Uncharted 4: A Thief's End has been a fan favorite of the series since its release 4 years ago, and it is full of Easter Eggs that relate back to Naughty Dog's other games. For example, the game gives players a chance to play Naughty Dog's critically acclaimed platformer, Crash Bandicoot, for a short section of the game. While this callback is fairly obvious, other references are hidden, but none more so than the newest Easter Egg that was just discovered, with only weeks before The Last of Us 2's official release.
The newly discovered reference is a nod to another one of Naughty Dog's popular titles, The Last of Us, in which players interact with various unique characters and forced to fight off hordes of infected zombie-like creatures. One of the more dangerous enemies in this game are known as Clickers, and these are humans that have been infected for a number of years. Due to the extensive fungal growth on these beings, the Clickers have become blind, searching out prey through a sort of echolocation, which emits a sharp clicking noise. Although Uncharted 4 is based on exploring century-old tombs and searching for treasure, a clicker has somehow entered the world of Uncharted.
The hidden Clicker can be found in an early underwater portion of Uncharted 4, but it blends in with the rest of the environment so closely that players have not noticed it for years. Surrounded by corral, the skeleton of the clicker still retains its unique fungal face, which is the only indicator of what this creature used to be. This hidden clicker was found by a Twitter user known as GermanStrands, and its popularity quickly spread throughout the internet.
Surprisingly, this is not the first Last of Us Easter Egg to be discovered in an Uncharted game. In 2011, with the release of Uncharted 3, Naughty Dog included a newspaper article that mentioned a sort of deadly fungus that was confusing scientists worldwide. However, The Last of Us had yet to be released, and was supposed to be revealed later that year. When the newspaper clipping was discovered, developers claimed that they had forgotten its existence, and had released the game before removing the Easter Egg. Although this most recent reference was more on purpose than that in Uncharted 3, it took longer to find than a newspaper clipping in 2011.
The Clicker in Uncharted 4 does not link the games to the same universe in any way, but rather reminds fans that the two games were made by Naughty Dog. The stories of each game are drastically different from one another that if not for the gameplay, many players might not have noticed the publisher's involvement in both games. As is the case with the aforementioned Crash Bandicoot Easter Egg, Naughty Dog makes a variety of games that continue to excite and entertain gamers. With the release of The Last of Us 2 just around the corner, fans are now expecting more Easter Eggs, and this recently discovered clicker has continued to increase excitement for Naughty Dog's newest game.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is now available for PlayStation 4.