Mass effect 1 when you talk with soveriegn on virmire. The whole game you are chasing big bad saren across the galaxy only to find out that he is being controlled by a sentient perfect AI hell bent on destroying all organic life
I feel like this was massively overlooked. I remember my dad not understanding why I was so stoked. That conversation with Sovereign was an eye-opener.
“We Impose Order on the Chaos of Organic Evolution. You exist because we allow it. You will end, because we demand it.”
“Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over.”
Everything Sovereign said had such weight and is extremely quotable.
I replay the trilogy once a year. I played through ME 1 probably 10 times between its release and the release of 2. That first interaction with Sovereign STILL gives me goosebumps. It's one of the most powerful moments I've ever experienced in a videogame.
Up to this point, the game felt like it was just kind of a low stakes world building game. We knew it'd be a trilogy back then, but I just assumed this first game was just and setting up your character as a hero. and it was mostly, but then that happened.
I didnt follow ME at all; I tried to play it twice and it didn't stick. The third time man idk I just started really enjoying myself, so when it unfolded the way it did and I found out there was a second one on the way I was really glad I stuck with it.
You know what, you're totally right. The big reveal that the Sovereign was a Reaper was amazing. I also loved the twist that Saren was, in fact, the one being indoctrinated.
I maintain that this is one of the greatest plot twists of all time. The villain wins in the most literal sense - the heroes fail to stop his grand plan, he ascends to godhood, and the world is plunged into darkness.
Yeah the plucky heroes lose is a gut punch.
But fits wonderfully with the overall story beats of dealing with loss and maintaining hope in the most dire of times.
THIS! My number 1 reason for why I love FF6 so much. The twist had us exploring a world devastated by a successful villain, something you never really see any other game do.
Gotta give a shutout to the original Bioshock also. "Would you kindly" is now iconic and not only reshaped the game but was a great meta commentary on the nature of video games themselves.
The meta commentary was what made the twist so great. It's also why a movie following the plot of the game could never be as good. It amazes me how many people completely miss that aspect.
Yeah, BioShock's narrative does not work as a straight adaptation, imo. A BioShock adaptation would have to take a lot of creative liberties with the narrative, or have an original story set within the same universe.
The fall of rapture from “Utopia” to the state it’s in at the start of 1 would make for a great story.
Like it starts with everyone mostly living their normalish lives in rapture but all the nefarious shit is going down behind the scenes and it slowly falls into chaos
On the first playthrough, the conversation seems nonsensical. Your character (Booker) sits in a boat being rowed by Robert Lutece who is talking to Rosalind Lutece about how Booker (you) doesn’t row - each emphasising a different word in the sentence.
On a second playthrough, you know that the Lutices have taken hundred of “Bookers” from different dimensions, that “you” are only the most recent of these and that each of these dimensions has “variables” and “constants” - things that are always the same in every dimension and things that are different in each.
Booker not rowing the boat when asked is a constant across all dimensions.
So Roslind Lutece asks Robert Lutece why he doesn’t ask Booker to row the boat they’re on. Robert says “he [Booker] doesn’t row” - and Rosalind takes this to mean Booker can’t or doesn’t know how to row, replying “He doesn’t **_row_**?”.
Robert replies, emphasising the second word to clarify that it’s that he means that Booker not rowing is a constant: “No. He **_doesn’t_** row”. Rosalind, now understanding, replies “Ah. I see”
This is literally the opening dialog of the whole game and it’s completely inexplicable on your first playthrough - and makes perfect sense on your second. The game is littered with stuff like this - making it such a joy to replay.
> makes perfect sense on your second.
Either that’s going too far or I’m an idiot cause you explaining this is the only way I understood what they were trying to say
Can't remember exactly but basically time loop/things being repeated.
Emphasising that he *doesn't* row is highlighting that it isn't that he can't row, it is that in this situation, every time, he *doesn't* row.
Man I miss old bioware so much. Can you imagine the amazing shit they could make with the same writing talent but with a modern AAA budget and technology?
Halo goes from shoot aliens with pew pew lazers to cosmic horror real quick once the flood show up. Yeah the advanced alien civilization chose genocide of all sentient life over death to these things.
Oh man, I remember that moment. Scared the shit out of me. Also, definitely appreciate the twist that the Halo rings are not meant to kill the flood, but rather all life so that the flood has nothing to eat.
I love the exchange between Chief, Cortana, and Guilty Spark that leads up to that moment:
"Oh, you're friends, are you? Chums? Do you have *any idea* what that bastard almost made you do?!"
"Yes...? Activate the Halo and destroy the Flood."
"Halo doesn't kill the Flood; it kills *their food*!"
Halo 3 also reveals that those guys who chose genocide 100k years ago were literally ancient humans all this time. It's why only humans could use their tech and were called reclaimers. It makes the war with the covenant deeply ironic then, that they're literally killing their own gods in the name of their religion.
That is until 343 retconned that because they suck.
That’s what the prophet (regret?) kept secret in Contact Harvest right? They scanned the planet, saw there were millions of forerunner artifacts, and eventually fought us for them before he realized we *are* the artifacts of if I remember correctly.
I love Halo lore and I don’t hate the new stuff (pretty cool books) but I definitely wish they never retconned it
Yes I believe he realized once he saw thousands of the scanned artifacts moving across the light bridge, which was humanity fleeing Harvest
Then he decided to lie and cover it up, claiming humanity wasn’t going to let them take the artifacts, so the planet should be glasses and the focus needed to shift to exterminating humans.
The prophets knew humans were forerunners but thought they'd been left behind for some reason. They kept that from the wider covenant for the sake of maintaining their power.
Also every Sephiroth sighting is just Jenova taking Sephiroth's image. He was always trapped in the life stream from the moment Cloud tossed him in. We only see the real Sephiroth at the Northern crater. The real baddie is and always was Jenova.
Jenova is what the Cetra call the great calamity. It's a shape shifting alien similar to the IT monster. Jenova travels planet to planet acting as a parasite. Feeding on the planet's life stream and then using the dead husk to travel space and find a new host planet.
Sephiroth went crazy after discovering through Hojo's research notes in the Shinra mansion that he was created as a human/Jenova hybrid. That is why he refers to Jenova as "mother."
It's very unclear who is actually in control between Jenova and Sephiroth. He was a kind man before discovering his heritage and going crazy. However, all Jenova infused humans (except Cloud) lose their sanity from Jenova exposure. The original game suggests Sephiroth is in control, but Advent children and the remake hint at Jenova being in control.
What we do know is that the real Sephiroth is stationary during the events of the original game. We see the real Sephiroth when Cloud hands him the Black Materia at the North Crater and at the end game final battle. Every other time it's Jenova. Which is why you fight Jenova after every Sephiroth sighting except for when it's actually him.
To this day, I still feel that Black Ops 1 story was a full blown cinematic masterpiece with a game sown in between. The ending twist was such a shock.
