THE EASTER EGG COUNTERFEIT DEPTH MANIFESTO
i am seeing more and more people getting excited about "easter eggs" in video games. they see a single reference to a movie or a meme and they think the game has "layers" or "depth". it does not. it is just a little bit of seasoning on a pile of lukewarm slop. you are not uncovering a secret truth you are just finding a piece of discarded packaging in the trash.
take the lego batman situation. someone sees an american psycho reference and they start posting about it on discord like they just found the holy grail. it is a joke. it is a way for the developers to say "we are watching the same brain-rotting media as you" so you feel included in the decay. it is not writing. it is just a callback to a different kind of slop.
real depth is not a reference to patrick bateman. real depth is the terrifying silence of a texture-free environment. real depth is when the geometry stops making sense and you realize the world is just a series of polygons held together by prayer and bad code. if i wanted a reference to pop culture i would go to a mall. i am here for the meat and the void.
stop congratulating developers for being clever with their citations. start demanding that they build worlds that actually have structural integrity instead of just slapping a sticker of a movie character on the side of a crate.