Naughty Dog's name was inspired by their first company mascot Morgan, a Labrador/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix born in 1989 who was the pet dog of co-founder Jason Rubin starting with the development of Rings of Power. During the development of Way of the Warrior, Morgan lived with both Rubin and co-founder Andy Gavin in poor living conditions and she was often fed some of their meals from the fast food chain McDonald's. While she first appeared in a game as a Special Thanks credit in Rings of Power, Morgan technically became part of the company when she was given her own photo ID card after Naughty Dog moved onto the Universal Interactive Studios premises for the development of Crash Bandicoot. She was credited as a member of Naughty Dog on their four Crash Bandicoot games and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. She died in 2002 at the age of 13 during the development of Jak II, and several tributes to her were put into Jak II and Jak 3.
Jak II's manual and end credits feature a standard In Memoriam dedication for Morgan, but there are two more hidden tributes in the game. There is a green neon sign spelling Morgan's name written in the Precurian language inside the Hip Hog Saloon located to the left from the door. Additionally, in the Power Station in New Haven City, a set of random scrolling Precurian messages can be found on the large computer monitor. Translating these to English will reveal the following:
• "Morgan I miss you" • "Morgan" • "Thirteen years hard time" • "There will never be another" • "Good dog" • "I will always love you"
Another message can be found on computer screens you can view at eye-level, which reads "Morgan is still missed even after a year has passed". These computer screen messages are re-used on the monitors in both the Power Station and the Freedom League buildings in Jak 3. Since Morgan's death, Naughty Dog have credited more pets as members of their team and/or company mascots, with the first successor being a Labrador puppy named Osiris who first appeared in the credits of the first Jak and Daxter game alongside Morgan.
One of the pre-order bonuses for the game is a skin for Shadow that is based off an early concept version of him from Sonic Adventure 2 named Terios. The name comes from the Greek term "telos", referring to an end, fulfillment, completion, goal or aim.
Jane Doe's name has two different references in it. The first and most obvious one is a reference to the term "Jane Doe", a placeholder name used in cases where a female individual's real name is either unknown or intentionally concealed (ironically, her Spoiler:New Eridu Public Security (NEPS) Consultant Card implies that her name really is Jane Doe rather than an alias). The second reference is found in her last name "Doe", which is what female fancy mice (domesticated breeds of common house mice) are often referred to as. Both of these references are fitting for Jane's character as she is a mouse Thiren with prominent ears and a tail, and because Spoiler:she works for NEPS as a consultant, specializing in criminal psychology and infiltrating dangerous groups.
In a 2002 staff interview with Nintendo Dream, director Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that FLUDD was inspired by his memories of playing with water guns as a kid, an image that he recalled upon first using the analog L & R triggers on the GameCube's controller. Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto further explained that the concept behind FLUDD was controversial among Nintendo's staff due to Mario not being widely associated with these kinds of tools, though Luigi's use of the Poltergust in Luigi's Mansion ultimately served as a precedent in the concept's favor.
In the same interview, Takashi Tezuka stated that Nintendo went to great lengths to keep FLUDD from resembling a firearm, both due to Koizumi finding a water gun "too simple" and due to concerns that guns (or anything that audiences may interpret as such) would be inappropriate for the franchise's public image. The "weird backpack thing" that FLUDD ultimately ended up as addressed both concerns at once, with Koizumi likening it to firefighting equipment and "a [plastic] bottle water rocket toy."
The New World script seen throughout the game is a cipher for the Latin alphabet. While this is most visible with the subtitles for "Welcome to the New World", which are provided in both scripts, all other instances are just as easily translatable, producing coherent English-language messages.
In an interview for Nintendo's "Ask the Developers" column, series director Shinya Kumazaki and associate producer Kei Ninomiya revealed that they deliberately designed and utilized the New World script in a way that would allow players to translate it themselves, with Kumazaki describing it as a way to make the game more immersive for curious audiences.