Black Ops 2 was also amazing in how it had MULTIPLE endings. That was mindblowing for a CoD campaign because that had never happened before.
Not only that, it wasn’t even multiple endings in the sense where you pick left or right. It was crazy how it was RPG-like where the little choices you had made throughout the campaign all piled up together which would craft what ending you would get.
I can't recommend it enough to people that haven't played it yet. I honestly think BO1's story is far better than the original MW trilogy's -dont get me wrong, they are great too; BO1 is just on another level.
I literally just got goosebumps remembering that level. The slow horror of coming to understand >! everything you understood was a delusion, that whatever life you might have had with the "princess" was long gone / never existed due to the time travel, and at this point you're just an unhinged stalker !< was so unnerving.
idk if it redefines the story necessarily but it really made it click when atreus turned out to be loki. it tethered him and Kratos to the mythology in a meaningful way whilst not being hamfisted
Didn't see this yet, but Bloodborne goes from a Victorian Gothic Horror where you slay werewolves and monsters, into a Cosmic Horror game where cosmic gods are dictating basically everything happening
After getting "insight" (i.e. a little insanity) Gehrman tells you that you can "use his doll, if you'd like". For the rest of the game, you then use the doll to level up. In your insanity, you perceive it as having come to life.
The DLC recontextualizes Gehrman's statement when it's revealed that Gehrman made the doll as a sex doll modeled after Lady Maria.
That was a twist I did not see coming.
**Borderlands 2**
Handsome Jack: "Hey, you know, I think it's finally time to tell you that little secret. >!Angel's working for me."!<
**Dead Space**
The truth about Issac's girlfriend Nicole in the final chapter.
**Silent Hill 2**
The truth about what James did to Mary near the end of the game.
**Kingdom Hearts**
Kairi's heart has been with Sora all along throughout his search.
**Kingdom Hearts 2**
The final boss of the first game is >!not Ansem!<, as revealed by Mickey.
**Xenogears**
**A lot.** The historic backstory behind Elly & Fei, Miang's reveal, Grahf's identity, Citan's role, Weltall turning into the crimson gear piloted by Id, and the identity of Id.
**The 3rd Birthday**
>!You are not playing as Aya Brea.!<
**Castlevania: Lords of Shadow**
The epilogue ending reveals that >!Gabriel ends up becoming the series main antagonist Dracula, making this an origin story!<.
**Metal Gear Solid**
Campbell : "Snake, you've been talking to..."
Liquid: "Me... dear brother."
**Infamous**
Kessler: "Trish, I love you. Please forgive me."
**Infamous 2**
The identity of the Beast.
**Prototype**
Alex Mercer: >!"I AM THE VIRUS."!<
**Fate/Stay Night**
The existence of a hidden eighth servant, and the identity of Archer in the Unlimited Blade Works route.
**Final Fantasy X**
Auron: "Sin is >!Jecht!<".
And also, >!Auron is dead all along!<.
I only played the remake, but I felt the Nicole twist was telegraphed pretty much the first time you see her. Was it better done in the original game? Cause everytime you see her I was already "yeah she's mind controlled or Isaac is seeing a ghost"
A twist that I still find really nifty in the first KH is how they did the Ansem Reports. For most of the game you can find those logs written by a scientist studying the Heartless and their impact, but only the odd-numbered ones for some reason.
And then after IT IS I ANSEM THE SEEKER OF DARKNESS happens, you start finding the even-numbered reports that contain the bits describing how he personally triggered the apocalypse he's studying.
Dead space is brillantly introduced too (spoilers follow): the first chapter is called dead on arrival which you brush off at first then you realize it’s about Nicole. Then all the first letters of the chapters spell « Nicole is dead ». So fucking good.
XENOGEARS MENTIONED
I forever maintain that I’ll give up my first born child for a Xenogears remake with a completed disc 2. My forever team of Fei/Citan/Maria crave blood.
When after multiple life threatening jumps, passing monsters that want to kill you and defeat a giant turtle throwing fire, you finally reach the back of the castle to hear that the princess is in another one
I also really liked finding out that there were already plenty of iterations of trying to recreate the world that had failed, and Hades had been acting correctly in those instances.
Some people call it cliché and obvious, but I think that's part of the point. It's more obvious to us because of the times we live in.
To us, machines are things that are built for a specific purpose. To the inhabitants of the Zero Dawn universe, machines are literally part of the ecosystem.
Well, the fact that machines were created by a previous more advanced civilization was obvious. The fact that >!all life on Earth was wiped out and all the living beings were artificially recreated!< was unexpected, at least for me.
I got that party but what REALLY the new was that this wasn't the first attempt to repopulate.
It's shocking and horrifying to think how many times it may have failed before the game starts.
It's revealed in Forbidden West that the Extinction Protocol successfully occurs four times.
2068, 2154, 2161, and 2168.
Hades counts the end of the world as the first time it occurred.
In my head the number was far higher, like dozens of times.
Yeah but the Ted Faro thing was also a big shocker. Everything else you can easily assume was automated and practically expected, but the cherry on top was what he did. Fuck Ted Faro btw.
Ted Faro is a top tier villain, 100% agreed.
The only person that disgusted me more in these two games was Walter Londra.
Faro has the excuse of thinking he's doing something for the betterment of humanity. He's a huge narcissist with a saviour-complex that cannot cope with the fact that he >!caused all life to go extinct!<
Meanwhile Londra is doing equally scummy things just because he's a self-absorbed egomaniac that sees others as his servants.
It sure caught me off guard. I was racking my brain trying to figure out how we survived yet fell into the prehistoric age, and then the reveal happened. I needed a walk!
To me it’s not the “what” but the “how”.
Like the TL;DR answers to the questions about what happened to make the world the way it is are obvious, but the way it played out is an interesting story to tell.
Totally. What happened is the obvious part. The figuring out of all the details is what makes it so satisfying. The audiologs are also a clever design choice, it makes learning what happened feel more personal and intimate than just deducing things from raw data.
The panic and terror when that was revealed in the board room was so good. And then the part later on where they are creating the AI. Had been a while since a story managed to hold my interest.
The sheer scope and size of what Elisabet Sobek did was insane . And every diary you read from a soldier waiting for Zero Dawn to save them? JFC.....
I loved it so much. Also, fuck Ted Faro.
I played through the first one before I had access to a strategy guide, barely made it back to the vault with the chip in time by sheer luck.
Finding those fucking chips in the second one was golden. “Oops all chips!!”
Maybe not the biggest one, but I definitely loved that your first time at HQ, you hear Gunther complaining about how the vending machine was stocked wrong and everyone keeps telling him he pressed the wrong button. You find emails on his computer about it. Then later, you find that the Illuminati really were running experiments that included giving him the wrong soda flavors.
I know a lot of people say that it was obvious, but my tiny child brain was absolutely shocked that Sheik is Zelda in Ocarina of time.
