Redfall flexes its immersive sim heritage with a nod to one of gaming's longest-running Easter eggs

Redfall's launch trailer has a quiet tribute to one of the longest-running easter eggs in video games.

Earlier today on April 27 saw Redfall's final launch trailer premiere before its release next month. At roughly the 23 second mark in the trailer, just below, we can see there's a rally to be held at 04:51 a.m., which is actually a throwback to one long-standing easter egg from immersive sim games.

Bear with us, as there's a lot of history to these numbers. It all begins with Looking Glass Studios, who existed from 1990 to 2000, largely pioneering the immersive sim genre, which Arkane's games like Dishonored, Deathloop, and now Redfall are very closely linked to.

0451 was the code that unlocked the door to Looking Glass Studios' headquarters in Massachusetts, and former studio general manager Warren Spector cites the Cambridge Code as the original source of the lock combination. Many people believe the code was a reference to Fahrenheit 451, but it's really nothing as grand as that.

From there, 0451 would go on to appear in numerous immersive sim games, perhaps most famously in System Shock, or as the combination to a locked door in the original Deus Ex. Then it popped up in the following years in the likes of Deus Ex: Invisible War, BioShock, and a litany of other games.

The 0451 code has sprung out of the immersive sim genre in recent years, landing in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, and Mafia 3, among others. 0451 has popped up in countless games at this point, and it all began back with a simple office in Massachusetts in the 1990s.

Anyway, history lesson over. Redfall featuring the code is sort of like 0451 coming full circle: Arkane Austin game director Harvey Smith has spent the vast majority of his career working on immersive sims, and worked alongside Warren Spector on the Deus Ex series for a good few years.

Redfall is launching next month on May 2, and pre-load is available right now across, PC and Xbox Series X/S.

Check out our upcoming Xbox Series X games guide for a full look at all the other console exclusives arriving on Microsoft's system in the coming months.