Hello Neighbor 2feels like the sort of game that should be full of secrets, as those are what originally attracted the following that has accompanied the series to its latest (but not last) installment. Instead, most of what theHello Neighbor 2community considers a secret is closer to an Easter Egg or an unexpected function of a tool than a twist or a new character hidden deep into the game.
Related:Best Stealth Games On Xbox Game Pass
Unlike in the originalHello Neighbor, there is little in the sequel that can be said to be important to the story, andsecretsare no exception. Theplot doesn’t really progresspast what fans already learned about from previous games and it seems unlikely that that will change in future updates. Though the team does promise that new content is coming to the game, the launch-day DLCs seem to be of little to no value to the story.
5Finish The Game In Less That 5 Minutes
The very same day that the deluxe version opened its doors to die-hard fans of the series, players started reporting that they found a way to finish the game in mere minutes. If it’s true thatHello Neighbor 2isa short game, perhaps too short, it certainly wasn’t made with those times in mind. What players had discovered was a way to use mechanics introduced for an older version of the game, one more focused on the open world, that allowed for deeper environment interactions and more creative solutions.
Players realized soon that many surfaces, from windows to display cases, could be broken by an item at them. Those same players then discovered a bug that made it possible to glitch through plenty of hard surfaces by using the climbing mechanic, which is usually there to let players vault over tall objects. Combining those two features (and other tools) allows players to break a tiny window on top of Mr. Peterson’s museum, only to glide through it right into one of the last scenes of the game. There is a chance that this bug will be ironed out soon enough, so players that are after a speedrun-worthy completion time would do well to get to it soon.
4The Hello-Copter Can Pick Things Up
The Hello-Copter is available as DLC, but much like the other downloadable content it feels like an integral part of the game. If anything, the fact that it can be deployed freely starting from the first mission and that no puzzles are built around its abilities make it a fun but game breaking tool. Add to that the fact that the neighbors won’t try and steal it like the other cameras, and the Hello-Copter can become aone-stop toolto clear most of the game’s challenges.
Related:Games With The Saddest Storylines, Ranked
One of the most useful abilities of the Hello-Copter that might not be immediately obvious is that this drone comes with a grappling hook. Some puzzles are trivialized by this, like the ones that require a weight to push down a platform while the player walks up to a secret stash to pick up a key item.
3Watch (Part Of) The Animated Pilot In-Game
The first house the player has to clear has a television set to play with, right on the first floor. Thankfully, the TV doesn’t seem to alert the guard and the policeman patrolling the area is stuck on the front porch until the protagonist reaches the second floor. The TV set has only two channels (well, three if you count the “turned off” channel). The second show is a clue for one of the first puzzles of the game, while the first looks like a cartoon about the events of the game.
This is nothing less than the original pilot for the cancelledHello NeighborTV show from a few years ago, recut to fit inside a few minutes of footage. The short video is divided into an extensive opening inexplicably set to ’80s montage music and a narrative sequence that doesn’t really add any context to the events of the game. The lines of text that appear on the screen as the footage ends are the most telling: “premieres December 8, watch withinHello Neighbor 2”. December 8 is the official game release day, making it clear that this islittle more than an Easter Egg.
2Creepy Guest-Like Statue Inside Peterson’s Museum
Hello Neighbor 2isn’t astory-heavy game. The flashbacks and clues found in the house don’t have any clear meaning, while the cutscenes just show the protagonist having nightmares about Mr. Peterson. There is nothing in this game that wasn’t answered already in the first game or in one of the prequels. That’s why it’s so important that Mr. Peterson’s museum has a statue of what sort of looks like an alternate version of the Guest from the scrapped beta ofHello Neighbor 2.
Related:Stealth Games With Good World Building
The statue spans multiple floors, so the easiest way to see all of it is to enable noclipping, but it is possible to see its face with just some climbing. It’s unclear whether this is really supposed to be the Guest, the scrapped enemy from earlier versions of the game. It’s not even clear if the Guest is still part of the games’ canon, or if it will ever come toHello Neighbor 2as DLC.
1The Neighbors AI Isn’t Controlled Neural Network, Maybe
One of the most awaited features ofHello Neighbor 2might not be present in the final release, or so fans have been thinking. Accusations say that the game’s description was drastically altered after fans noticed inaccuracies in the original Steam description, sometime around late November 2022. The accusations focus on mentions of locations absent from the final game and on the promise ofneural-network driven AIs, both of which are said to be absent from the finished game.
The presence or absence of neural-network AIs isn’t easy to verify and might never be, given how quickly the game seems to have lost its fans. What we can know for sure is that the Steam description did change sometime between November 6th, 2022, and December 1st, 2022. In that change, enemies“powered by a neural network AI and learns from the players”became mere“AIs that do everything in their power to protect their gated community and its secrets”. Other major distributors like Xbox and Game Pass still show the original game description on their websites, as do many brick and mortar retailers.