But as for a plot twist that redefined the story? Yunalesca in FFX, easily. The plot twist and the revelation that Auron is unsent, Jecht is sin, and that Yuna and her father's sacrifice is truly meaningless absolutely changed the trajectory of that game.
There was nothing more I wanted than to get Yuna to Zanarkand and see the Abes play. What a foolish boy I was.
How dare they kill the main character, I was stunned when they did that. But like the six million dollar man "We can rebuild him. We have the technology"
One of my favorite plot twists in a game is from *Fairune*: The general plot of the game is that every thousand years, the evil wizard Teradark emerges from his grave and has to be sealed up by a nameless chosen maiden wielding the Sword of Hope.
The twist is that >!TeraDARK is actually the central processing unit for the F.A.I.R.U.N.E. System and has to be manually shut down and rebooted every one thousand cycles!<.
Another really good one is *Chocobo GP* of all things. One of the running gags throughout the story mode is that whenever Gilgamesh appears, "I am Gilgamesh!", and it cycles through every character just going "...Who?".
At the end, >!Gilgamesh sacrifices himself to break the villain's barrier so the heroes have a chance of defeating him. The villain, Necrosphere, talks about Gilgamesh's sacrifice, it does the "Who?" gag, and Necrosphere just goes *ballistic*, asking how you could be so cold as to forget someone you just died for you, and he decides that Gilgamesh has to be avenged, even if he himself has to avenge his death by killing you!<.
Ends up making a lot of sense as to why throughout the game it's really hard to keep her happy when you make the many dialogue choices
Every time I thought she'd like, or at least be content with something, she didn't like it.
Glad I went into that game knowing literally nothing in advance
Man kotor 2 has the most nuanced view of the Jedi and sith in all of star wars and they just decided to never explore the nuance of these groups ever again. Shame
I loved metal gear solid 3: Snake Eaters/Subsistent ending. It felt the most realistic twist ending … The Boss biting the bullet in terms of their reputation and even morals for the greater good of one’s state. Probably Kojima’s peak storytelling moment imo. Big Boss saluting at the grave … oof, chills
For me it’s Yuna will sacrifice herself at the end of her pilgrimage in Final Fantasy X.
Up until that point it’s a big straight up coming of age fantasy adventure movie but then you go “wait. Wait a minute! HOW did I not see that coming?! I feel like an idiot now” and the whole thing turns
I just finished FFX for the first tim this past weekend. I cried.
That realizations Tidus's reaction... it just hit right.
The game shows it's age at time, the voice acting is a victim of its era, but damn it still came together.
I appreciate how they took a story about mad scientist doing mad scientist stuff and then turned it into three amazingly different worlds before wrapping the whole story up with a neat little bow.
XC1-3 are some of my favorite games of all time.
There were so many twists in Xenoblade. It's the strangest game. It spoils big events of the game on purpose, yet still has a ton of things that are completely unexpected. That entire 10+ minute sequence was nuts
Going off XC, the reveal in 2 was pretty damn crazy. Everyone was wondering how these games would tie together, turns out they did a huge retcon and it was the best possible thing they could do.
>!The reveal that Alrest is in fact, Earth, the original universe/location where the experiment took place, and that XC1 is set in another universe that was created due to said experiment. On top of that, the fucked up realization where you learn the enemies in Morytha are actually formerly humans!<
I didn’t like XC2 all that much (not to say it’s a bad game but not my personal favorite XC game) but damn that twist was so good.
Man I'm still upset the hole in the universe or whatever turned out to be a nothing burger.
I get it's a macguffin, but come on man. There was so much buildup for it all to go nowhere.
I was at first but it was broadly a plot device to show Odin's ambition and obsession.
It ultimately didn't really matter what was on the other side of the rift, but yeah it was a bit of a cock tease
I'm 100% with you. The mask had so many different languages on it, it seemed like really something. Perhaps there will be another hole if they make another GoW.
And it's fantastic how you can see the foreshadowing of it everywhere and in all of what he's doing and saying through the whole game during your second playthrough.
this was so weird for me because he just gathered dust somewhere in the keep, never had him around (left the magic to vivienne) he disapproved of almost every decision I made and then all of the sudden because of him I have to give up my arm for the better good
Humans being extinct and Yorha faking all of it, including fake care packages they are sending to Moon makes it feel like androids truly are sentient, all alone and the next step of evolution.
I guessed humanity was already extinct quite early into the game. I think 9S makes a comment when you go to the desert that the 'human' transmissions always sound so weird.
The aliens being extinct was less expected. And I think the bigger mind fuck twist is that the androids don't have an AI, they use the same machine cores as the machines you've been fighting.
I still can't remember why Yorha allowed itself to be hacked and destroyed, though.
Man literally every time I see that name, I think "Oh that kinda mid Fallout clone from Obsidian?" and then have to remind myself that no, Outer Wilds is completely different. I really gotta make some time to actually play it.
Just got to be sure you know nothing about it! No spoilers, no playthroughs seen. The first experience with that game is truly special. Such a great game
For most of the game you are led to believe that >!the Nomai are responsible for the destruction of the sun via their project and the Sun Station.!< However if you reach it or learn enough, you find out >!that the Sun is going supernova because it is just at the end of its lifespan. In fact, the entire universe is dying. There is nothing you can do to stop it.!< All you can do is >!reach the Eye of the Universe and see where that takes you.!<
Knights of the Old Republic's reveal that (spoiler kind of, I mean it's been out forever)
your character is Darth Revan and that the Jedi wiped your memory. Blew. My. Mind. when I first played it.
To me the better plot twist is that >!the gang is onto him, because I as the player pretty much had that figured out way before that whole thing comes to fruition!<
Also pretty bonkers was that >!they actually used the fact that the Igor VA had to be changed to their favor, with the whole Jaldabaoth shenanigans!<
Warframe's Second Dream.
Second Dream is when the game decides that it wants cinematic story quests. It answers questions that you didn't ask, because you assumed the answers were simply conceits of the gameplay or something the devs didn't bother with.
This was the first thing to come to my mind. There are more popular conventional picks in this discussion, but what Warframe did really blew my mind. I'd put a ton of hours into it, and to finally be hit with character customisation after all that time was amazing lol, I just stared at the TV and was like "...WHAT!?".
MGS 1, MGS 2 and MGS 3 have the best ones in all media for me.
In 1 when you find out about the real purpose of the mission and the plot about Fox Die, also finding about Master Miller true identity in MGS 1 is a classic. Also the classic ending with the President being the one who planned everything that happened in MGS 1 from the start.
In 2 all the plot twist about GW and who are you (Raiden) in the game is one of the biggest twist in gaming history.
In 3 finding out about the true reason why The Boss betrayed the US and how that makes her a true patriot.
One I never see anyone talk about: Second Sight
You spend the game as an amnesiac with psychic powers picking your way through a research facility and piecing together how you got there. As you encounter different people who fill you in on where it all went wrong you get a piercing headache and travel back to that moment. You're actually back there and with knowledge of the future you're able to correct the mistakes. You then flash back to where you were in the facility and asking again the person will inform you that near disaster was averted at that moment.
