Dead Space 2 players uncover easy money trick hidden right in front of them 13 years after release

pcgamer.com:

If you're low on money, you can always just smash up an ATM. In Dead Space 2, I mean. I'm talking about the videogame Dead Space 2. Because 13 years after the game came out, players have stumbled upon the discovery that applying a bit of percussive (or ballistic) maintenance to the game's various inanimate objects can yield significant rewards.

As spotted by GamesRadar, a Reddit user named wetodd1337 recently realised that plugging a couple of rounds into Dead Space 2's ATMs can yield significant financial rewards. Specifically, shooting up a cash machine can net you 10,000 free credits. Or, if you value health over wealth, you can smash the hell out of a medical station and get a free recharge for your time-dilating stasis module.

None of which would be enormously interesting if it wasn't news to fans of the game over a decade after it came out: The replies to wetodd1337's post are filled with users issuing a baffled and collective «Wait, what?»

"… You can what?" reads the top-voted comment on the thread from user madmechanicmobile, and that sentiment pretty much continues unabated for the next 200+ replies. 

«I'm so blown away because of the days I've wasted in those games,» said Sirbuttsavage (though I question if his knighthood is genuine), while one poster who claims to have worked as a visual effects artist on the Dead Space games also claimed not to have known about the trick.

Now, although the trick is news to plenty of Dead Space 2 players in 2024, that doesn't mean it's the first time it's been uncovered. A quick search reveals a GameFAQs thread from the time of DS2's release date titled "ATMs and vending machines." In that one, user TheSwedishChef alerts their fellow fans to the ATM trick, prompting a familiar series of replies: «Oh wow, I never realised you could do that,» says HeroicBloodshed. «I've never noticed the ATMs,» says Core_Of_Stuff.

So perhaps this one is trapped in a kind of secrecy cycle, perpetually looping between discovery and obscurity