10 Video Game Secret Screens Only Hardcore Fans Will Understand

8. The "Constipated Max Payne" QR Code - Alan Wake

Crash Bandicoot 4 Woah
Remedy

Remedy Entertainment has won itself a loyal legion of fans across its various video game franchises such as Max Payne, Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and Control, and evidently loves rewarding those clued-up obsessives who pay close attention.

Alan Wake is littered with nods to the Max Payne series, including an extremely bizarre and obscure one included in the game's PC version. Head upstairs in the Cauldron Lake Lodge during the game's fourth episode "The Truth," and you'll find a QR code.

Scan the code with your phone and you'll be redirected to a strange GIF of a man pulling a pained face with the subtitle, "Constipation. That looks payneful."

This is all a reference to the original Max Payne, where the gun-totting protagonist's face model was infamously said to bear a "constipated" expression.

In the GIF, the man featured is none other than Sam Lake, who not only served as the original aforementioned Max Payne character model, but also wrote the first two games in the series and co-penned Alan Wake itself.

The GIF is actually taken from a talk show video clip which appears later on in the game's sixth chapter, and yet to anyone coming to Alan Wake without any knowledge of Remedy's prior works, it seems completely, hilariously random:

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.