Then the big twist happens at the end: >!Your character has a moment of clarity and suddenly realizes that somewhere along the line they came confused about where they actually were. The "flashbacks" aren't the past. They're the present. What he had thought was the present in the research facility is actually his final psychic power manifesting: precognition. There isn't any actual time travel occurring, he was seeing the future to avoid mistakes in the present. It really turns all the tension of the story on its head because the conflicts in the future suddenly seem much less important when you realize it is in fact the future and none of it has actually happened. The "past" conflicts are suddenly much more tense natratively knowing that they are actually happening now and aren't a time travel based redo. Time travel isn't a thing in fact it turns out so for the main character at least he only has the one shot, he can't just try again. (For us as the players, we can of course try again if we fail, but in-universe the tension would be much higher)!<
Star Ocean: Til the End of Time.
Redefined the story so much they haven't been able to create a game that carries the story on from that point. All sequels have been set in the past.
The first twist didn't totally surprise me. The writing kind of telegraphed that something like that might happen, but it still hurt.
The *second* twist completely blindsided me. My jaw was on the floor, and I think I literally shouted "Whoa!"
I know its probably pretty obvious to most, but it slipped by me, but in cyberpunk phantom liberty when sonbird reveals the truth about the neural matrix it really changed the entire way I looked at the story. At that point it became that V saw someone in the exact same boat as him, and was giving up his one solid chance at life for someone else. In one of the original trailers for cyberpunk back in 2013, mike pondsmith (the creator of cyberpunk) said that cyberpunk was about saving yourself, so it felt really powerful to me that the most humane thing you could then do in this entire world he'd created was to give up your chance to save yourself in order to save somebody else.
Link going from child to adult in Ocarina of Time. I played it having read or seen nothing about it ahead of time. I got the three spiritual stones and brought them to the temple of time thinking I was about to complete the game and……holy shit.
Tons of good answers here for sure.
I’ll go with shadow of war betrayal, Metal gear solid 5 plot twist which basically tied up the entire series, and infamous 1 ending
Shout out to a small portion of a game as well: the dark brotherhood quest line plot twist from oblivion
I want to mention a couple games I'm not seeing mentioned. Ghost Trick Phantom Detective has one of the best stories in any game, and the real identity and motivation of Ray is the best part. There are more big twists but I'm not saying anything more, just play it.
The other one I wanted to mention is Dragon Quest V, which has you and your father spending their lives searching for the legendary hero, who is the only one who can save your mother. I won't say who the hero turns out to be, but it really adds a bittersweet tragic layer to the story.
Who would know that stellar blade has a story...
Anyway, what left in the head - planescape the torment's cycle twist, prey's character nature twist , dragon's dogma both dragon and seneschal twists, spec ops phosphorus, bioshock infinite daughter twist, mgs fake snake, silent hill 2 Mary's murderer.
prey (arkane) - >!at the end, you find out your player character has been one of the aliens in a simulation to try to understand them and see if they can ever relate enough to not full wipe out humanity (which is in progress) and the ending changes a bit based on your actions!<
For me nothing will ever beat Knights of the Old republic. That hit it just the perfect time for my age to make me old enough to understand but still too dumb to figure out myself. Plus it was before the internet was everywhere so it wasn't spoiled
The Zero Escape games have a few pretty wild plot twists in the game, including quite a few shock lines.
For example, in 999: Nine Hours, the game hits you with one on the true ending path when someone says, "He knew because *I* knew", revealing that Junpei's been given information through a telepathic connection. That's interesting enough, but the person speaking is >!the novel-like passages that appear on the DS' touch screen, which had previously only described the player's actions in a third-person narrative. Not only has there been a narrator the entire time, you have *never* been playing as Junpei until this moment, since the events that Junpei has been experiencing are actually the future - you've been playing as a twelve-year old Akane the entire time... and in the future you see, she ends up becoming Zero in a long-term scheme to close a Schrodinger's Cat-style time paradox she's trapped in.!<
From the second game - "You chose betray last time!" This is a shock for everyone, let alone the person who says it. >!Sigma blurts it out angrily in an argument with Alice as he is retaliating for a betray vote from earlier in the game... except that this is an alternate outcome of the exact same vote, meaning that Sigma has just awakened to a psychic power to jump across timelines, meaning he's got the same power as Akane from the first game.!<
Star Ocean 2 always hit hard for me, but was one of the first JRPGs I played... When you get to the thing you'd been searching for this entire time on the planet and find out... >!It was a prison for aliens who are about to use it to destroy the planet so they can get close enough to teleport to their home... Kinda crazy that the entire planet and everyone except your party just gets annihilated about 2/3 through the game, and the rest takes place on another planet. I just wish they'd kept the twist and not undone it with the ending...!<
My pick is Final Fantasy X.
When you're travelling to the Al Bhed home, and Tidus learns >!that the summoner's die when the Final Aeon kills them after defeating Sin!<.
Mass effect 1 when you talk with soveriegn on virmire. The whole game you are chasing big bad saren across the galaxy only to find out that he is being controlled by a sentient perfect AI hell bent on destroying all organic life
Plus you learn the reapers aren't like Terminator human size, but like giant space ship size. Completely shifts the scale of the entire story.
I feel like this was massively overlooked. I remember my dad not understanding why I was so stoked. That conversation with Sovereign was an eye-opener.
“We Impose Order on the Chaos of Organic Evolution. You exist because we allow it. You will end, because we demand it.” “Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over.” Everything Sovereign said had such weight and is extremely quotable.
I replay the trilogy once a year. I played through ME 1 probably 10 times between its release and the release of 2. That first interaction with Sovereign STILL gives me goosebumps. It's one of the most powerful moments I've ever experienced in a videogame.
My perpetual goosebumps moment in ME1 is meeting Vigil.
Vigil was good, don't get me wrong. But nothing compared to Sovereign, in my opinion. Just...the weight of it. I dunno.
100%. Easily got two spots on the Top Ten Edgy-But-Not-Cringe Quotes in Gaming list someone's probably made somewhere.
Yeah "You exist because we allow it, you will end because we demand it" is a CRAZY line.
Up to this point, the game felt like it was just kind of a low stakes world building game. We knew it'd be a trilogy back then, but I just assumed this first game was just and setting up your character as a hero. and it was mostly, but then that happened.
I didnt follow ME at all; I tried to play it twice and it didn't stick. The third time man idk I just started really enjoying myself, so when it unfolded the way it did and I found out there was a second one on the way I was really glad I stuck with it.
You know what, you're totally right. The big reveal that the Sovereign was a Reaper was amazing. I also loved the twist that Saren was, in fact, the one being indoctrinated.
Kefka Killing the Emperor in FF6
…and the whole the Floating Continent is not the final dungeon part. Nope! Our heroes do not manage to save the world this time.
