If there’s one thing gamers are particularly obsessed about in a truly single-minded way, it is dedicated their lives to uncovering secrets left in their favourite titles by canny developers – even if it means ignoring their family/friends/heath/personal hygiene to do so.
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The game which has absorbed most of the attention of self-professed secret hunters this year has easily been God of War – the near-masterpiece of a PS4 title which, to its credit, actually does include a number of cheeky little secrets sprinkled throughout, most of which have been discovered by the community. But at a San Diego Comic-Con panel about God of War, director Cory Barlog revealed something no doubt shocking to the legions of fans who have spent trillions of hours poring over every pixel in the game: there’s still a secret left.
Barlog’s only clue on this was that it is located in game protagonist Kratos‘ house. As anyone who has played it will tell you, the house is question is pretty small, making the concealment of a huge, heretofore unknown secret pretty unlikely. One of the game’s concept artists followed the panel by egging fans on to find that last undiscovered easter egg.
Has anyone found the final #godofwar easter egg @corybarlog mentioned (and gave a clue) at our #ComicCon panel today? #TheHunt is on.
— Joseph Kennedy (@mrjosephkennedy) July 22, 2018
So what the hell is it? If you’ve not played but are keen to do so, this might be the time to alt-tab back to the porn you are watching on company time – because here there be spoilers.
The prevailing theory, as reported over at Kotaku and in about five hundred threads on the subreddit, is that there are four runes carved into the walls of Kratos’ house which spell out the name Loki, which – as you would know if you had played the game to completion – is revealed at the end to be the ‘true’ name/identity of his son Atreus.
Similarly, a half-completed blue tapestry in the house seemingly shows a symbol associated with Loki. It’s suggested it was being worked on by Atreus’ mother Faye before her death, which makes sense given that she is the one who wanted to give him the name Loki in the first place. Here it is, courtesy of Reddit:
The symbols and tapestry being the secret seems to be confirmed by Joe Kennedy, who made the tweet above and presumably knows what Barlog was referring to.
#FayeKnew https://t.co/6TPy9ugZQR https://t.co/SvZkuxXzdw
— Joseph Kennedy (@mrjosephkennedy) July 23, 2018
So, that’s done and dusted, right? Well, not in the minds of God of War secret hunters, who are of the belief that the runes/tapestry are too insignificant to be the secret Barlog referred to in his panel. Their argument is that it’s too much hype for a tiny payoff, basically. So we have to wait for the thumbs up or thumbs down from Barlog himself.
Look, there’s no way these people are ever going to be satisfied. In ten years time, even if Barlog and every single other person involved in the development of this game insist that there are no more secrets left, there will still be fans who say running around a tree in-game a certain number of times unlocks Luigi as a playable character or something.
