Hippo in Halo

The Hippo in Halo is an Easter egg included in Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3. The original Halo: Combat Evolved egg by Matt Soell is a hippo design printed on the ejected shotgun shell. This is most observable when reloading the shotgun or when the shell is on the ground. The same hippo is also on the walls of a building in the multiplayer level Headlong on Halo 2 in the tower on the wall. Also, a Bungie employee wrote in the "Personal Messages" section of the Halo credits, "For hippos all over the world", a joke most likely pertaining to this.

In the Halo 3 multiplayer map Foundry, in the back right corner there is a pile of garbage. In the pile of garbage, there is a small picture of a hippo, which may be easily seen with a sniper rifle.

In Halo: Custom Edition CMT Maps, it's easy to spot the Hippo logo on the shell when reloading.

Background
Some serious hunting went into figuring out where the Hippo in Halo might be hidden in Halo: Combat Evolved after, on December 6, 2001, "Matt" wrote a long treatise on hippos, and why they should have been in Halo: CE (and why they, for the most part, aren't) but he finished with this teaser:


 * "...they may not hug walls anymore, but they're still in the game (thanks again to Robt.), and they're still extremely lethal. But you'll need excellent vision and a really nice TV to spot them."

Everything from the bottom of Warthogs to Sniper Rifles and everything in between were postulated, but they were finally spotted on the spent shells of the Shotgun that fall to the ground after the player has fired a blast.

Internal

 * Soellkraft 8 Gauge Shell

External

 * Matt's original "wall-hugging hippos" teaser
 * Matt's hippo-love goes back to the Myth days.
 * The Monkey and the Hippopotamus, an essay on Halo ' s development cycle
 * Matt's a fan of sharks too.
 * The Truth About Wall-Hugging Hippos, the treatise mentioned above
 * The end of the Hippo Hunt.
 * What does MC's face look like? A hippo.
 * A hippo hater may exist at Bungie as well.