The 10 Coolest 'Halo 4' Secrets and Easter Eggs (So Far)

Ever since players first stumbled on the infamous food nipple Grunt in the original Halo: Combat Evolved, the Halo series has been known for being a treasure trove of hidden easter eggs, secrets and inside jokes. Even Halo's glitches are more fun than those in other games—anyone else remember the insanity of super jumps?

With 343 Industries determined to do right by the series with Halo 4, that wasn't about to change, and in the first couple weeks Halo 4 players have already found a ton of little gems here and there.

While we've yet to locate the Scarab Gun of Halo 4, players have already uncovered at least one big one. How big, you ask? How about the Master Chief's face?

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At the end of the first Halo, the heroic and iconic Master Chief John 117 took off his helmet just as the camera panned away into space. With that, Bungie cemented seeing the Chief's face as a "thing"—something that would forever be teased, and likely never revealed.

But guess what? Bungie ain't in charge anymore. And beating Halo 4 on the highest difficulty (Legendary) finally reveals a glimpse of John's grizzled mug—even if it's just those steely eyes.

We didn't include an image of it, since some people might want to earn it for themselves. But suffice to say: it's…a face.

While we thoroughly enjoyed Halo 4, we've got to admit that we found the story a little bit overcomplicated. The whole thing sort of lacked focus and context, but that may be because 343 hid some of that context at the beginning of the second mission, "Requiem."

Scouring the wreckage after Chief hits the ground reveals not only heavy weapons like the sniper, fuel rod gun and SAW, but also several recordings that help to flesh out the story. On a bit of human ship, there's a recording made by Dr. Halsey regarding Cortana, and there are messages on no less than two Covenant ships—one explaining why the aliens are there, and the other simply repeating the name, "Diii…daaaact…" long before you ever actually meet the Didact in the game.

Halo's developers have frequently hidden small easter eggs and in-jokes in places that are difficult to access or see, including in very small print on weapons themselves. For example: the hippo in Haloprinted on shotgun cartridges, or the SPNKR designation of the rocket launcher.

Halo 4 features another such witticism, this one visible on large TVs when you zoom in on the Spartan Laser heavy weapon. Here we see that the thing's real name is "Big Scary Laser," and that it carries a warning: "Do not look into beam with remaining eye." Hah, like we'd repeat that mistake!

When Conan O'Brien and his sidekick Andy Richter visited 343 Studios and joked about recording dialogue for Halo 4, we had this faint hope that they weren't actually joking. And lo and behold—what should we find in the "Shutdown" mission but the red devil and Richter themselves?

We were delighted to encounter the show-hosting duo, even if the dialogue sounded familiar. Just look around in one of the early areas with lots of marines in it.

Halo's comical Grunts have been celebrating one birthday or another ever since Halo 2's Grunt birthday party easter egg, which granted players who crashed said party a skull to turn headshots into confetti explosions.

That power lives on in Halo 4, and to celebrate, some Grunts and Jackals in the "Composer" mission hold a dance party behind the glass in the area just before the Chief arrives to hop in a mech.

Rooster Teeth's "Red vs. Blue" series owes everything to Halo, but 343 Industries, like Bungie before them, are not above giving back. The fifth mission of the first Spartan Ops episode ("the Cauldron") features a sneaky little easter egg that involves shooting a small radio to hear dialogue from "Red vs. Blue" characters and the machinima show's iconic theme song.

The radio can be spotted by players who look over the barrier just before they reach the ramp. And we've heard there are more throughout the level, though we've yet to find any of them.

If you've ever played a single-player first person shooter with a friend on the couch, then you've probably experienced the pains of constantly having to switch between inverted and normal analog stick orientation.

We won't go into the arguments here (though we will remark that inverted is the correct way to play, suckers). Regardless, it seems real-life players aren't the only ones who experience this issue: check out the two Mantis pilots in the mission "Composer" just before the big vehicular battle to overhear an all-too-familiar conversation.

Since the dawn of graphically advanced online multiplayer games, players have been crouching on one another's faces to imitate the act of dipping one's balls into another's mouth, like a bag of fine black tea in a hot, dead cup of water. Hence: teabagging.

Some developers would rather not acknowledge that this frankly weird practice occurs at all, but 343 instead paid tribute to its fans and all their debauchery. Just send an armor ability hologram out over a dead spartan on the ground and see what happens.

Halo 4's limited collector's edition costs a pretty penny, so despite all the neat extras it included, a lot of players probably erred on the side of caution and went for the standard version of the game. But while you may not get to open it up and admire its shiny metal case and other goodies, at least you can check out your own virtual version in Halo 4.

You can see the easily identifiable collector's edition of the game scattered around the first level, from outside the cryopods where the Chief wakes up to the room where he fights the Covenant boarding parties after assassinating an Elite. Makes us wonder what's actually in those boxes in the game world…

The double rainbow thing is kind of old right now, but old is new, right? That's what 343 seems to think, and either way, it likely didn't take a ton of effort to copy and paste this rainbow an extra time on the level "Reclaimer."

After the Mammoth crosses a river next to a waterfall, if you look around carefully you'll be able to see the double rainbow in all its dual glory. DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE SKYYYY! Ahem.

[via CVG, Gamerant]