Shout Out / Arknights

There are references to popular culture all around in the texts of Arknights, althought some of them are very subtle.

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Main Story

Episode 07: The Birth of Tragedy

• Kal'tist's line in Chapter 7 about Doctor cooking instant food with hot water in their mouth seems to be a reference to this Boss Noodles commercial.

Side Stories

Grani and the Knights' Treasure

• The additional stages are named after American Western films:
  • GT-EX-1 – True Grit
  • GT-EX-2 – No Country for Old Men
  • GT-EX-3 – Dances with Wolves
  • GT-HX-1 – The Treasure of the Kazimierz Mortica
  • GT-HX-2 – Stagecoach
  • GT-HX-3 – Once Upon a Time in the West
• The "Sunset" plaque is a reference to The Beatles, specifically the band's Abbey Road album. The most obvious hint is the "Abbey Road" text on the plaque. It also shows the number 1469 (based on the album's release date, 1969) and four men walking on a pedestrian lane (based on the album's cover image).

Heart of Surging Flame

• The event contains some references to the music industry:
  • Some of the story nodes for the event are named "Break Free", "Don't Stop Me Now", "Siesta Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", and "Love of This Life"
  • The Alive Until Sunset band is a reference to the "Dead By Sunrise" band. Their respective in-game plaque named "Too Early" is a reference to Dead By Sunrise's song, "Too Late".
  • In the second part of the event, the "Whole Day" plaque's Flavor Text^note "We stay in the bed all day just to become each other's lucky unicorn." is a subtle wordplay on the lyrics of Daft Punk's song Get Lucky^note "I'm up all night to get lucky." It's even there in the plaque's design◊, with the phrase "Get Lucky" being highlighted with the same color.
  • The "Electric Men" plaque, unlocked by clearing stage OF-8, is a shoutout to Kraftwerk. There are figures of four men behind their instruments^note Kraftwerk has four members, and that's how they stand and perform in live performances, there is a 'Power Station' text on the plaque^note 'Kraftwerk' translates to 'Power Plant' in English, or in other words, 'Power Station', and the flavor text^note "We are the robots, and we are charging." is a reference to one of their songs, The Robots^note "We're charging our battery, and now we're full of energy. We are the robots.". The color scheme and typeset of the plaque may also refer to their visuals used in live versions of Numbers and Computer World

Children of Ursus

• May and Istina discuss some of their favorite detective stories. While no titles are dropped, from the main character's catchphrase it's clear their number one pick is Case Closed.

Ceobe's Fungimist

• One of the random encounters you can run into on the exploration chart is a lost Victorian knight and his squire, who asks if you've ever heard of a "Sacred Originium Grenade", while the squire has two coconut shells that he bangs together as they walk.
• A random encounter has you finding an empty wagon in the middle of a wasteland except for a toaster that will give you a reward if you check on it. Doing so will prompt a comment that mastering the art of toaster repair is a crucial skill to surviving in the wilderness.
• The Personal Refuge relic has the first mention of Mama John's (initially stylized as Mama Johns), a Columbian technology company. The reference to the real-world global pizza chain Papa John's is more apparent in Dossoles Holiday.
• Several of the stages are based on old-school games:
  • Ursus Tetris
  • Barren Cadet: Space Cadet pinball.

Operation Originium Dust

• Stage OD-Ex-4 is a grid-like stage filled with roaming enemies and path-blocking obstacles, which are both intended to be cleared using explosive charges that attack in a cross-shaped area. Yup, it's a Bomberman stage alright.

Under Tides

• The entire event is pretty much a Whole-Plot Reference to The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It even manages to work in the Tomato in the Mirror twist where the main character turns out to be directly related to the sea monsters.

Dossoles Holiday

• HyperGryph, being ever aware of community jokes, decided to make DH-Ex-4 into a wide open area with a pool covering the middle rows.
• Mama John's makes another appearance, as the sponsor of the 8th Dossoles Warrior Championship. Its logo even resembles the real-life counterpart.

Near Light

• It was confirmed in the 4th anniversary stream that Rosebud News and its head chairman Cain are named in reference to Citizen Kane.

