Lego Batman has an easter egg hidden in actual Commodore 64 BASIC code

Lego Batman has one of the most obscure easter eggs in recent memory, and TikTok user Cabelsa is the one who dug it up. When Batman uses his computer in-game, a brief splash screen appears to simulate a boot sequence — and it turns out that screen is actual, functional Commodore 64 BASIC code.

If you type those two pages of code into a real C64 or an emulator, a small yellow bat symbol appears on screen and floats around. It's a simple animation, but getting there is anything but simple. The Commodore 64 — the 8-bit machine released in 1982 — required users to write in BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) just to make it do anything. Cabelsa's reaction in the video says it all: "Did you see that? Did you catch that? Back up. That, my friends, looks like Commodore 64 BASIC."

The easter egg fits right in with Lego Batman's broader attitude toward references and in-jokes. The game includes a nod to Michael Caine's infamous "Batman Begin" tweet, a stack of callbacks to the Batman animated series, and physical easter eggs hidden around the game world. PC Gamer's Jody Macgregor gave it 83% in his review, writing: "This is an Arkham game in all but name. In some ways, the fact it's Lego makes it better" — the Lego format gives it room to be goofy in ways the mainline Arkham games never could.

The C64 easter egg is almost certainly the hardest to stumble across organically — you'd need to recognize 40-year-old BASIC syntax on sight just to know something was there. The fact that anyone found it at all is impressive on its own.