The Division: have you seen all these Easter Eggs?
The Division: have you seen all these Easter Eggs?
The Division takes place on a pretty compact map, but it's chock a block with detail. When you're finished admiring the light bouncing off piles of shiny garbage bags or the wear on individual bricks on apartment block facades, why not pause to admire the many cheeky little nods and references Ubisoft Massive packed into Manhattan?
We'll be updating this list as the player base finds more Easter Eggs - send us any you come across!
Shaun of the Dead
Discovered during the closed alpha, this little nod to Shaun of the Dead may have slipped under your radar.
This one is in one of the Echo Intel collectibles you can pick up in Chelsea between 22nd and 23rd Streets. The image above was captured by Redditor Lakupip.
Matt Foley
This one is a nod to the late great Chris Farley's Saturday Night Live character, who lived in a van down by the river and lived on a diet of government cheese.
Redditor Gabe-20 shared the screenshot above. You can find this one in an Echo, too - visit Turtle Bay and search near the corner of 2nd Avenue and East 47th Street
Breaking Bad
It's all about Better Call Saul these days, but unless you lives under a rock with no TV signal for several years you ought to twig to this one. The Echo you need to see the Breaking Bad is on a rooftop near the Wolves' Den safe house in Clinton.
This image was shared by Redditor synchromatik.
Batman
Another early find, this one can be spotted wherever you see missing person fliers - such as right outside the Base of Operations - and packs in references to multiple incarnation's of Batman's arch-nemesis. This image comes from Redditor Lehnsherr.
Arguably related, there are a couple of Phone Recording collectibles called Vigilante, where someone talks about fighting crime and bring justice to the mean streets. If it's not Batman then it's certainly a big fan.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1
There are a couple of references to New York's finest crime-fighting foursome around Manhattan. Michaelangelo's nunchucks can be found in Pennsylvania Plaza on the corner of West 31st Street and 7th Avenue.
Thanks to Redditor OniZombies for this one.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2
Redditor PeaceFrog89 shared this image of Leonardo's swords. You can find these between 5th Street and 43rd Street in - ha ha! - Turtle Bay.
Are Raphael's sai and Donatello's bo out there somewhere too? Probably.
Mr Bean
If you're the sort of person who can watch Mr Bean without curling up into a ball under the couch and repeatedly screaming out of sheer embarrassment, you may recognise this unorthodox mode of transport.
Image captured by Redditor VikingWarriorSkjald. Visit Stuyvesant - The Ward safe house is a good start - and search to the south to find it.
Adventure Time
If this mural isn't a little nod to Adventure Time, it's pretty easily misinterpreted. It's found between 29th and 24th Street in Pennsylvania Plaza.
This was another OniZombies find. The mural stretches quite a way so it's worth checking out for yourself.
Sony of Anarchy
A billboard in Chelsea suggests someone at Ubisoft Massive likes all the same TV shows as everyone else. Look between West 20th and West 21st Street.
With thanks again to the eagle-eyed OniZombies
I Am Legend
This is a subtle reference but if you've recently watched the Will Smith version of I Am Legend, you may recognise this tip of the hat to one of the great New York post-apocalypse stories.
Thanks to Redditor LDHolliday for sharing this image. You can see it for yourself by visiting Grand Central Station in Turtle Bay. There's a story mission there so you shouldn't have trouble finding it; just search to one side of the big statue to spot Fred under some scaffolding.
Doctor Who
The jury's still out on whether this one really is a reference or not, as it seems a little bit of a stretch. Remember the very first episode of the new Doctor Who series in 2005? Killer mannequins.
Could be, right? Search the basement of the Lexington Event Centre in Kips Bay (again, there's a mission here so it's easy to find) to check this out for yourself. Redditor KungenSam shared this image of the scene.
Splinter Cell
The Division's place in the Clancyverse is a bit wobbly - it has no ties to the rest of the canon - but that doesn't mean Ubisoft has forgotten its frankl;y enormous range of Clancy games. Visit the Base of Operations and take a look at what Agent Faye Wong has just lying around her makeshift office.
Lots of people have found this one, but Redditor NickJamesActual took this screenshot.
Ubisoft offices
So: one of the safe houses in Turtle Bay is an Ubisoft office. Visit the Firewall and you'll not only see the Ubisoft logo emblazoned on the walls, but can search around to uncover multiple references to Ubisoft games - a Grow Home character suspended from the ceiling, Grow Home murals and a large For Honor banner.
This one's pretty hard to miss if you visit all the safe houses, but the image above was shared by the prolific OniZombies.
Grow Home and Raving Rabbids
Visit an apartment building on 29th Street close to where it intersects with 9th Street in Pennsylvania Plaza and search inside to find a couple of Ubisoft-branded board games.
This is another image from OniZombies, pretty much the lord triumphant of The Division Easter Eggs at this point.
Greg Miller
Former IGN and now Kinda Funny host Greg Miller, aka GameOverGreggy, gets a little nod in an Echo found on 8th Avenue in Chelsea. Is this a genuine reference or just a coincidence? Could be either, but plenty of people seem convinced, so okay.
Yes, it's another OniZombies screenie.
World in Conflict
You can't expect Ubisoft Massive to reference a bunch of Ubisoft games and not include its own, right? World in Conflict is a 2007 PC-exclusive RTS which reviewed very well indeed.
You can find copies of World in Conflict in any High Low store; go on an Electronics crafting run and you're sure to find one. This image comes from - sigh - OniZombies.
Uncharted
This cute reference is found in Murray Hill. Visit East 36th Street near the Park Avenue Intersection and check out an apartment building. There's an echo on the top floor starring on Nate Dragon - a play on Nathan Drake. The reference is made more explicit by the biographical details - he's a historian who has been involved in museum threats. Thanks to Gearnuke for this image.
I'm not sure why Ubisoft Massive chose to reference Sony's flagship series. Maybe the team has pals at Naughty Dog? Or maybe the fact that the character ls listed as "deceased" is a reference to Uncharted 4's original release date, which would have seen it competing more closely with The Division.