Where to find The Division's best Easter eggs
There's more than just man-shooting, gear-grinding, and collectible caps and parkas in The Division. Post-virus Manhattan is also filled with film and TV references, nods to pop-culture, and other Easter eggs (just in time for Easter). Here are some we found, and some others found, and where you can find them for yourself. If you've come across any we haven't, let us know in the comments.
Rick and Morty
Just outside the Base of Operations, there's a wall littered with missing person posters. You might have to scope in to read them, and most are fairly ordinary. There are a couple references in them, however. Like this nod to Rick and Morty, the Adult Swim cartoon co-created by Justin Roiland (whom we recently spoke to about his strange plans for VR).
You can see on this poster the missing person was last seen screaming "wuba luba dub dub." This is Rick's fourth-wall breaking, crowd-pleasing catch phrase on Rick and Morty.
The Joker
On another poster on the same wall, a missing person is named Joker Nicholson, and his description reads "Frequently says 'why so serious'" in a nod to both Jack Nicholson's and Heath Ledger's version of the Batman-hating clown.
Shaun of the Dead
I spotted this Shaun of the Dead reference during the beta. One of The Division's echo zones lets you replay a moment in which Shaun Packham glibly tries to vault a fence, only to have it collapse beneath him, just like in the film. (Similar fence jokes are included in the other two films of the "Cornetto Trilogy," Hot Fuzz and The World's End.) Watch the video above by YouTuber lizfromheadoffice—whose handle is also a reference from the film. You'll find this echo in an alley off 9th Avenue.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Manhattan, as you probably know, is home to a group of turtles. Mutated teenage turtles who are also ninjas. Evidence of their presence can be found at a couple places, such as here at 31st Street and 9th Avenue, where a pizza box ("radical") and two pairs of Michelangelo's nunchucks (or nunchaku) can be found.
There's also a Dumpster with two katanas (Leondardo's weapons of choice) and another pizza box, as you can see in this image taken by Reddit's PeaceFrog89. You'll find that on 43rd Street near 2nd Avenue. I haven't seen any sign of Raphael's sais yet, and I imagine Donatello's staff might be around somewhere too.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Splinter Cell
Right there in your Base of Operations, you can walk up to the desk directly opposite the entrance and see Sam Fisher's distinctive night vision goggles perched on a file cabinet. Unfortunately you can't take them, but let's face it, you'd just scrap them into electronics and use them to build something else.
Breaking Bad
Here we see an echo showing the approximation of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman from AMC's Breaking Bad, a little-known television drama about a chemistry teacher who worked in a car wash and cooked meth with a former student-turned-crook. This echo is located on a rooftop between 49th and 47th Streets just west of 9th Avenue.
I Am Legend
In 2007's post-apocalyptic zombie film I Am Legend, Will Smith plays Robert Neville, one of the few survivors left in Manhattan. To keep himself company, Neville sometimes talks to mannequins, and he freaks out when he finds the one he named Fred has mysteriously moved into the street. Outside Grand Central terminal, you can find Fred for yourself, and freak out in the same fashion (it involved many, many bullets).
Mr. Bean
When I first saw this corpse sitting in an easy chair tied to the roof of a car, I thought maybe it was a reference to National Lampoon's Vacation, when Clark lashed Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) to the top of the Griswold's Wagon Queen Family Truckster after her unfortunate passing. But, it's more likely an ode to Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean. Thanks to Reddit's VikingWarriorSkjald for this one. You'll find it in Stuyvesant, just off the loop of Avenue C.
Blinking Lights?
I'm not sure if this an Easter Egg or not, but Redditor chowdapowa found some flashing lights in the Broadway Emporium that could be random or could be part of a deeper mystery. After we learned of Battlefield 4's impressively complex Easter egg, we wouldn't be surprised if there was more to this. Check out the video above and see what you think.
Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.