The title "Caladrius" was lifted from a legendary bird prominent in medieval European and Roman mythology that was thought to be a divine messenger of God. Caladrius would appear before those who were ill, and if there was a chance for recovery, it would fly away, carrying the illness with it. In a 2013 interview with the game's director Hitoshi Hoshino published in Shooting Gameside #7, he compared the design of the character ships to the bird's appearance, and added, "the title conveys that question: will there be any salvation or not?"
In a 2018 VG247 interview with the game's producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, he revealed that the approach to audio and music in the game focused on trying to create immersion in a third-person perspective during combat with zombies through carefully designed audio elements. This is in contrast to the approach taken in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, where the first-person perspective required a focus on environmental sounds to build tension and immersion by using real-world audio cues and sometimes muting them to increase suspense. He also commented that they tried to ensure the audio remained true to the original game's vision by bringing on the original composer, Shusamu Uchiyama.
In a 1997 Dengeki PlayStation interview with the game's director Kunihiko Nakata, he explained that the core idea was to create a weapon-based fighting game centered around the concept of "ichigeki hissatsu" (one-hit takedowns) that would still feel fun. The goal was to make each hit feel decisive and impactful, giving players a sense of immediate victory when they land a strike that wins the match. This direction also influenced the choice to use swords as the primary means of battle in the game as they felt it made it easier for players to understand ichigeki hissatsu:
"I like fighting games with bare fists and staves and all, but I always felt it was weird when you'd take a bunch of damage in a match, and despite only having a sliver of life left, you could still fight with the same vigor. And that's why we wanted this to be a "one-hit kill" game. We could have accomplished that with just punching, but a cutting weapon is more visually convincing."
According to former Rare developer Kevin Bayliss, Jago's ripped trousers were inspired by those worn by Def Leppard's lead singer Joe Elliot, particularly those seen in the 1989 concert film Live: In the Round, in Your Face.
The existence of a faction tentatively referred to as "Virtual Idols" was first leaked by an unknown party through illegal means of obtaining development data, including character design concept drafts. Rather than cover it up, however, the official Zenless Zone Zero bilibili account opted to reveal the group in a blog post and explain details about it. The idea first came about from students on the production team who had a fondness for idol culture and how they believe it can give people strength, giving descriptions on the individual members: "a lead singer who wants to ignite everyone's enthusiasm with her singing, an artist who is born to be the focus of the stage, and a creator with delicate emotions and great talent." They also expressed interest in making real virtual idols based on the group once the designs were finalized, and creating related projects such as character songs around them.
In a 2006 interview published by Sega-16, former Sega of America employee Scott Berfield stated that the original idea for Eternal Champions was much more humorous and over the top. Characters would have been parodies of various heroic archetypes, while the training mode would have consisted of minigames where the player beats up dwarves in different ways. The character design would have been inspired by the art of British comic book artist Simon Bisley, and in fact Berfield tried to get Bisley himself to do artwork for the game, but this couldn't be done due to scheduling conflicts. Additionally, the gameplay was also going to be different, being closer to that of Street Fighter II. Berfield left Sega of America sometime after the project was greenlit, and it was passed down to then Sega producer Michael "Mike" Latham who decided to make drastic changes to the idea. Shadow Yamato is the only surviving character from the initial concept.
According to director Seiichi Ishii, the game was originally planned to feature a roster of characters from Chrono Trigger after he requested to work with that game's lead artist Akira Toriyama. Ishii wanted to work with him because around that time, Trunks from Toriyama's manga series "Dragon Ball Z" had recently been introduced, and he wanted a character like him in the game. As work on the game's prototype progressed, Toriyama was brought on and offered to design a full cast of new characters for the game instead of using Chrono Trigger characters.
This game, also referred to by the shorthand title "Those Games", is a parody of mobile game advertisements, specifically those that depict fake minigames that are not representative of the actual game once it is downloaded. The game's producer Maya Ito stated at its release that it was developed in just eight months, and came about about from her own desire to play those minigames "thoroughly and to my heart's content!" She described the process of balancing each minigame and trying to turn them into fully realized games as being particularly challenging, and felt that she "could've done some things a little differently" after noticing that players at launch had found many different ways to play the minigames.
