Ready Player One has more character cameos than you shake a stick at, but where is RWBY’s Ruby Rose? Befittingly, for a film whose plot revolves around an in-game Easter egg hunt, Ready Player One is positively brimming with references that run the gamut of pop culture – from film and television to gaming, toys, and comic books. It’s estimated there are hundreds of Easter eggs crammed into Ready Player One’s 140-minute runtime and, as a result, it’s the kind of movie that requires repeated viewings to catch them all.
Some of the Easter eggs and character cameos in Ready Player One are more obvious than others. It’s pretty hard to miss King Kong, for example, as he leaps from the Empire State Building in OASIS’ simulation of New York City. Similarly, the references to Stanley Kubrick’s seminal horror movie The Shining are quite overt too. As the High Five clan make their way through the Overlook Hotel, they encounter the movie’s creepy twins, an elevator releasing a tidal wave of blood and – of course – Room 237.
Other Ready Player One Easter eggs, however, are a lot harder to find. The film’s final battle scene on Planet Doom features a barrage of cameos – from iconic horror movie characters like Chucky from Child’s Play, Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare On Elm Street fame, Friday The 13th's Jason Voorhees and even Duke Nukem, He-Man and Marvel supervillain Proxima Midnight. Also nestled in the frames of Ready Player One’s final battle is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo from Ruby Rose, the main protagonist from Rooster Teeth’s anime-style series RWBY.
According to eagle-eyed RWBY fans, Ruby Rose can be seen in the background of the trailer above at the 1:39 mark. As the Spartan super-soldiers from Halo run past in the foreground, Ruby Rose appears just behind them. She can be seen wielding her signature weapon Crescent Rose – a hybrid of a sniper rifle and a scythe, which she has used in countless battles on RWBY.
Unfortunately for the RWBY fandom, Ruby Rose’s appearance in Ready Player One isn’t a very distinct or noteworthy cameo. However, Ruby popping up next to the Spartans from Halo offers some nice linkage with Rooster Teeth’s wider body of work. The animation studio’s long-running flagship series Red Vs. Blue is a parody of the hugely popular Halo series, and Ernest Cline – the author of the book Ready Player One is based on – actually wrote a season 14 episode of Red Vs. Blue that aired in 2016.