7 more Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Easter Eggs and references explained

Last week, the creators of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy took us through some of the most interesting Easter Eggs and references you can find in the game.

• Read part 1 here

They discussed everything from Chewbacca action figures to Richard Rider… but that’s only scratching the surface of the awesome stuff you can discover. Today, Creative Director Jean-Francois Dugas, and Art Director Bruno Gaulthier-Leblanc talk through seven more awesome things you can find in the game.

NOTE: This article contains spoilers for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Scroll below the image at your own risk.

1. Fin Fang Foom

Debuting in Strange Tales #89 in 1961, Fin Fang Foom is well-known among Marvel fans. The dragonesque, shorts-wearing alien has been reinvented for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, but he’s still instantly recognizable.

JF: We were brainstorming which characters or creatures from the Marvel universe would be cool to fight. We had loads of ideas, including Dweller-in-Darkness who’s also in the mix. We also thought about Fin Fang Foom, and as we explored the lore and his popularity, we realized that we really needed to have him in the game!

What’s cool is that it’s such a well-known character among fans, so Drax speaks about him at the beginning of the game, we were building it up for later but positioning it in such a way that fans would assume it’s just a fun reference or a joke.

Then, when you get to Maklu IV and actually face Fin Fang Foom it’s a really awesome surprise. Many testers, when they finished the game, said it was a highlight because they didn’t see it coming!

I have to really give Bruno and his team kudos here for how they cleverly interpreted the old version of Fin Fang Foom.

Bruno: I did think about putting the purple pants on him (laughs).

When we were finding our own take on Marvel’s characters, we looked at what their key features were and used them as a starting point to create our own designs. For Fin Fang Foom, we knew that we had to capture his color scheme and that he’s a dragon - from there we had free range to come up with a creative design.

Fin Fang Foom was actually one of the few designs that Marvel pushed back on - they didn’t think he was menacing enough. They encouraged us to get even crazier with the design, so we made him even bigger and more aggressive looking. By the end, Marvel loved what we did with the design, especially how we interpreted the iconic purple pants!

2. Peter reads Rolling Stone magazine

During the opening of the game, you can thumb through an issue of Rolling Stone magazine and read a review and interview about the Star-Lord band. But did you know it was even more authentic than you might expect…

JF: We contacted a freelance journalist for Rolling Stone to do a real review of the Star-Lord album and an interview with our Senior Audio Director Steve Szczepkowski, who co-wrote the songs and performs the vocals. We even came up with a story for the band and everything - so that’s an actual independent review of the album, and a proper article!

Bruno: We created the cover, and Rolling Stone loved that. We even created an old watch for the back cover. We called it a Proulx after Oliver Proulx, our Game Director! I’m not sure you can even see it in the final game though (laughs).

3. Peter has a Tron poster

Peter’s bedroom is full of posters that directly reference, or take inspiration from, some awesome movies from the 1980s. Perhaps most prominent is the poster for the 1982 movie Tron. Interestingly, Tron also features in the KINGDOM HEARTS games, making this the second Square Enix series the movie’s appeared in.

JF: The Tron poster evokes the early ‘80s quite brilliantly. Computers were on the rise and the idea of hacking was becoming more and more mainstream. With its bright colors and minimalistic representation of the inside of a computer, the Tron poster evokes some of the key aspects of the art direction we have for the game.

Moreover, the hero of the movie gets abducted into the digital world. This story echoes the tragic destiny of Peter Quill who’ll be abducted into space by aliens.

4. Peter’s childhood photos are one of the dev’s

Star-Lord’s old house is littered with family photos and pictures of him as a child. But have you ever wondered where these photos come from? Turns out it’s somewhere close to home for the Eidos Montreal team…

Bruno: When you walk around Peter’s house and see all the old pictures of him as a child… that’s me!

I’m blond and an ‘80s kid, and it takes a long time to create these images, so I scanned my own childhood pictures in.

So, in a sense, I am Peter Quill (laughs)!

5. Captain Glory takes dialogue from a ColecoVision game

Captain Glory lives up to his name with an epic boss fight and some - ahem - gloriously over-the-top dialogue. Some of it comes from a source you might not expect…

JF: In Chapter 9 you fight Captain Glory in the Milano. When you destroy all the small ships, he says something like: “So you defeated my fighters. But my cruiser will crush you!

This dialogue is inspired by the ColecoVision game Space Fury! That reference is so obscure I don’t think anyone’s caught it!

6. The Continuum Cortex references Spider-Man and the Avengers

At one point in the story, the Guardians are sent through the Continuum Cortex - a space that provides windows to different realities. You’ll hear echoes of the Avengers, a reference to Spider-Man and more.

JF: Bruno came up with the triangles in the Continuum Cortex, which are like windows into other realities.

We’re in our own reality with Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy - it’s not tied to any of the Avengers and Spider-Man games, comics, or movies. Those different versions of the characters aren’t in the reality of our game, but there are infinite possibilities in infinite realities, right? So we thought it would be cool that in a sense they could be.

What you experience in the game actually is the ‘reduced’ version of what we originally envisaged. Originally in the triangles, you were actually seeing the Avengers in action, you were seeing Spider-Man, witnessing memories of Peter’s mom, Gamora with Thanos and so on.

Due to various production constraints, we had to scope it down. But I think it’s still interesting - it’s less graphical, but it maintains the same effect with some cool audio nods.

7. There are loads of hidden Deus Ex references

In part one of this series, we talked about the shower scene that had been lifted directly from Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. But that’s just scratching the surface of the Deus Ex love you can find…

JF: There are lots of Deus Ex references in the game! First of all, Peter and Meredith’s dog is called Kubrick - that’s the name of dog that Adam Jenson and Megan Reed have in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Also, when you make money, the symbol for the units is the same symbol as credits in Deux Ex.

Bruno: The pizza in Peter’s room on the Milano also has the Deus Ex logo on it.

JF: And when you look at the newspaper in Meredith’s house, there’s a movie poster in there that’s also used in Deus Ex as well! There are more nods too - Deus Ex is well represented (laughs)!

Many thanks to JF and Bruno for taking the time to talk to us. Of course, there are plenty more Easter Eggs and references to be found in the game, so let us know what you’ve noticed on social media:

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Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is out now for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC and Switch (cloud version).

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