Open-world titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt like to pack their games with easter eggs. Obviously, pop culture references tend to feature quite heavily, especially in The Witcher 3. Music, much like literature, is very pervasive when it comes to easter eggs in video games. Sometimes, it takes sharp eyes and open ears to spot them.
There's a lot of content to take in while experiencing The Witcher 3, especially if it's a player's first time. Locating these musical references isn't always easy, but finding them should make most players smile when they do. With a series like The Witcher, exploration is almost always rewarded.
10 It's Raining, It's Pouring
The first area open to exploration in The Witcher 3 is White Orchard. The villagers are on edge due to the recent Nilfgaardian invasion and the subsequent occupation. An example of this unease can be witnessed when Geralt overhears a child singing a popular nursery rhyme.
Near the notice board, a child can be heard blithely singing an altered rendition of the famous nursery rhyme "It's Raining, It's Pouring." Some of the phrases from the original are swapped out for new ones that poke fun at Emhyr var Emreis. The child's father quickly puts a stop to this, fearing retribution from the occupiers.
9 Girls Just Want To Have Fun
Geralt meets a lot of interesting people throughout his travels. One of these individuals is Rosa var Attre, the daughter of the Nilfgaardian ambassador. She asks Geralt to provide her with fencing lessons, to which he can agree. She immediately proves to be a handful with her immature antics, even for an experienced witcher.
During the quest "Fencing Lessons," Rosa will trick Geralt into lowering his guard. She runs off on him, forcing Geralt to give chase. He will tiredly remark, "Girls just want to have fun." This, of course, is a reference to the famous song popularized by Cyndi Lauper in 1983.
8 Jim Morrison
The Blood and Wine DLC adds plenty of new areas for Geralt to explore in the Duchy of Toussaint. One interesting location is the Mere-Lachaiselongue Cemetery. The names and epitaphs on the various graves can be inspected, one of which reveals a rather interesting reference to a music legend.
The inscription reads "Jymm Morrisonn: Conjuror. Half man, half lizard." This refers to Jim Morrison, the lead vocalist of the 1960s rock band, the Doors. One of Morrison's nicknames during his lifetime was The Lizard King. The gravestone in The Witcher 3 pokes fun at this fact. His name is also mangled in a very unsubtle fashion.
7 Stranger In A Strange Land
Not everybody appreciates the presence of a witcher in their town or inn. When Geralt runs afoul of some of the locals in Arinbjorn, he eventually ends up in prison as part of the "Stranger in a Strange Land" quest. The name of this quest should sound familiar to fans of heavy metal.
"Stranger in a Strange Land" is also the name of a song performed by Iron Maiden, a popular metal band of the 1970s and 1980s. The title of the quest is fitting considering Geralt's status as an outsider among many of the inhabitants of Skellige.
6 Great Balls Of Fire
While visiting Beauclair, Geralt may be asked to investigate a case involving stolen art. The statue of Reginald d'Aubry has been vandalized, his lower masculine extremities having been stolen. It starts a quest titled "Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Granite!"
The name of the quest is an allusion to a song by Jerry Lee Lewis called "Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire." The quest in The Witcher 3 humorously swaps out the word "fire" for "granite," which refers to the statue's missing pieces of anatomy.
5 Hungry Like The Wolf
Like most open-world RPGs The Witcher 3 is filled with plenty of nameless NPCs. These beings help fill in the world, but otherwise don't play a major role in terms of the story. They're given a few lines of dialogue to make them appear less like robots and more like actual people going about their day.
One of the lines a random NPC might say is "I'm hungry like a wolf." One of the most popular and recognizable songs performed by the English band Duran Duran is called "Hungry Like the Wolf." In the case of the NPC the phrase should probably be taken a bit more....literally.
4 Material Girl
Novigrad is a city where most kinds of vices can be obtained rather easily. The brothel known as Crippled Kate's is a location that's featured in a handful of different quests. Once again, one of the random lines spoken by the generic NPCs that populate the establishment references another famous 1980s music star.
In the brothel, one woman can be overheard saying "It's a material world, and I'm a material girl." This phrase is actually a set of lyrics featured in Madonna's 1984 single "Material Girl."
3 Don't Eat The Yellow Snow
Loading screens in video games often provide helpful tips and words of wisdom. Sometimes. Many of the loading screens in The Witcher 3 do provide some helpful advice. However, there's one in particular that doesn't exactly help the player with anything.
The loading screen will read, "When the time of the White Frost comes, do not eat the yellow snow." In reality, this is actually a clever allusion to Frank Zappa's 1974 single "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow." It's the type of advice that won't exactly get a lot of usage while playing The Witcher 3.
2 Dead Man's Party
In the Hearts of Stone expansion, Geralt is tasked with showing Olgierd's brother Vlodimir the time of his life. The biggest challenge with this endeavor, however, is that Vlodimir is actually dead. It's all part of a quest titled "Dead Man's Party."
"Dead Man's Party" is also the name of a 1986 single by the band Oingo Boingo. One of the lyrics in that song references "a dead man over my shoulder." In Geralt's case, the dead man Vlodimir ends up taking possession of him. In a sense, he looms over Geralt's shoulder.
1 Jeepers Creepers
One of the most distinguishing characteristics of a witcher are their cat-like eyes. Most people who encounter them tend to find this feature unsettling. For Geralt, it lends itself to his already significant intimidation factor. Don't be surprised to overhear certain NPCs make a comment about them.
Children will be rather blunt about it. Some will exclaim "Jeepers Creepers, where'd ya get those peepers?" Although the aforementioned "peepers" refer to Geralt's strange eyes, the phrase itself is part of a title from a famous song of the late 1930s, namely "Jeepers Creepers." Louis Armstrong's version is perhaps the most well-known rendition.