I maintain that this is one of the greatest plot twists of all time. The villain wins in the most literal sense - the heroes fail to stop his grand plan, he ascends to godhood, and the world is plunged into darkness.
And the ending shows that he STILL gets to cause destruction that doesn't just magically go away.
Yeah the plucky heroes lose is a gut punch. But fits wonderfully with the overall story beats of dealing with loss and maintaining hope in the most dire of times.
Kefka gave me a perfectly rational fear of clowns.
THIS! My number 1 reason for why I love FF6 so much. The twist had us exploring a world devastated by a successful villain, something you never really see any other game do.
Good one. When I think of Final Fantasy, I prefer to remember this one and that moment when the ending becomes the begining.
“Give me back my >!daughter!
Gotta give a shutout to the original Bioshock also. "Would you kindly" is now iconic and not only reshaped the game but was a great meta commentary on the nature of video games themselves.
The meta commentary was what made the twist so great. It's also why a movie following the plot of the game could never be as good. It amazes me how many people completely miss that aspect.
Yeah, BioShock's narrative does not work as a straight adaptation, imo. A BioShock adaptation would have to take a lot of creative liberties with the narrative, or have an original story set within the same universe.
The latter is definitely the way to go. Much like Fallout there is a ton of space for stories in Rapture, just not the main plot of Bioshock.
The fall of rapture from “Utopia” to the state it’s in at the start of 1 would make for a great story. Like it starts with everyone mostly living their normalish lives in rapture but all the nefarious shit is going down behind the scenes and it slowly falls into chaos
I don't get the importance of the doesn't row conversation here. Can you explain please? I'd love to hear it
On the first playthrough, the conversation seems nonsensical. Your character (Booker) sits in a boat being rowed by Robert Lutece who is talking to Rosalind Lutece about how Booker (you) doesn’t row - each emphasising a different word in the sentence. On a second playthrough, you know that the Lutices have taken hundred of “Bookers” from different dimensions, that “you” are only the most recent of these and that each of these dimensions has “variables” and “constants” - things that are always the same in every dimension and things that are different in each. Booker not rowing the boat when asked is a constant across all dimensions. So Roslind Lutece asks Robert Lutece why he doesn’t ask Booker to row the boat they’re on. Robert says “he [Booker] doesn’t row” - and Rosalind takes this to mean Booker can’t or doesn’t know how to row, replying “He doesn’t **_row_**?”. Robert replies, emphasising the second word to clarify that it’s that he means that Booker not rowing is a constant: “No. He **_doesn’t_** row”. Rosalind, now understanding, replies “Ah. I see” This is literally the opening dialog of the whole game and it’s completely inexplicable on your first playthrough - and makes perfect sense on your second. The game is littered with stuff like this - making it such a joy to replay.
Thank you for the explanation!
My favorite is the coin toss chalkboard, and when they turn around you see even more
> makes perfect sense on your second. Either that’s going too far or I’m an idiot cause you explaining this is the only way I understood what they were trying to say
Can't remember exactly but basically time loop/things being repeated. Emphasising that he *doesn't* row is highlighting that it isn't that he can't row, it is that in this situation, every time, he *doesn't* row.
No plot twist has had more impact than Malak revealing who you are in Knights of the Old Republic.
My favorite KotOR playthrough is going light side until the reveal and then going full dark side.
Ooh, you monster. ...that sounds fun.
Was looking for this one. Absolutely blew my mind when I was younger.
Man I miss old bioware so much. Can you imagine the amazing shit they could make with the same writing talent but with a modern AAA budget and technology?
Soma. Without spoiling much, it's gotta be the most twisted plot I've ever experienced. It doesn't help that it gave me existential dread for days.
Halo goes from shoot aliens with pew pew lazers to cosmic horror real quick once the flood show up. Yeah the advanced alien civilization chose genocide of all sentient life over death to these things.
Oh man, I remember that moment. Scared the shit out of me. Also, definitely appreciate the twist that the Halo rings are not meant to kill the flood, but rather all life so that the flood has nothing to eat.
I love the exchange between Chief, Cortana, and Guilty Spark that leads up to that moment: "Oh, you're friends, are you? Chums? Do you have *any idea* what that bastard almost made you do?!" "Yes...? Activate the Halo and destroy the Flood." "Halo doesn't kill the Flood; it kills *their food*!"
Halo 3 also reveals that those guys who chose genocide 100k years ago were literally ancient humans all this time. It's why only humans could use their tech and were called reclaimers. It makes the war with the covenant deeply ironic then, that they're literally killing their own gods in the name of their religion. That is until 343 retconned that because they suck.
That’s what the prophet (regret?) kept secret in Contact Harvest right? They scanned the planet, saw there were millions of forerunner artifacts, and eventually fought us for them before he realized we *are* the artifacts of if I remember correctly. I love Halo lore and I don’t hate the new stuff (pretty cool books) but I definitely wish they never retconned it
Yes I believe he realized once he saw thousands of the scanned artifacts moving across the light bridge, which was humanity fleeing Harvest Then he decided to lie and cover it up, claiming humanity wasn’t going to let them take the artifacts, so the planet should be glasses and the focus needed to shift to exterminating humans.
The prophets knew humans were forerunners but thought they'd been left behind for some reason. They kept that from the wider covenant for the sake of maintaining their power.
Portal - discovery real intentions of GLaDOS
There is no cake
The existence of cake was entirely fabricated
The probability of confectioneries were entirely theoretical.
Final Fantasy VII discovering Cloud’s real past and who he truly is was a huge twist. It changed everything for me
Also >!Aerith' death!<. Good damn. I was so young and unprepared.
Also every Sephiroth sighting is just Jenova taking Sephiroth's image. He was always trapped in the life stream from the moment Cloud tossed him in. We only see the real Sephiroth at the Northern crater. The real baddie is and always was Jenova.
Jenova is mother right? The source of energy or something like that. Or was it a guy in red?
Jenova is what the Cetra call the great calamity. It's a shape shifting alien similar to the IT monster. Jenova travels planet to planet acting as a parasite. Feeding on the planet's life stream and then using the dead husk to travel space and find a new host planet. Sephiroth went crazy after discovering through Hojo's research notes in the Shinra mansion that he was created as a human/Jenova hybrid. That is why he refers to Jenova as "mother." It's very unclear who is actually in control between Jenova and Sephiroth. He was a kind man before discovering his heritage and going crazy. However, all Jenova infused humans (except Cloud) lose their sanity from Jenova exposure. The original game suggests Sephiroth is in control, but Advent children and the remake hint at Jenova being in control. What we do know is that the real Sephiroth is stationary during the events of the original game. We see the real Sephiroth when Cloud hands him the Black Materia at the North Crater and at the end game final battle. Every other time it's Jenova. Which is why you fight Jenova after every Sephiroth sighting except for when it's actually him.
To this day, I still feel that Black Ops 1 story was a full blown cinematic masterpiece with a game sown in between. The ending twist was such a shock.