Generica's holiday outfit is a reference to the outfit worn by Jack Skellington, the main character of the 1993 stop-motion animated film "The Nightmare Before Christmas". When given said outfit, she'll state "What's this? What's this? This outfit reminds me of a nightmare I had once, just before Christmas.", which not only alludes to the film's title, but also to the song "What's This?" from the film, which is sung by Jack when he first arrives in Christmas Town.
According to programmer Dylan Cuthbert (who reportedly help named the original pilots from the first Star Fox), one of the new pilots in Star Fox 2, Fay, was named after his childhood crush, a girl who lived next door to his grandparents' house. Although Fay, as well as Miyu, were never officially given proper surnames, Cuthbert has stated that in his head, he's always considered their full names to be Fay Sinclair and Miyu Swift respectively.
Red Dead Revolver originally began development with Capcom in 2000, when developer Rockstar San Diego was still known as Angel Studios. It started as "SWAT", a game with a four-person split-screen feature that allowed you to control four members of a S.W.A.T. team at once. Reportedly, after Capcom producer Yoshiki Okamoto watched the 1971 spaghetti western film "Blindman", the project quickly shifted to a western game, with "SWAT" now standing for "Spaghetti Western Action Title" before being renamed to Red Dead Revolver. After Angel Studios was acquired by Take Two Interactive in 2002 and renamed to Rockstar San Diego, they continued working with Capcom on the project until Capcom decided to cancel the game in 2003 due to a perceived lack of progress. Capcom eventually agreed to let Rockstar Games continue working on Red Dead Revolver the same year in exchange for having exclusive publishing rights in Japan.
The character of NiGHTS was inspired by director Naoto Ohshima's travels across Europe and western Asia. In order to give his design as much universal appeal as possible, various regional styles were incorporated into it, namely Japanese, European, and American. In the context of the game, NiGHTS is part of every person's subconscious, and as such was designed to have an androgynous "dual male/female" appearance, but has been referred to with male pronouns in the same breath by Sonic Team.
The game was heavily inspired by SNK's Metal Slug series, a favorite of the Digital Eclipse team. According to their president Mike Mika, Disney Interactive were initially fine with the prospect of a shooting game based on the movie, but when they were prepared to present the game to then Disney CEO Michael Eisner, cautions began to arise about the violence in the game, which was higher than expected. Due to a lack of time, the game had to be shown to Eisner as it was. Unexpectedly, he adored the game and lamented that the other licensed games based on Lilo & Stitch weren't adopting the same gameplay formula:
"[...] we got this whole panic call from Disney and they are like, 'This is going to get cancelled'. And the next day, they called us back after the meeting and they were like, 'He LOVES it! He thinks it's the best product we're doing for Lilo & Stitch and he's really mad the other games aren't doing this.' It was really great and everyone was relieved."
The Lilo & Stitch movie directors sent a signed poster to Digital Eclipse thanking them for the game.
By scanning a Fox or Falco amiibo in Star Fox Zero, the Arwings and Walkers will be swapped out with 16-bit era models as seen in Star Fox and Star Fox 2. The old Arwing model's Charge shot does not lock on to targets, which reflects how they did not have a lock-on feature in Star Fox, but only in Star Fox 2 did they have a Charge shot. At the time of Star Fox Zero's release in 2016, Star Fox 2 remained unreleased, with only leaked beta builds being available, including one that allowed you to lock on to enemies with the Charge shot. The game would eventually be completed by Nintendo and released in 2017, but with this lock-on feature removed. Since Nintendo only showed Star Fox 2 to developers actively working on the series, it's believed that PlatinumGames noticed this feature's removal and referenced it in Star Fox Zero over a year before the game's release by making the old Arwings behave accurately to a version of Star Fox 2 that players did not know about.