Easter Egg

Easter Eggs are surprise features or bonus content included in the game as a treat for the fans.

These can be major features, such as Diablo 2's Secret Cow Level, but more commonly they are smaller inside jokes. Names of the designers or prominent members of the fansite community used for items or monsters or mercenaries (all of these were found in Diablo 2), for instance.

Official Comments

The Diablo 3 team has not yet revealed any of the Easter Eggs they have planned for Diablo 3 (of course not, or they wouldn't be surprises!) but they've spoken in general terms about wanting to include such surprises and bonuses.

Jay Wilson, August 2008: [1]

We don’t really know at this point. I really like the idea of secret stuff that Diablo II put forward, but it’s not the kind of thing we would decide this early. But if we have something, I can assure people will be happy with it.

I will say the thing I liked about the cow level was that it wasn’t just fluff; there was stuff that you could do there that actually had purpose within the game. The thing I didn’t like about it was that it almost replaced part of the game. And so, if we looked to add something like that, we’d be a little smarter about it. We would want it to have a function within the game, but we wouldn’t want it to replace any core content, which is something that I think the cow level really did.

Diablo II had a lot of little oddities to it that made the experience not as usable. I certainly wouldn’t want things like, ‘Don’t kill the cow king because we’ve got to keep the level open!’ We would avoid scenarios like that. The secret of a cow level is a cool secret. The secret that you’re not supposed to kill the king because you’ll ruin the cow level forever — that’s a bad secret. So we would try to get rid of some of the bad ones.

Blizzcon 2009: [2]

Slashdot: The Diablo franchise is especially iconic for things like easter eggs and secrets. Can we expect the same of depth in Diablo III? Any hints?

Leonard Boyarsky: No, no hints. They wouldn't be easter eggs then. We'll probably drop some hints here and there, maybe post some easter eggs on the web for people to dig out. Maybe some red herrings to send people in the wrong direction, but most of that stuff just comes naturally during development. As you develop areas, these things come up, and we're always throwing around ideas. So yeah, we talk about that all the time, and we are planning on doing quite a bit of that stuff.

They even included some in the Blizzcon demo build itself, in 2009. [3]

Kevin Martens: There's some Easter Eggs.

Leonard Boyarsky: Yeah, there's something hidden in there. It's just fun stuff. It's nothing that the people are going to be like, "Oh my God, I found this thing. I found the fifth class!" Nothing like that. It's just fun little jokes here and there.

Secret Rainbow Level?

Rainbow attack unicorn "fan" art by Bashiok.

The most likely early contender for a secret level style of Easter Egg in Diablo 3 developed shortly after the game was announced. The early fan complaints about rainbows and bright colors that turned into the Art Controversy led to numerous jokes about rainbows, unicorns, happy clouds, and such. The D3 Team parodied this idea with their hugely-popular Blizzcon 2008 t-shirts, and some months later, when Diablo 3 Community Manager Bashiok posted a photoshopped Diablo 3 screenshot featuring a unicorn apparently farting a rainbow that created a deadly "love combo" of slaughtered monsters, the "Secret Rainbow Level" rumors were off and running.

This is entirely speculative, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities. The Diablo II Secret Cow Level got its start in similar fashion; it was just an April Fool's joke for a screenshot, made in response to the persistent Diablo I secret cow level rumors, and there was so much fan reaction and enjoyment that the team went ahead and put it into the game. The D3 Team is under no compunction to include a joke secret level, but Blizzard designers have always shown a good sense of humor, and as famous and enjoyed as the D2 secret level was, they've go to be feeling some pressure to live up to that standard with Diablo III.

Only time, and possibly April Fool's screenshots, will tell.

Diablo Easter Eggs in World of Warcraft

There aren't (yet) any specifically-Diablo 3 Easter Eggs in World of Warcraft. There are, however, a number of Easter Eggs derived from the Diablo series on the whole.

Diablo mini-pet.

The following is quoted from WowWiki.com. [4] This list does not include the dozens of skills, monsters, quests, and other game elements directly derived from Diablo and Diablo 2.

In reference to his demonic form in Frozen Throne, one of Illidan's gag quotes is "Wings, horns, hooves...what am I saying, is this Diablo?"
An item called the King Cow King's Hide.
An item called Wirt's Third Leg.

Diablo Mini-Pet

The first World of Warcraft expansion, the Burning Crusade, added a Diablo mini-pet as a reward for people who purchased the expansion. (Which means that absolutely everyone playing the game today has one.)

This pet follows, is very cute in a fierce sort of way, and has a fire-breathing "rest" animation.

Tyrael Mini-Pet

Mini-Tyrael pet, from WoW:BC.

A Tyrael mini-pet was added with a special conversion code given out to attendees to Blizzard's WWI 2008, in Paris. This code enabled the Tyrael mini-pet, who hovers along after the player, and can /dance, when required.

This was one of the rarest and most sought-after of all mini-pets at the time, with codes selling for upwards of $800 on eBay.

Diablo 3 Easter Eggs in Starcraft 2

Blizzard continued their habit of working in inter-game Easter Eggs, by placing a couple of amusing Diablo 3 items in Starcraft 2.

Diablo Decals

Diablo decals in Starcraft 2.

Decal'ed Marine.

Diablo head decals are amongst the many offered for customizing your units in Starcraft 2. These may be unlocked through achievements over Battle.net, their exact function isn't yet known.

They can be used to customize units on player-made maps, as the example Terran Marine shows. The images were first found on the Battle.net site, on July 18, 2010.

Deckard Cain Achievement

A smaller Starcraft 2 Easter Egg features Deckard Cain's classic "Stay awhile, and listen." line of dialogue as the name of an Achievement. A fan reported on where this achievement was obtained. [5]

This achievement is after you finish the Gates of Hell mission in planet Char. There’s a cinematic right after, then you see an interactive Raynor, General Waterfield and Tychus with a char background. The achievement suddenly pops when that loads. It’s interactive as in you hover the mouse over Raynor, the General and Tychus, and they become silhouette-highlighted, you click them and they have a cutscene-dialogue.

Burning Diablo

Diablo in SC2.

The first and most dramatic is an appearance of a miniature Diablo in a SC2 single-player mission called "The Devil's Playground." Diablo is just a "critter," one of the forms of ambient life, but it's definitely Big Red, though he's small and gloriously burning, the model looks to be the same one used for the World of Warcraft mini-pet.

A screenshot can be seen to the right. See [[6] the original news post] for more details and a movie of the little guy.

Diablo Marine Avatar

Diablo Marine Avatar.

The Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Collector's Edition contains four avatars accessible in the Battle.net Rewards tab, Portraits section. The avatar is titled onscreen as Diablo Marine (Devoted fan).

References