Mind-Blowing Lord of the Rings Easter Egg Unveiled in Starfield: Fans Are Left Speechless!

Highlights

The Starfield game from Bethesda adheres to their long-standing practice of incorporating nods to popular culture. It features an extensive collection of movie Easter eggs, one of which is a reference to Samwise Gamgee's fondness for potatoes in Lord of the Rings.

The inclusion of a potato reference in Starfield serves as evidence of the enduring influence of a meme that first emerged in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Two Towers. This meme reached its height of popularity in approximately 2008.

Starfield not only features this Lord of the Rings nod but also incorporates other subtle references that spark debate among fans regarding whether they are intentional acknowledgments or mere coincidences. One such example is a potential allusion to Dead Space.

A dedicated Starfield fan recently came across a subtle allusion to The Lord of the Rings series in Bethesda's newest game. This finding contributes to the extensive collection of Starfield Easter eggs that fans have discovered since the RPG's early access release on September 1.

Bethesda games have a history of including pop-culture references, and this holds true for their previous titles like Fallout 4, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Fallout 76, and other RPGs. These games featured Easter eggs that paid homage to iconic movies such as Alien, Titanic, and Jaws.

Starfield continues the tradition of including a wide variety of new movie Easter eggs, some more obscure than others. One of these references, which is easy to miss, was recently discovered by Reddit user turntrout101. They realized that the in-game description of a potato is actually a nod to a famous line from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. In that line, Samwise Gamgee, played by Sean Astin, expresses his love for potatoes by listing different ways of preparing them.

While the 2002 movie faithfully adapted this line from Tolkien's original 1954 book, it only became a popular meme within the fandom after Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Two Towers was released. The meme reached its peak around 2008 when YouTuber AlbinoBlackSheep created a viral EDM song called "Mashed Taters," which was essentially a remix of Serkis and Astin's dialogue from the movie. Bethesda's recent description of a potato in Starfield is another example of the meme's enduring popularity, adding to the already extensive collection of Starfield Easter eggs that reference various works such as Skyrim and Blade Runner.

Starfield is not the first Bethesda game to reference The Lord of the Rings. The Elder Scrolls: Arena, their first RPG released in 1994, included various nods to Tolkien's fantasy novels. The game's "random" name generator often suggested names that were similar to famous LOTR characters, with hyphens used to separate syllables, like Ara-gorn, Lego-las, Gan-dalf, and Sau-ron. TES: Arena also referenced names from Greek and Roman myths in the same way.

Starfield's potato description, while subtle, is not the most obscure Easter egg in the game. There are even references in the RPG that are so subtle that fans are unsure if they are intentional or mere coincidences. There has been a discussion among Starfield players about a New Atlantis structure that some suspect could be a reference to Dead Space.

Starfield launches September 6 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.