Vigilo

• Mama John's makes a third appearance, and Cannot mentions its origins as a donut chain, much like the real-life counterpart being a pizza chain.
• VI-4 is a stage where rows of five enemies shuffle left and right before descending one tile and repeating the pattern, not unlike a game of Space Invaders. It even has a Cheering Sponsor Drone to act as an optional enemy and "speed up" gameplay (by boosting your units' attack speed when it's destroyed).

Guide Ahead

• When Fiametta confronts Andoain at the event's climax, the English localization opts to throw a couple of Latin expletives into her dialogue. One of these is the phrase "Pedicabo ego te et irrumabo!" ^{Translation [NSFW]}"I will sodomize and skullfuck you", a slight variation on the opening line to Catulli Carmen 16.

Stultifera Navis

• The CG of Gladiia and Ulpianus facing off in the ship's engine room is a two-in-one Shonen Jump reference: The image itself is paying homage to a famous panel from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, whereas its title is "Hunter × Hunter".

Ideal City

• The popular magazine read by the Acahuallans and Durins, originally translating to 'Weird and Wonderful' in the CN script (which can still be seen on front cover) is named Stranger Things in the translation.

Dorothy's Vision

• The titular character is named after Dorothy Gale from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with her last name being Franks after its author. She is read a similar tale by her mother in flashbacks featuring the cowardly lion and scarecrow. To top it all off, Dorothy in this game uses the silver reagent to see home again when she injects herself with it, akin to Dorothy in the book using the Wicked Witch's silver shoes to see home again.
• It was confirmed in the 4th anniversary stream that the concept of the silver reagent's world was homaging the sci-fi novel Solaris.

Lone Trail

• At one point during his meeting with Rosmontis, Loken begins humming Take Me Home, Country Roads.

Goodbye, Adele

• Amongst the many songs being referenced by the radio and the musicians in Siesta is Bon Jovi's "It's My Life."
• The SLP bonus stages are all given stage names that reference nursery rhymes with sheep, like "Mary had a little lamb" and "Baa, baa, black sheep."

Expeditioner's Joklumarkar

• This event focuses on the extradimensional demons first hinted at in Ceobe’s Fungimist, who are invading the world via a portal in the frozen north, corrupt the land around them in ways that seem to defy physics, and are continually fought off by the setting’s equivalents of Tsarist Russia and Imperial China. There’s also implications of another portal in the far south. Are we talking about Arknights or Warhammer?