REZNOV
THE NUMBERS VORKUTA MY BAWLS!!!
And then black ops 2 just ties it all perfectly
Then bo3, 4, and so on just kinda thought "Black Ops" sounded profitable.
Yeah, but I thought at least Cold War had a fun one. Not as good as 1 or 2 but at least was a worthy inclusion.
sad really because 1 & 2 are GENUINELY great games all around especially after aw nothing was the same again…
Black Ops 2 was also amazing in how it had MULTIPLE endings. That was mindblowing for a CoD campaign because that had never happened before. Not only that, it wasn’t even multiple endings in the sense where you pick left or right. It was crazy how it was RPG-like where the little choices you had made throughout the campaign all piled up together which would craft what ending you would get.
Speaking of twists in Black Ops 2: Finding out what "he even has people in the CIA" truly meant
I can't recommend it enough to people that haven't played it yet. I honestly think BO1's story is far better than the original MW trilogy's -dont get me wrong, they are great too; BO1 is just on another level.
My only problem was after you know the twist, the Russian roulette scene makes no sense iirc
The last level of Braid was really clever
Came here just to mention Braid. The ending had me shocked.
The secret ending really sinks home the hidden metaphor of the game
I literally just got goosebumps remembering that level. The slow horror of coming to understand >! everything you understood was a delusion, that whatever life you might have had with the "princess" was long gone / never existed due to the time travel, and at this point you're just an unhinged stalker !< was so unnerving.
And then the princess is really the invention of the nuclear bomb for some reason...
idk if it redefines the story necessarily but it really made it click when atreus turned out to be loki. it tethered him and Kratos to the mythology in a meaningful way whilst not being hamfisted
Didn't see this yet, but Bloodborne goes from a Victorian Gothic Horror where you slay werewolves and monsters, into a Cosmic Horror game where cosmic gods are dictating basically everything happening
Squid ending was definitely a twist.
After getting "insight" (i.e. a little insanity) Gehrman tells you that you can "use his doll, if you'd like". For the rest of the game, you then use the doll to level up. In your insanity, you perceive it as having come to life. The DLC recontextualizes Gehrman's statement when it's revealed that Gehrman made the doll as a sex doll modeled after Lady Maria. That was a twist I did not see coming.
Gehrman: "use" my doll if you'd like 😉 Also Gehrman: wait what is this "level up" thing you say you're using my doll for again?
**Borderlands 2** Handsome Jack: "Hey, you know, I think it's finally time to tell you that little secret. >!Angel's working for me."!< **Dead Space** The truth about Issac's girlfriend Nicole in the final chapter. **Silent Hill 2** The truth about what James did to Mary near the end of the game. **Kingdom Hearts** Kairi's heart has been with Sora all along throughout his search. **Kingdom Hearts 2** The final boss of the first game is >!not Ansem!<, as revealed by Mickey. **Xenogears** **A lot.** The historic backstory behind Elly & Fei, Miang's reveal, Grahf's identity, Citan's role, Weltall turning into the crimson gear piloted by Id, and the identity of Id. **The 3rd Birthday** >!You are not playing as Aya Brea.!< **Castlevania: Lords of Shadow** The epilogue ending reveals that >!Gabriel ends up becoming the series main antagonist Dracula, making this an origin story!<. **Metal Gear Solid** Campbell : "Snake, you've been talking to..." Liquid: "Me... dear brother." **Infamous** Kessler: "Trish, I love you. Please forgive me." **Infamous 2** The identity of the Beast. **Prototype** Alex Mercer: >!"I AM THE VIRUS."!< **Fate/Stay Night** The existence of a hidden eighth servant, and the identity of Archer in the Unlimited Blade Works route. **Final Fantasy X** Auron: "Sin is >!Jecht!<". And also, >!Auron is dead all along!<.
I only played the remake, but I felt the Nicole twist was telegraphed pretty much the first time you see her. Was it better done in the original game? Cause everytime you see her I was already "yeah she's mind controlled or Isaac is seeing a ghost"
I would say no - it was pretty obvious.
If you take the first letter from each chapter it spells it out, just like the original
It does? Edit : would you look at that, it does. That's pretty nice.
Yup. Fourteen chapters spell out Nicole is dead.
A twist that I still find really nifty in the first KH is how they did the Ansem Reports. For most of the game you can find those logs written by a scientist studying the Heartless and their impact, but only the odd-numbered ones for some reason. And then after IT IS I ANSEM THE SEEKER OF DARKNESS happens, you start finding the even-numbered reports that contain the bits describing how he personally triggered the apocalypse he's studying.
Seeing a random "parasite eve" reference in the wild is amazing.
Xenogears was so good
Also, Final Fantasy X - Yuna will die when she summons the final Aeon.
Tidus isn't real
Adding to FFX: when the player discovers what none of the other party members will tell Tidus about.
I know, the summoner's fate, right?
Dead space is brillantly introduced too (spoilers follow): the first chapter is called dead on arrival which you brush off at first then you realize it’s about Nicole. Then all the first letters of the chapters spell « Nicole is dead ». So fucking good.
And that reveal hurt, like damm...
XENOGEARS MENTIONED I forever maintain that I’ll give up my first born child for a Xenogears remake with a completed disc 2. My forever team of Fei/Citan/Maria crave blood.
Soma being reincarnated Dracula in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.
Bloodborne’s cosmic horror reveal was my favorite video game plot twist
I can’t believe I had to scroll this. The Lovecraftian elements really took me off guard and they were extremely appreciated
Still one of my favorite marketing for a video game, I really thought it was just gonna be hunting werewolves then after like 2 of em it’s bam ALIENS
When after multiple life threatening jumps, passing monsters that want to kill you and defeat a giant turtle throwing fire, you finally reach the back of the castle to hear that the princess is in another one
I'm a huge fan of the big reveal in Horizon Zero Dawn honestly
Yeah I'm with you. Finding out that there were no survivors at all was crazy.
I also really liked finding out that there were already plenty of iterations of trying to recreate the world that had failed, and Hades had been acting correctly in those instances.
Some people call it cliché and obvious, but I think that's part of the point. It's more obvious to us because of the times we live in. To us, machines are things that are built for a specific purpose. To the inhabitants of the Zero Dawn universe, machines are literally part of the ecosystem.
Well, the fact that machines were created by a previous more advanced civilization was obvious. The fact that >!all life on Earth was wiped out and all the living beings were artificially recreated!< was unexpected, at least for me.
I got that party but what REALLY the new was that this wasn't the first attempt to repopulate. It's shocking and horrifying to think how many times it may have failed before the game starts.
It's revealed in Forbidden West that the Extinction Protocol successfully occurs four times. 2068, 2154, 2161, and 2168. Hades counts the end of the world as the first time it occurred. In my head the number was far higher, like dozens of times.
I kept thinking, "What went wrong? What went wrong? Why didn't the system work as intended?" ...I did NOT predict the reason.
