Easter Eggs

"A virtual Easter egg is an intentional hidden message, in-joke or feature in a work such as a computer program, web page, video game, movie, book or crossword. The term was coined—according to Warren Robinett—by Atari after they were pointed to the secret message left by Robinett in the game Adventure. It draws a parallel with the custom of the Easter egg hunt observed in many Western nations as well as the last Russian imperial family's tradition of giving elaborately jeweled egg-shaped creations by Carl Fabergé which contained hidden surprises."

- Wikipedia definition of the term

A copy of the book Metro 2033
At the very beginning of the game, in the level "Exhibition", just after you get the weapons at the armory, at the corner between the marketplace and the corridor that leads to the armory, there is a guard sitting down reading a book. If you try to talk to him, he will mention the book you lent him and will ask you to wait some time so he can finish reading it before giving it back. The book in question is a copy of Metro 2033. It can also be found whilst you are riding under the trolley in the "Trolley Combat" level in the baggage area before fighting the Red Army and the Nazis. It is right in your face so it is pretty hard to miss.

In the Redux versions of 2033 and Last Light, copies or posters for the main trilogy of books (2033, 2034, and 2035) can be found in most stations and tunnels.

Annoying Players
A certain guard at Riga station in the Russian dub will break the fourth wall by commenting on the player's persistence after they try to talk to him several times in a row. "No, seriously, what do you expect to hear from an ordinary guard on this station? Do you really have to click on EVERYONE? But for your persistence I will grant you three wishes. Miracles happen, man. You don't believe in that? Too bad. Scram already."

Listen to that quote in Russian:

Battery
Another easter egg is hidden in the textures of a scoped Tihar. The text reads:

''BATTERY. Super powerful energy cell produced by Sushka_invented_it_himself. Made in 4A Games.''

Sushka or Сушка is one of the developers and perhaps the most talkative of the team.

Bioshock
According to 4A Games employees, there was supposed to be an easter egg referring to Bioshock. However, a Big Daddy helmet was cut during location clean up and doesn't appear in the game.

Dmitry Rise
An easter egg referring to DJ Din Rise can be found during the level "Dead City 1", in the building with a sleeping watcher. It's a small photo of Dmitry "DJ Din Rise" Rise on the floor. It was placed as a favor due to Dmitry knowing people from the 4A Games team.

Half-Life
An easter egg referring to Half-Life can be found during the Trolley Combat level, in the room directly in front of the player after the introductory cutscene ends. It is an old skeleton with glasses holding a crowbar, the signature weapon of Gordon Freeman from the Half-Life series. A corpse of Gordon Freeman is also an easter egg in S.T.A.L.K.E.R., a game developed by GSC, former employees of which left the company and formed 4A Games.

Hole Station
Hole Station was modeled after Khreshchatyk station of the Kiev Metro instead of Paveletskaya station of the Moscow Metro. It might be a nod to GSC, who used the likeness of Khreshchatyk in one of their test builds.

Left 4 Dead
An easter egg referring to Left 4 Dead can be found during the Dead City level in the water past, where a demon was feasting on a corpse. It's a severed shriveled hand with a missing thumb, just like one on the cover of L4D.

Mummy
Another easter egg can be found in the Dark Star level. It's a mummy stuck between some logs. According to developers, they didn't want an old model go to waste and added it to the game. The model is called "babka", which is a Russian word meaning "an old woman", "granny" or, derogatorily, "a hag", depending on context.

Screamers
An easter egg referring to a 1995 dystopian science-fiction film named Screamers can be found in the Exhibition level. It's a child telling his father what he wants to get as a gift. His model resembles a Type 3 Screamer "David" from the movie (A weapon system called the 'Autonomous Mobile Sword", an artificially intelligent self-replicating machine capable of impersonating a human). According to pre-release screenshots and materials Sasha, a boy you carry on your back during the level "Child", was supposed to have exactly this model, possibly adding to the fright of those who realize the reference.

Star Wars
An easter egg referring to the Star Wars franchise can be found in the Riga station level in the Russian dub. A retired IT systems administrator begs for a spare MGR and replies with "May the force be with you" if the player agrees. This phrase was used to wish luck or good will, generally when individuals parted ways or the object of the expression was facing some sort of imminent challenge.

Listen to that quote in Russian:

Strugatsky Brothers
An easter egg referring to Arkady and Boris Strugatsky can be found in the Library level in the third room after demons attack. Danila will read the names of the books on a shelf and come across a copy of Roadside Picnic, a book which S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is loosely based on.

Listen to that quote in English: Listen to that quote in Russian:

Subway Cars
Metro train cars in Metro 2033 were modeled after the Metro car type E. Those cars are currently used in Kiev and Saint-Petersburg subways and were used in Moscow up until 2008. In early builds, they had the Ukrainian coat of arms on them.

