The Hidden Detail About Gods Of Combat On Criminal Minds

Criminal Minds always did a good job of blending reality and fiction. The BAU that makes up the series' central ensemble is based on a real-life FBI unit, and many of its scariest unsubs are based on real people and their crimes. Despite that, the series still remained firmly rooted in its own reality — close enough to our everyday lives that the series felt compelling and chilling, but far enough away that we knew we were watching a TV show.

One piece of Criminal Minds trivia that sat in that uncanny valley between the real world and fiction was the entirely made-up video game Gods of Combat. Gods of Combat played a pivotal role in a Saw-esque episode of the series' eighth season, but it turns out there's even more to the story. Fans may have picked out various details that the fictional game took from real-life video games. What they may not have noticed is another huge detail about the game that ended up giving it some outsized significance. 

Let's take a look at the hidden detail you may have missed about Gods of Combat on Criminal Minds.

In the eighth episode of Criminal Minds' eighth season, "The Wheels on the Bus," two brothers decide to take their love of the video game Gods of Combat to a new level after they are banned from playing it. They kidnap a bus full of schoolchildren, and decide to force them to act out the game's most violent scenes — until the BAU tracks them down.

Criminal Minds' writing team obviously went to great lengths to make sure the game felt real enough for the episode. Apparently, they felt enough of an affinity for the game-within-the-show to keep it as a part of the Criminal Minds universe in subsequent episodes. Though Gods of Combat wasn't directly mentioned by any of the characters on the series after season 8, there were visual references to it multiple times in season 9. In the episode "Strange Fruit," a poster advertising the game can be seen hanging on a suspect's bedroom wall. A few episodes later, in "Blood Relations," the poster appears again.

While it's an easy detail for casual viewers, or even passionate Criminal Minds fans to miss, it's still a fun Easter egg for those who manage to catch it. A good reminder, too, that even though the series takes an episodic approach to storytelling, it is all part of a larger universe that is just one step removed from our own.