Character-Related

In General

• The resident dwarf race in Arknights are the Durins. In The Lord of the Rings, "Durin" is a very common name for some of the fictional dwarves.
  • One particular Durin called Myrtle, has a golden apple. According to her operator records, it is an otherworldly artifact that is intricate in design and capable of unleashing the user's power to the best ability. When is the last time an artifact can have such capability and called "apple?"
• FEater is a walking reference to Kung Fu Panda – She's a monk who knows kung-fu, and her Animal Motif is the Panda, with a matching outfit theme and a Meaningful Name. Her previous life as an action movie star is also a hint to the franchise starting from films.
• Hellagur's reputation as a Four-Star Badass, silver hair and pale complexion, his choice of weapon being a Nodachi, is one of the most powerful Guards you have, and (if handled properly) inability to die all bring to mind an older and saner Sephiroth.
• Executor is, quite literally, an angel with a shotgun. Also, his weapon, mannerism, and interaction with Vermeil in Operational Intelligence are all reference to Terminator 2: Judgment Day's T-800 2.4.
• Phantom is a reference to The Phantom of the Opera. He even has a Cool Mask and a cat he refers to as "Miss Christine" to further drive the reference home.
• Some pop-culture references are also present in the operators' voice lines:
  Meteor (After her Trust is increased): "Shh... look who I found! A wild Doctor appeared... gotta catch me one!"
  Vanilla (In Battle): "You shall not pass!"
  Siege (When Departing): "For Want Of A Nail... The Kingdom Was Lost."
  Beehunter (In Battle): "Oraoraoraoraa!"
  Istina (Idle): "Whoa, I never expected this solution! All the passengers on this train are murderers!"
  Firewatch (Watching Battle Record): "I need more power..."
  Swire (In Battle): "Time is money!"
  Mizuki (Talk three): This one, huh? It's a classic arcade game from Higashi, though it's kind of niche now. Want to give it a try, Doctor? Here, you move that yellow mouth around and try to eat as much stuff as you can.
  Touch (In Battle 2): War is a plague, and I'm the cure.
  Greyy the Lightningbearer (In Battle 4): I choose you! ^note For extra points, Greyy's alter fights by hurling electrically-charged balls, and his skin changes them to red and white baubles.
• The operators' detailed Archive Files also contain references such as Zima reading a book titled "The Death of Ilyich, the Suspect".
• On the Emperor's T-shirt is the face of the famous rapper "Topac".
• May's Obsgram username is "SherlockHonks", a pun on Sherlock Holmes.
  • The L.G.D. Bookcase furniture item has "The Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes" on its shelf, placed there by Ch'en.
• Silence and Ptilopsis might be a reference to the Professors in Kemono Friends; both are a pair of very intelligent white and brown owls who dabble in "human experimentation" (though it's less serious in the latter). Of the two, the white owl is the smarter one while the brown owl is more interpersonal.
• Cuora's quote when assigned to a facility is "Just don't throw fireballs at me!" Cuora is based on turtles. Turtles getting hit by fireballs? Sounds familiar.
• One of Noir Corne's lines upon being deployed has him announce "Ore... sanjou!", the catchphrase of another oni; namely Momotaros from Kamen Rider Den-O. This connection also gets a nod in an unofficial piece of art by Saga's character designer Duoyuanjun, in which Noir is seen wearing a Momotaros mask.
• Gnosis' outfit in his Elite 2 art (particularly the fedora) and the title of his Image Song, "Heal the World", seem to be references to Michael Jackson.
• The third April Fool's event features a Steam parody called the Clostore. Aosta is playing It Needs Three, Perfumer is playing Perfume Craft, and Earthspirit is playing Leithanien Ring.
• Rosmontis's Archive File mentions two Columbian pharmaceutical companies named Parasol and Tower Mountains. Their Chinese names are references to the Umbrella Corporation and Black Mesa.
• Cannot's shop dialogue in Phantom and Crimson Solitaire has a reference to Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale.