Wall-E


An easter egg referring to Pixar's CGI animated film Wall-E can be found in the D6 level, near the missile control room to the left from the main screen on the wall. It is an old boot with a plant growing out of it. In the film, the aforementioned Wall-E finds a green plant during scavenging, digs it up, and places it in a shoe.

Avatar
Miller's updated appearance in Metro: Last Light resembles that of Miles Quaritch from James Cameron's science-fiction film Avatar. They even share the military rank of Colonel.

As a side note, it appears that a lot of stalkers in the Metro share the same facial three-clawed scar left by the mutants.

Andrew's Computer
There is a destroyed computer in Andrew the Blacksmith's hideout in the Regina level. There is an axe stuck in the display and a kitchen knife sticking out of the keyboard. It seems that the developers were quite frustrated and tired with certain aspects of the development and left this as a reminder of their lamenting.

Delivery truck
A broken truck on the Bridge level has a slogan written on the side that says "Доставка хрени к вам домой", which literally means "Delivering crap to your home".

Developer portraits
All propaganda posters and pieces of art stolen from the museums by the bandits in Metro: Last Light were edited by the developers to include 4A Games team members.

Fishing gone wrong
An unfortunate fisherman in Venice gets more than he bargained for. There was a reason why Fedor was urging the slacking off guard to lock the gates before something nasty slips into the station just a few minutes before.

Getting drunk
Artyom can order a local special called "Bullet" in the Fishing Float bar in Venice. Since he cannot hold his liquor, this results in him destroying the furniture and scaring off the customers after consuming three shots of moonshine in a row. He then wakes up with the lady from the bar near a pig pen.

Artyom can return and pay the stressed-out owner of the bar a hundred MGRs for repairs, or just walk away.

Nesting boxes
Towards the end of the Revolution level, Artyom can come across a set of four locked boxes placed one within another in a manner similar to nesting dolls. A matryoshka doll, also known as Russian nesting/nested doll, is a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other.

Stalker
Artyom can stumble upon two scavengers resembling Strelok and Doctor (Doc) from S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl in the Theater station. They will converse about having wasted all of their money from the last job on drinks and plan their next trip to the surface, hoping to one day be promoted to full-fledged Stalkers. If Artyom lingers around for a bit, they talk to him directly.

"Ha! A stalker! Man, if you ever need help with, like, carrying something heavy from the surface... We'll be ready to join you in a couple of days. We won't charge much!"

There Will Come Soft Rains
Posters of the Metro 2035 book found in Metro: Last Light are designed to resemble the robot from There Will Come Soft Rains, an animated film based on the short story of the same name by science fiction author Ray Bradbury. The story portrays a scene of obliteration, in which the human race has been destroyed by a nuclear war.

Yuri Semetsky
Well-known Russian fan and editor Yuri Semetsky was, for several years, repeatedly killed in almost every new Russian science-fiction book. This became so popular that writers started to compete in the most imaginative ways to kill him, and some young authors were even told by editors to remove killing Semetsky from their books because they were too junior for it.

This was allegedly due to the fact that a fortune teller once told Semetsky that he was to die at 43, and his writer friends started this campaign to save him from this fate - there is a Russian folk belief that if a person once thought dead actually is not, then he or she would live a long life. So, when he topped 44 and was still alive, this thing generally stopped.

He is mentioned several times in Metro: Last Light. A group of bandits tell a horror story about him, he is guarding the Venice gates and dies during the Quarantine level in the 8th block. He often claims that he will outlive all of us.

White Sun of the Desert
One of the many doors you can knock on in "Venice" will kick off an overheard word-for-word recreation of the dialogue between Vereschagin and his wife from White Sun Of The Desert, a cult Soviet western-like action movie, filmed in 1969 ("Caviar? AGAIN? Woman, can't you feed me some bread at least?").

Universe of Metro 2033
It is known that Dmitry Glukhovsky's book gained a massive fanbase. In late 2009, the author started a group project called Universe of Metro 2033, allowing other writers to create their own stories set in his world. To date, it contains over 90 books in a number of languages and many more in development. Before Lesnitsky and his fellow Red Army soldiers breach the Church in the Undercity level, listen to the conversations between two vendors and one of them will comment that he heard that someone flew to Piter (St. Petersburg) and "Apparently there are survivors in London too...". The first line is a reference to Vladimir Berezin's Road Signs (Путевые знаки), where the novel's protagonist Sasha - with a small team (a body guard called Mirzo and a researcher nicknamed "Mathematician") - take off with a "Yak" model plane to St. Petersburg. Berezin was one of the first writers to take part in Glukhovsky's project. The second line is a reference to Grant McMaster's Britannia.