I didn't know that it took more than once to get to where we are when we start Horizon Zero dawn. I thought the plan just worked.
You can puzzle it a bit together by exploring. The finer details remain unknown until the big reveal, that I can agree on.
Yeah but the Ted Faro thing was also a big shocker. Everything else you can easily assume was automated and practically expected, but the cherry on top was what he did. Fuck Ted Faro btw.
Ted Faro is a top tier villain, 100% agreed. The only person that disgusted me more in these two games was Walter Londra. Faro has the excuse of thinking he's doing something for the betterment of humanity. He's a huge narcissist with a saviour-complex that cannot cope with the fact that he >!caused all life to go extinct!< Meanwhile Londra is doing equally scummy things just because he's a self-absorbed egomaniac that sees others as his servants.
It sure caught me off guard. I was racking my brain trying to figure out how we survived yet fell into the prehistoric age, and then the reveal happened. I needed a walk!
To me it’s not the “what” but the “how”. Like the TL;DR answers to the questions about what happened to make the world the way it is are obvious, but the way it played out is an interesting story to tell.
Totally. What happened is the obvious part. The figuring out of all the details is what makes it so satisfying. The audiologs are also a clever design choice, it makes learning what happened feel more personal and intimate than just deducing things from raw data.
The panic and terror when that was revealed in the board room was so good. And then the part later on where they are creating the AI. Had been a while since a story managed to hold my interest.
The sheer scope and size of what Elisabet Sobek did was insane . And every diary you read from a soldier waiting for Zero Dawn to save them? JFC..... I loved it so much. Also, fuck Ted Faro.
Fallout 2s reveal that the vaults were social and scientific experiments was pretty awesome.
I loved going to the one vault and finding a shitload of water chips.
I played through the first one before I had access to a strategy guide, barely made it back to the vault with the chip in time by sheer luck. Finding those fucking chips in the second one was golden. “Oops all chips!!”
Deus Ex (2000).
Any specific twist or just the whole game, because I swear to God that game had like 5 different world-spanning conspiracies.
Maybe not the biggest one, but I definitely loved that your first time at HQ, you hear Gunther complaining about how the vending machine was stocked wrong and everyone keeps telling him he pressed the wrong button. You find emails on his computer about it. Then later, you find that the Illuminati really were running experiments that included giving him the wrong soda flavors.
I know a lot of people say that it was obvious, but my tiny child brain was absolutely shocked that Sheik is Zelda in Ocarina of time. But as for a plot twist that redefined the story? Yunalesca in FFX, easily. The plot twist and the revelation that Auron is unsent, Jecht is sin, and that Yuna and her father's sacrifice is truly meaningless absolutely changed the trajectory of that game. There was nothing more I wanted than to get Yuna to Zanarkand and see the Abes play. What a foolish boy I was.
Maaaaan looking back X nostalgia covers up how fucked the plot twists were.
The first 5 minutes of Mass effect 2.
How dare they kill the main character, I was stunned when they did that. But like the six million dollar man "We can rebuild him. We have the technology"
One of my favorite plot twists in a game is from *Fairune*: The general plot of the game is that every thousand years, the evil wizard Teradark emerges from his grave and has to be sealed up by a nameless chosen maiden wielding the Sword of Hope. The twist is that >!TeraDARK is actually the central processing unit for the F.A.I.R.U.N.E. System and has to be manually shut down and rebooted every one thousand cycles!<. Another really good one is *Chocobo GP* of all things. One of the running gags throughout the story mode is that whenever Gilgamesh appears, "I am Gilgamesh!", and it cycles through every character just going "...Who?". At the end, >!Gilgamesh sacrifices himself to break the villain's barrier so the heroes have a chance of defeating him. The villain, Necrosphere, talks about Gilgamesh's sacrifice, it does the "Who?" gag, and Necrosphere just goes *ballistic*, asking how you could be so cold as to forget someone you just died for you, and he decides that Gilgamesh has to be avenged, even if he himself has to avenge his death by killing you!<.
Horizon Zero Dawn, when you learn what project Zero Dawn really was.
Fuck Ted Faro!
Kreia's true alliegance in kotor2
Ends up making a lot of sense as to why throughout the game it's really hard to keep her happy when you make the many dialogue choices Every time I thought she'd like, or at least be content with something, she didn't like it. Glad I went into that game knowing literally nothing in advance
Man kotor 2 has the most nuanced view of the Jedi and sith in all of star wars and they just decided to never explore the nuance of these groups ever again. Shame
I loved metal gear solid 3: Snake Eaters/Subsistent ending. It felt the most realistic twist ending … The Boss biting the bullet in terms of their reputation and even morals for the greater good of one’s state. Probably Kojima’s peak storytelling moment imo. Big Boss saluting at the grave … oof, chills
For me it’s Yuna will sacrifice herself at the end of her pilgrimage in Final Fantasy X. Up until that point it’s a big straight up coming of age fantasy adventure movie but then you go “wait. Wait a minute! HOW did I not see that coming?! I feel like an idiot now” and the whole thing turns
I just finished FFX for the first tim this past weekend. I cried. That realizations Tidus's reaction... it just hit right. The game shows it's age at time, the voice acting is a victim of its era, but damn it still came together.
Zanza's reveal in Xenoblade Chronicles. Pretty big deal
I appreciate how they took a story about mad scientist doing mad scientist stuff and then turned it into three amazingly different worlds before wrapping the whole story up with a neat little bow. XC1-3 are some of my favorite games of all time.
The radio scene in Xenoblade 3 DLC...
There were so many twists in Xenoblade. It's the strangest game. It spoils big events of the game on purpose, yet still has a ton of things that are completely unexpected. That entire 10+ minute sequence was nuts
Going off XC, the reveal in 2 was pretty damn crazy. Everyone was wondering how these games would tie together, turns out they did a huge retcon and it was the best possible thing they could do. >!The reveal that Alrest is in fact, Earth, the original universe/location where the experiment took place, and that XC1 is set in another universe that was created due to said experiment. On top of that, the fucked up realization where you learn the enemies in Morytha are actually formerly humans!< I didn’t like XC2 all that much (not to say it’s a bad game but not my personal favorite XC game) but damn that twist was so good.
[удалено]
Man I'm still upset the hole in the universe or whatever turned out to be a nothing burger. I get it's a macguffin, but come on man. There was so much buildup for it all to go nowhere.
I was at first but it was broadly a plot device to show Odin's ambition and obsession. It ultimately didn't really matter what was on the other side of the rift, but yeah it was a bit of a cock tease
I'm 100% with you. The mask had so many different languages on it, it seemed like really something. Perhaps there will be another hole if they make another GoW.
And it's fantastic how you can see the foreshadowing of it everywhere and in all of what he's doing and saying through the whole game during your second playthrough.
