or was it a window?(I was pressed for time.)
What is it? A still of the Unicorn dream Decker has.
Where is it from? The cult movie BLADE RUNNER [1982] .

[UPDATE: Kotaku's IT guy, Tad, pointed us to this "John Howard" reference in the game.]


Have you found other Easter Eggs in Deus Ex: Human Revolution? Let us know about them in the comments!