Spies are people just like the rest of us, and just like the rest of us, some of them probably like video games. Which games? Well, according to some new documents that have surfaced online, at least a few NSA employees appear to be Final Fantasy fans.


Documents published earlier this week by German magazine Der Spiegel reveal that one of the National Security Agency's surveillance programs in Germany was named "WILDCHOCOBO."


The Chocobo, for the uninitiated, is a giant yellow bird that stands as a sort of unofficial mascot for the Final Fantasy series. You can breed them and ride them in most main Final Fantasy games, and they have a super kicky theme song.

The NSA document is related to a global metadata collection tool called Boundless Informant, which was originally released last year by Edward Snowden. Project Wild Chocobo joins a few other high-quality project names like "Screaming Harpy," "Jeep Flea," "Wax Titan," and "Chaos Overlord."

The life of a spy probably isn't all that much fun most of the time, but hey, at least they get to come up with funny names for things.


Via Washington Post (Thanks Jesse)

Document image via Der Spiegel