  Eccentric Merchant, Cannot: This is the kind of stuff Columbian entrepeneurs love to peddle! Capitalism, ho!
• Pozymka's red/white/black colour motifs, her status as a noble-in-exile from the Ursus Empire, and her fondness for the Durins marks her as a significant reference to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
• The flavor text of the "Rusted Blade- Execution" artifact found in both "Ceobe Fungimist" and "Phantom and Crimson Solitaire" talks of Projekt Redd with a knife in a reference to the "What do you have? A Knife!" vine video.
  Projekt Red has a knife. She has a knife.
• Ebenholz and Kreide are loaded with musician references. Kreide has a lot of parallels and references to Chopin, while Ebenholz is a composite reference to both Franz Schubert and Franz Lizt, both musicians having been friends with Chopin.

Additional Outfits

• Istina's "Rhodes Kitchen: Savour Book" outfit◊ contains a lot of subtle visual references to Agatha Christie's works (just like how Istina references her Murder on the Orient Express in her idle quote as written above) via the objects scattered in the background:
  • Some books are labeled "This little pig went to market◊", "This little pig stayed at home", "This little pig had roast beef", and "This little pig cried Wee Wee Wee". All are referencing a nursery rhyme, which is in turn, referenced in Agatha Christie's Five Little Pigs.
  • The chessboard for example, has the number four written over it.
  • There is a cocktail and three sticks on top of another book.
  • Three cubes marked with the letters A, B and C.
  • There are white flowers on the floor.
  • The large circular object on top of Istina is a frame of a clock.
  • There's a vase-like object that has the number 13 written on it.
• FEater's "Marthe: Dojo Star" outfit makes her wear a black-striped yellow jumpsuit on her waist, while a square-patterned window falls on the background. Given FEater's In-Universe role as a movie star, these are all references to Bruce Lee, particularly to a scene from Game of Death. Fans were also quick to spot this reference when her outfit got announced.
• Jackie's "Take A Leap" outfit on the other hand reference Jackie Chan, with the scene in question being the infamous jump in his 1985 film Police Story.
• In her Marthe outfit's dorm sprite, Zima does the Slav Squat, reinforcing her Husky Russkie stereotype. She also performs a push-up without her hands touching the floor, as a reference to the "Russian No-Arms Pushups" video.
• Nightingale's "an elegy" outfit◊ has phrases in the background that reference Blood Meridian, specifically the last paragraph written here.
• Shaw, Mayer, and Glaucus' "Dreambind Castle" outfits are a blatant reference to the Ghostbusters franchise.
• Eunectes's Bloodline of Combat outfit give her Raging Ironhide a distinctive red color, spikes on the shoulders and a horn, including High Priest wearing a pair of Cool Shades.
• The framing of the Ambience Synesthesia 2 outfits in their promotional video spoofs spy movies like James Bond, right down to the walking dots and the viewpoint from inside a gun barrel.
• Kirara's Trendsetting Player skin shows her playing Monster Hunter. The illustration for her module follows up on it: while it's a fictional game called "We Will Survive 3", it also features what is blatantly a Barioth.
• When the Terra Research Commission are left idle in the base with their "Fly Into The Street" outfits equipped, the orange Felyne will start mimicking Snoop Dogg's famous dance from the "Drop it Like it's Hot" music video.
• Eureka, better known as the April Fools' operator U-Official, is a massive bundle of references. Her introductory event is a big reference to NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD in gameplay and themes, while the endings are heavily inspired by actual livestreamers and vtubers.
  • The possible ending "One Begets Four, Four Begets Three, and Three Brings Forth Everything" is a reference to Kizuna AI's crash and burn moment when her producers tried to introduce three additional dopplegangers of her that resulted in loss of suscribers.
  • Her birthday is 4 January, which is flipped in day/month from 1 April, which is April Fool's Day.

