There is no cow level There is no cow level . Or is there ? As a saying . Blizzard has , for years , been denying allegations of hiding secret " cow levels " in their games , especially the original " Diablo " , where the rumors first began . ( If you clicked a mysteriously - spawned cow several times , it opened a portal that led to a secret area , hence the name . ) Descriptions vary from report to report of what exactly a " cow level " is , but they are generally accepted to be secret areas that contain significant numbers of bovines ( sometimes including powerful , magic - wielding bovines ) and little else . So prevalent were claims by fans to have found the " secret cow level " in any number of Blizzard ' s games that their repeated , pithy response became a common utterance for fans : The fact that , taken out of context , this comment just sounds bizarre and practically invites one to look for a cow level because someone felt it was important enough to deny something so bizarre has probably contributed a large part to its spreading as a saying among fans . And it ' s just damn funny to blurt out . Not helping rumors is the fact that there actually " was " a Cow Level in Diablo II , and there have also been numerous other cow jokes and " there is no cow level " jokes hidden in Blizzard ' s other games . For example , it was the cheat code in StarCraft used to skip the current level . The line lives on in the hearts of long - time Blizzard fans and as an occasional loading screen tip in World of Warcraft . In Warcraft III , players were able to access a secret level by locating a number of flaming sheep and killing them . Curiously , the phrase bears resemblance to a famous quote in the movie " The Matrix " . When the protagonist of the movie , Neo , meets a young boy with telekinetic abilities bending a spoon with his mind , the boy explains " There is no spoon . " This is also a cheat in Warcraft III . This phrase in turn has been interpreted as a reference to the Buddhist concept of dependent origination . There is no spoon : what exists is only Neo ' s idea of the spoon . In the hit PC shooter games Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2 , to enable cheats one must use the command console to set the value of the variable ' ThereIsACow ' to 1337 . The Blizzard Entertainment - only band L80ETC has composed a Diablo - inspired song named " Raise Some Hell " , which features the phrase " There ' s no cow level " . Despite Blizzard ' s continued insistence that there is no cow level , it only seems to have increased the incidence of rumors , as seen below . In Hearthstone , a Tavern Brawl aired 2017 named The Dark Wanderer contained an actual secret cow level as the opponent transforms into The Cow King if certain conditions were met . Tributes to the cow level in World of Warcraft . World of Warcraft contains several tributes and references to the cow level : In Legion . There was in fact , a cow level , specifically added for Diablo ' s 20th Anniversary event in Patch 7 . 1 . This was a special phased version of the Yorgen Farmstead , in Duskwood , filled with , , and . You could only get to this area via a . It was only availableJanuary 5 - 9 , 2017 .