USD ($)
EUR (€)
Video games are great. You know it. I know it. Your granny’s dog knows it. But what makes a great video game even better? Secrets!
We all love a good secret in video games. Those juicy little things that developers add in just for the inquisitive amongst us to discover. From the mysterious little jingle that would play when you find a hidden nook or cranny in the original Tomb Raider (shout out to fellow oldies here); to the terror of facing down the hidden Nameless King in Dark Souls 3 (stay tuned for a future feature on secret bosses!). There is something special about discovering something off the beaten path.
And in that vein, here are our picks for the best secret areas in the worlds of gaming.
Nier Automata – Dan Hilton
So, if you know me at all, you may know that Nier Automata is one of my favourite games of all time. The storytelling in this game is second to none, not only from a narrative point of view but from a phenomenal world-building point of view. This game is a masterclass in how interacting with a world can tell the most powerful of stories. So, in Nier Automata there is a character that gets introduced to you as the ‘comic relief’ character – Emil. Emil is a skeletal/mechanical head that attaches itself to a shopping cart that darts around the area and serves as the game’s merchant. True Nier fans will know though that Emil was a character from the original Nier back on the PS3 and will know how tragic his story is.
Emil joins your party as a young, innocent lad in the original Nier (and subsequently the remake Nier Replicant). He eventually ends up merging himself with his sister to free them both of their respective ‘curses’. He then ends up with a creepy, skeletal-like body. He takes to the other protagonists of the game as the family he never had. The main protagonist is trying to free his daughter (or sister if playing Replicant) from the Black Scrawl – a disease that is killing her slowly. She reads a story about a rare magical flower called a Lunar Tear that can grant any wish, so she asks you to locate one. Her wish is to free you of the burden of trying to save her. And so, when Emil joins your party, he joins the quest to find this mythical flower that is so rare, that only a few people have ever seen. Spoilers: no matter what ending you receive; she is never cured. Ever.
Fast forward to Nier Automata 10,000 years later, and we find Emil again as this comic relief character. He is cursed with almost immortality. We learn that after Nier, he single-handedly took on an entire alien invasion. He has the ability to replicate himself, but only when he does, his memories are thinned between himself and the copy. In order to fight the invasion, he fought for 100 years alone, duplicating himself 85,943,258 times to try and win the first machine war. It was futile though as at the time of Automata, we are fighting the 14th machine war. We learn that Emil continues to be the innocent, pure person he is during that whole time, even though he has lost all his memories – and thus, his mind.
After a series of optional quests to help Emil collect a few rare flowers, and after upgrading all your weapons to the max, he gives you a key to where he lives. And where is it that he lives? In a preserved area buried way underground, in the little make-shift shack that once belonged to a party member from Nier, surrounded by a cultivated field of Luna Tears. After having his memories and mind totally wiped; after fighting a war that lasted 100 years; after humans have long since departed; after technically dying 85,943,257 times; and after surviving for 10,000 years: he is still, desperately searching for a cure to save the little girl he once knew.
And that is how you create the perfect hidden area. It is such an emotional scene, and one you only get the full effect of if you have played the game before it and are totally invested in the characters. It genuinely brings a tear to my eye.
Diablo II – Jack Oven
Diablo II is a game with a grim premise: the lords of hell, led by Diablo himself, are seeking to reunite and finally conquer the human realm. It’s not necessarily a world that lends itself to the concept of a fun cow-based easter egg, but therein lies the genius. You’ll have to fight your way through the twists and turns of the main game but once Diablo is defeated you can finally create a portal to the Secret Cow Level, or as it’s otherwise known, ‘Moo Moo Farm’.
The level manages to keep the atmosphere and the style of the main game, but in place of horrifying demons and skeletons, you are faced with wave after wave of possessed cows! Fight through enough of them and there’s even a cow king with additional resistances and attributes, who drops some higher-level loot for players who can reach and destroy him.
The Secret Cow Level came about as a response to rumours of an easter egg in the first Diablo game, supposedly triggered by interacting with some background bovines. In fact, there was no such hidden level in the first game, but the developers enjoyed the rumour so much that they added the Secret Cow Level to Diablo II. It became something of a running joke that the devs would deny the cow level’s existence, and even now fans are searching for a way to reach the Moo Moo Farm again in the recently released Diablo IV. Nods and references can be found in other games outside the series too, with World of Warcraft getting its own cow level in 2017 and Goat Simulator featuring a level called the “Not So Secret Cow Farm”.
