10 Secret Memes Hidden In Video Games
1. All Your Base - Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
In terms of internet memes, All Your Base is in the hall of fame. It originated in the late 1990s, when early world wide web adopters all shared and delighted in the poorly translated opening of 1989 Sega title Zero Wing.
What was perhaps more impactful than the hilarious dialogue itself however was a music video that accompanied it. Bad_CRC's Newgrounds video paired a remix of the game's theme with a robotic voice and dozens of Photoshopped images of the phrase "all your base are belong to us" appearing all over the world. It was like a prediction for the spread of memetic culture.
Since then, All Your Base has appeared in other video games, films and has even been tweeted by American politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as recently as 2019.
In fact, to show it's longevity it got a subtle shout-out in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's E3 build. When Link installs a new ability to his suspiciously Switch-like Sheikah Slate, the guidance stone contains a bunch of scrolling ancient characters of the Sheikah language. The text reads "now loading, do not turn off, all your base are".
It was changed to a reference to the original NES game in the final build, but all the same the fact it's still being referenced today is a testament to it being a pillar of internet memery.