Call me a wannabeabeeaboo if you will, but I've never seen "The Progressive Titans". All I know is that it's about naked giants who eat people. Apparently, in between being gobbled up like sons of Saturn, the characters find time to visit a fine restaurant. Someone given the task of filling in the background of the scene ended the day's work by framing a screenshot of a sailboat from "Total War: Empire."

It's extra funny because it's the first screenshot that appears on the "Total War: Empire" page on Steam. Given the working conditions at Japanese animation studios, I wouldn't mind if someone took a shortcut instead of creating artwork for the entire Renaissance to round out a few shots. It is just funny that it is a video game screenshot, and a particularly blatant one at that.

Usually, references like those used in anime are a bit more ambiguous or obscure. For example, when a train station was needed for the "Champions of Shadow" series, the artist redrew the Flinders Street station in Melbourne, Australia. Interestingly, the anachronistic LED screens are still in place, and even the machines that refill the Myki (Melbourne's public transport card, like London's Oyster card) are visible. [This is not the first time video game artwork has been reused out of context: in addition to the fake war footage created in the Arma video, concept art from "Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag" was also reused in the trailer for "Uncharted 4". At that time, Naughty Dog apologized and decided to update the trailer with new artwork, but this time nothing was changed and hopefully it will remain as a fun Easter egg for future viewers to find.