The Secret Cow Level has become a classic reference for RPG gamers, and even today when playing the remastered 'Diablo II: Resurrected' the fun of wading through the herds…ahem, hordes...of bovine attackers is still a brilliant juxtaposition to the bleak and dark tone of the main plot.
Bloodborne – Dan Hilton
My second entry will be much shorter to compensate for my lengthy first one. And ironically, this one is on my list for the total opposite reason than the first one. Another reason why a secret area can stand out so much is when it tickles your brain. And in a game that is built upon mystery, the thing that makes your brain tingle the most is more mystery.
After you think you know what is going on in the beast-infested story and the chthonic god-inspired bosses; you may come across this hidden area. Needing to make a series of questionable jumps and drops onto a small ledge, it is tricky to find. The door leading to the area looks like an inconsequential door, one that looks like just part of the scenery. This area in question is almost a carbon copy of the Hunter’s Dream, your safe area for the whole game. But why?
The doll that levels you up is also here, but she is dead. The area feels totally off, and wrong. Why is this area here? What is it for? Was it a previous rendition of the dream? And why the heck is there a third of an umbilical cord here!? What the hell is going on!?
This area literally only gives you more questions in a game that is layered with questions. And it stands out to me even after years have passed since I last played it.
Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald – Lauren Skinner
The best secret video game locations in Pokémon are ones that players really have to really go off the beaten track to find. What about Cerulean Cave in Kanto, where you find the imposing Mewtwo? Or the Whirl Islands in Johto, where Lugia has made its home?
My absolute favourite is the Sealed Chamber in Hoenn.
As a kid, opening the Sealed Chamber was truly a mystical journey. To even find the entrance, you need to Dive in a specific spot on Route 134—tougher than it sounds due to all the water routes in Hoenn—and follow an underwater path until you find braille carvings on the wall.
Only the original instruction manual could save you now. I spent ages translating the braille from the manual and felt so clever when I realised the text was telling me to “Go up here”.
In the chamber, there are mounds of braille messages to decipher—and you’d better have Dig at the ready. Not only this, but upon translating “First comes Wailord, last comes Relicanth” (or vice versa, depending on your version), you had to find these elusive Pokémon and put them in the right places in your party to open the Chamber for good. These Pokémon, as a whale and coelacanth respectively, represent Hoenn’s theme of the relationship between the land and sea, and give an air of mystique that my excited young brain loved.
What happens when you do all this? Well, listen out for a distant rumbling: the resting places of Legendary giants may now be open…
This hidden area ties into the foundational excitement of a Pokémon game—uncovering brand new Legendaries—and tests young brains with a potentially brand-new mechanic that reflects the real world. It’ll always stick out in my mind as an area that really rewards exploration and perseverance.
Lego Star Wars II – Dan Hilton
My third entry for this list is here for vastly different reasons than my first two. This one is here for one simple reason – its damn fun! It is the LEGO city map from Lego Star Wars II.
This level was unlocked in the original game back on PS2 and was included in The Complete Saga later on. To access the level, you basically needed to 100% complete the game, and then you would get to trawl through this little village made out of Lego. After playing through the Star Wars story and going through the whole game again in order to mop up all the collectibles, it was such a fun reward.
You basically get to stomp around the Lego village causing utter destruction in all kinds of fun and interesting ways. Through using your lightsabre, to the force, to driving vehicles and stomping in an AT-ST.
Your goal for this level is to just smash things and cause chaotic fun in a quest to collect 1,000,000 studs. It is the kind of unlockable you just don’t see anymore. It was designed just to be inherently fun and to make you smile. Such a pleasant little 30 min long adventure to sign you off after spending so long playing through the main game.
Credit Roll
And there you are folks! 5 hidden areas in games that left us with a variety of memories. Games that include these kinds of experiences always live on in our memories for longer than games that don’t go that extra mile. I hope you enjoyed the list. Get out there and find some hidden areas of your own! Happy gaming!