Autumn Train Stations
In the Autumn level, the train will pass a train station to the right. If you look at the right time, you can spot a man standing on the station waiting for a train. This is assumed to be an escaped slave from the previous level. You can also spot a dog to another train station that passes on the left.

Caspian-1 Comms Centre Storage Room References

 * The spider infested "Caspian-1" Satellite Communications 1991 Coup attempt.jpge has a storage room with containers for satellite images; one for each month of the year, from 1970-2019. Some of the slots contain various artifacts instead of a document storage tube.
 * The August, 1991 slot contains a bottle of alcohol, and after taking a drink from it you can hear creepy laughter in the background. It is believed to refer to the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt.
 * The September, 2001 slot contains a toy airplane thatSeptember 11th Easter egg.png represents the September 11th attacks in New York.
 * The March, 2010 and May, 2013 slots are reserved for the previous two video games, matching the release dates for Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light.

COCK Condoms
A noticeable Easter egg can be found at the Institute in Novosibirsk during the final chapter of the game. A table besides a collection of bodies will show a pile of condoms, branded as COCK.

Dark Ones
There are multiple locations in the game where the Dark Ones can be seen for a few seconds:
 * In the Caspian level, If Artyom smokes from the hookah found somewhere to the north of the map, he will hallucinate and see a Dark One appear from the TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFYX_uByqyc
 * Atop a building in Novosibirsk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhrXcErvixc
 * Main menu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWIWGG0LfqE

Gordon Freeman
A dead body with the likeness of Gordon Freeman can be found in the spider-infested bunker in the Caspian. The developers have stated that Half-Life was a major inspiration for them while making the games.

Lord of the Rings
An obtainable postcard can be found in the Moscow level where someone has drawn the tower of Barad-dûr (also where the Eye of Sauron resides) atop a picture of an unbroken Ostankino Tower from before the war.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
During the Volga level, when meeting Krest, he will inform Artyom that there are bandits at the depot. While there, a flag with a skull and the word "ЗОНА" (Russian for "Zone") can be seen. These are references to S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky, where the bandits established their main base in a railroad depot, and the series is set in a place called "The Zone."

Star Trek
During negotiations at the top of the Oil Rig in the Caspian, the Baron uses the phrase "Live Long and Prosper", a common Vulcan saying in Star Trek.

Star Wars
After leaving the Caspian Sea, Tokarev may comment about all the sand in the area, while cleaning weapons. He will remark: "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere." This is a reference to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, where one of the main characters, Anakin Skywalker, says this line. It has become a popular internet meme.

Space Oddity
When Sam goes to the armory after talking with Tom, one of Tom's men is testing a radio. He states that it is time to "check ignition", and then says "This is Ground Control to Major Tom...". The other guard replies "your circuit's dead, there's something wrong..." when the test fails. The first guard tries again with the phrase "Engines on!". When this also fails, the other guard jokes by telling the first guard "You really made the grade!". These are lyrics to the song "Space Oddity" by David Bowie.

Universe of Metro 2033
After leaving the Captain's second base, two brothers who each believe the other cheated them out of their car dealership can be encountered. The name of the dealership is "Right to Drive", and the appearance of the brothers is a reference to the "Constitution of the Apocalypse" trilogy of books by Denis Shabalov. Each of the books title's begin with "The Right to", and the main protagonist of Shabalov's books Danila Dobrynin resembles the brothers, wearing a gas mask similar to one of the brothers on the cover of The Right to Life, and without his gas mask resembles the other brother, as seen on the cover of The Right to Use Force.

Chernobyl Television Show
One of the walls has "3.6 R" written on it, with a "OK?" below. This is a reference to the HBO television series Chernobyl, in which a reactor of the titular power plant explodes and the radiation level was wrongly reported as 3.6 roentgen. In truth, 3.6 roentgen is the highest measurable level and the radiation level is far higher, similar to how Novosibirsk was portrayed as having off-the-charts radiation.

Mission Impossible
Upon entering the Novosibirsk Satellite Communications Center, a red tape recorder with a message from General Anatoly Vinogradov can be found. The tape contains the orders of the last team of OSKOM stalkers sent into the bunker, and at the end General Vinogradov says "this message will self destruct in five seconds." In the original Mission Impossible TV series the shows protagonists would receive that episodes orders on a cassette tape, which always finished with a warning that that the tape would self destruct after being played. Notably, unlike every other tape recorder found in Metro Exodus and its add-ons this recorder is the only one where the message cannot be replayed.

The Avengers
When the blind one enters the room where Khlebnikov is trapped with nosalises, it grabs one that has grabbed onto the colonel and slams it into the floor multiple times, similar to how in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie The Avengers, the Incredible Hulk grabs Loki in Stark Tower towards the films climax and swings him into the floor over his head multiple times.