Other

Items

The Plaques

• Majority of the Plaque furnitures are direct references to real-life literature and fairy tales, as explained in detail here. Most of these plaques' in-game designs even have the titles of the works that they are referencing. For plaques that contain numbers, adding 500 to that value would also represent meaningful dates related to that literature. After "Uniqueness", the references tend to come from music:
  • Foam - Contains the number 1337, a tear, a lifebuoy, and a shell. Its description is "Lose everything." These reference The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. It was published on the year 1837.
  • Fantasy - Contains a glass slipper on top. Its description is "The clock is ticking." These reference Cinderella.
  • Axe - Contains a silver axe on the left and a golden axe on the right. Its description is "Sink into the deeps". These reference The Honest Woodman story from the Aesop's Fables.
  • Beauty - Contains the number 1312, the text "Bloody White", an icon of a bitten apple, and its description is "Smoke and Mirrors". These reference Snow White. It was published on the year 1812.
  • Illusion - Contains Christmas-themed icons and burning matches, with the bottom text of "3 Wishes 3 Matches". Its description is "Dancing Flames". These reference The Little Match Girl, another story by Hans Christian Andersen.
  • Food - Contains several candies, and its description is "The Cycle Repeats." These reference Hansel and Gretel.
  • Spell - Contains three Z's in a black background, with the description of "Free Will is a Myth". These are subtle references to Sleeping Beauty.
  • Childhood - Obviously references Peter Pan, with the number 1407, the character's name on top, and a minimalist portrait on the left. Its description is "What's gone is gone." In 1907, Oliver Herford drew an illustration of Wendy Darling, one of the main characters in Peter Pan.
  • Ray of Light - Contains the number 1322, the text "The 1st Tale" on top, and several lit candles on the background. Its description is "Nowhere to return to". These candles are subtle references to The Tallow Candle, which is one of Hans Christian Andersen's earliest known works in the fairytale genre. In 1822, Andersen published his first story, "The Ghost of Palnatoke's Grave".
  • Hatch - Contains a duckling, with the text below it being "It's not like the others", and the item's description being "From beginning to end". These are very obvious references to The Ugly Duckling.
  • Promise - Contains an icon of a frog with a crown on top of it, along with the title of the fairy tale that it's referencing. The plaque's item description is "Like a Riddle". These are obvious references to The Frog Prince.
  • Reward - Contains the number 0800, a feather hat and flute icons, with the text "Pied Piper". These reference The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The earliest known record of the story was around the year 1300.
  • Uniqueness - Does not contain a number, is a reference to the story Virgin Mary's Child. In it, a girl opens 12 doors, behind them are the apostles. She is told not to open the thirteenth door, she does and behind it is the Trinity. Note that this plaque is the 13th plaque.
  • Sunset - Contains the number 1469 and shows a group of four men crossing a road, a clear reference to the Beatles' Abbey Road released on 1969.
  • Mask - It shows three Onis with the number 1478 and 1493, with a band name O.M.O Oni Magic Orchestra. This is based on a Japanese EDM band called Y.M.O Yellow Magic Orchestra, formed in 1978 and disbanded in 1993. The bandmates are Onis because in Terra, the Onis are native to Higashi, the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Japan.
  • Day and Night - Contains the number 0891 and K.620. This is likely a reference to The Magic Flute, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's very last opera ever composed. It premiered on 1791 after Mozart's death, and K. 620 is the Kochel catalogue number of the opera.
  • Tranquil: It contains the number 1433 and shows a picture of a trail of small fireflies flying toward a large moon. Based on the plaque's description, it's likely based on Night on the Galactic Railroad, as the protagonist dreams riding a train to the Milky Way with his friend who died from drowning. 1933 is the Galactic Railroad author Kenji Miyazawa's year of death as he worked on the story, and the story was published posthumously.
• The Plaques afterward tend to add 900 to the number on them. They mostly based on the more modern movies, novels, theater, or music:
  • Covergence - Contains the number 1057 and it shows 12 stick figures, with the eighth colored pink. It based on 12 Angry Men, which was released on 1957. It's the Trope Codifier of Rogue Juror, as in the story, all jurors except the eighth voted guilty and it causes the jury to reassess the trial.
  • Recognition - Contains the number 1065 and it shows a pair of hands reaching out to an open eye, pointing out both of Repulsion's Signature Scene where dozens of hands emerge out of a hallway and Book Ends that focuses on the protagonist's eyes. The film was released on 1965.
  • Faust - Obviously based on Faust. The number 0959 is pointing out the opera version by Charles Gounoud, premiered on 1859.
  • Butcher - Contains the number 0971, with the a word "Siegfried", and a sword pointing at a crowned snake entwining a ring. It's referencing The Ring of the Nibelung cycle, Siegfried in particular. 1871 is the year Nibelung's composer Richard Wagner decided the location of the cycle's true performance in Beyreuth.
  • Mary - Contains the number 1066 and a picture of two girls, one in bob cut and one in pigtails. It's based on 1966 surreal film, Daisies, in which both the protagonists are both named Marie and wearing the aforementioned haircuts.
  • Enthusiasm - Contains the number 0974 and depicts a dancer in a red dress named "Carmen". Obvious reference to Carmen, 1874 was the year Georges Bizet resumed working on Carmen after a hostile theater director delayed the production over the opera's titular protagonist's risque personality.
  • True Love - Contains the number 0996, a quill pen, and the name "Mimì", with the smaller words La Bohème, a 1896 opera telling a story of a group of Bohemian artists friends helping one of theirs saving his lover Mimì from her illness.
  • Finest Rich - Contains the number 0969 and a black ring on solid gold background. This is based on the first part of the aforementioned Nibelung cycle, Das Rheingold, debuted in 1969 telling the story of a powerful-yet-cursed magic ring that can attract wealth.
  • Witness - Contains the number 0970, a pegasus surrounded by fire, and a small Die Walküre, the second part of the aforementioned Nibelung cycle. During the climax of Die Walküre, Brynhildr lied sleeping surrounded in a ring of fire by her father Odin as an Engagement Challenge. 1870 was when Die Walküre was initially premiered in Munich before Wagner started his own opera house in Beyreuth.
  • Alpha and Omega - Contains the number 0974 and a ring sinking into water, with Götterdämmerung under it. This is a reference to the last part of Nibelung cycle, where the Volsung clan finally rids themselves the ring's curse by returning it to the water nymphs it was stolen from. 1874 is the year when Wagner completed all of the script for the cycle and King Ludwig II of Bavaria gave donation for the completion of Wagner's Beyreuth operahouse.

Promotional Material

• The official lyric video for W's theme song, "Renegade", has the line "Playing For Keeps. Are You Not Entertained?" as seen on the 2:56 timestamp. Also notice how W's animated pose throughout the song bears a resemblance to Maximus's iconic pose when he delivers that line in the film.
• Ethan's part in the official lyric video for "ManiFesto:" has the line "When they call Ethan, they looking to hunt / Solve the impossible, after I stunt" (see here at 1:57 timestamp), a reference to Ethan Hunt, the protagonist of the Mission: Impossible films.