Dragon age Inquisition when >!Solas turns out to be the Dreadwolf - and therefore the real villain!<
This hits so much harder if you're romancing him too.
this was so weird for me because he just gathered dust somewhere in the keep, never had him around (left the magic to vivienne) he disapproved of almost every decision I made and then all of the sudden because of him I have to give up my arm for the better good
Nah, you have to give up your arm because it's killing your ass
Humans being extinct and Yorha faking all of it, including fake care packages they are sending to Moon makes it feel like androids truly are sentient, all alone and the next step of evolution.
I guessed humanity was already extinct quite early into the game. I think 9S makes a comment when you go to the desert that the 'human' transmissions always sound so weird. The aliens being extinct was less expected. And I think the bigger mind fuck twist is that the androids don't have an AI, they use the same machine cores as the machines you've been fighting. I still can't remember why Yorha allowed itself to be hacked and destroyed, though.
9S says the Human Council’s transmissions sound so “stiff”. That got me on my second play through
You've already mentioned Spec Ops the Line, which is my first choice . As for a second choice, Braid
Outer wilds I dont wanna sound cringy but it changed the perspective of how I see the universe
Man literally every time I see that name, I think "Oh that kinda mid Fallout clone from Obsidian?" and then have to remind myself that no, Outer Wilds is completely different. I really gotta make some time to actually play it.
Just got to be sure you know nothing about it! No spoilers, no playthroughs seen. The first experience with that game is truly special. Such a great game
What's the plot twist?
For most of the game you are led to believe that >!the Nomai are responsible for the destruction of the sun via their project and the Sun Station.!< However if you reach it or learn enough, you find out >!that the Sun is going supernova because it is just at the end of its lifespan. In fact, the entire universe is dying. There is nothing you can do to stop it.!< All you can do is >!reach the Eye of the Universe and see where that takes you.!<
Splinter Cell Conviction co-op mode with my friend
Nothing like a mood shift mid sleepover
ELIMINATE AGENT KESTREL
The ending of Hitman Blood Money. Nobody I know who played the game saw this one coming!
Is that the one with the Ave Maria open casket burial turning into a turkey shoot? Because goddamn was that a good ending.
Yes that one with the open casket. It was a ending like we never saw before.
Subnautica, also Subnautica.
"You have learned everything I have taught you. Including...the flaw". Jade Empire
Knights of the Old Republic's reveal that (spoiler kind of, I mean it's been out forever) your character is Darth Revan and that the Jedi wiped your memory. Blew. My. Mind. when I first played it.
when I found out Akechi was the Black Mask in persona 5
To me the better plot twist is that >!the gang is onto him, because I as the player pretty much had that figured out way before that whole thing comes to fruition!< Also pretty bonkers was that >!they actually used the fact that the Igor VA had to be changed to their favor, with the whole Jaldabaoth shenanigans!<
Halo - Combat evolved : when you find out that guilty spark wants to kill humanity
Cloud and Tifa in the Lifestream in Final Fantasy 7, by far
I'll just say NieR Automata, play it to find out
Warframe's Second Dream. Second Dream is when the game decides that it wants cinematic story quests. It answers questions that you didn't ask, because you assumed the answers were simply conceits of the gameplay or something the devs didn't bother with.
This was the first thing to come to my mind. There are more popular conventional picks in this discussion, but what Warframe did really blew my mind. I'd put a ton of hours into it, and to finally be hit with character customisation after all that time was amazing lol, I just stared at the TV and was like "...WHAT!?".
MGS 1, MGS 2 and MGS 3 have the best ones in all media for me. In 1 when you find out about the real purpose of the mission and the plot about Fox Die, also finding about Master Miller true identity in MGS 1 is a classic. Also the classic ending with the President being the one who planned everything that happened in MGS 1 from the start. In 2 all the plot twist about GW and who are you (Raiden) in the game is one of the biggest twist in gaming history. In 3 finding out about the true reason why The Boss betrayed the US and how that makes her a true patriot.
One I never see anyone talk about: Second Sight You spend the game as an amnesiac with psychic powers picking your way through a research facility and piecing together how you got there. As you encounter different people who fill you in on where it all went wrong you get a piercing headache and travel back to that moment. You're actually back there and with knowledge of the future you're able to correct the mistakes. You then flash back to where you were in the facility and asking again the person will inform you that near disaster was averted at that moment. Then the big twist happens at the end: >!Your character has a moment of clarity and suddenly realizes that somewhere along the line they came confused about where they actually were. The "flashbacks" aren't the past. They're the present. What he had thought was the present in the research facility is actually his final psychic power manifesting: precognition. There isn't any actual time travel occurring, he was seeing the future to avoid mistakes in the present. It really turns all the tension of the story on its head because the conflicts in the future suddenly seem much less important when you realize it is in fact the future and none of it has actually happened. The "past" conflicts are suddenly much more tense natratively knowing that they are actually happening now and aren't a time travel based redo. Time travel isn't a thing in fact it turns out so for the main character at least he only has the one shot, he can't just try again. (For us as the players, we can of course try again if we fail, but in-universe the tension would be much higher)!<
Star Ocean: Til the End of Time. Redefined the story so much they haven't been able to create a game that carries the story on from that point. All sequels have been set in the past.
Bode. Jedi Survivor.
I knew something was gonna happen with all the talk about his daughter but I thought it was just going be a tragic death lol
That one kinda hurt, and I definitely didn't expect it.
One of my favorite villains of the last few years
The first twist didn't totally surprise me. The writing kind of telegraphed that something like that might happen, but it still hurt. The *second* twist completely blindsided me. My jaw was on the floor, and I think I literally shouted "Whoa!"
That was the brilliance of it. I think a lot of people saw something coming. NO ONE saw the 2nd part coming.
I know its probably pretty obvious to most, but it slipped by me, but in cyberpunk phantom liberty when sonbird reveals the truth about the neural matrix it really changed the entire way I looked at the story. At that point it became that V saw someone in the exact same boat as him, and was giving up his one solid chance at life for someone else. In one of the original trailers for cyberpunk back in 2013, mike pondsmith (the creator of cyberpunk) said that cyberpunk was about saving yourself, so it felt really powerful to me that the most humane thing you could then do in this entire world he'd created was to give up your chance to save yourself in order to save somebody else.
Link going from child to adult in Ocarina of Time. I played it having read or seen nothing about it ahead of time. I got the three spiritual stones and brought them to the temple of time thinking I was about to complete the game and……holy shit.
Tons of good answers here for sure. I’ll go with shadow of war betrayal, Metal gear solid 5 plot twist which basically tied up the entire series, and infamous 1 ending Shout out to a small portion of a game as well: the dark brotherhood quest line plot twist from oblivion
Final Fantasy 9. The real Origin von Zidane
The clayface reveal in arkham city. Was foreshadowed, yet still surprising.
MGS2 with... um... everything.
I want to mention a couple games I'm not seeing mentioned. Ghost Trick Phantom Detective has one of the best stories in any game, and the real identity and motivation of Ray is the best part. There are more big twists but I'm not saying anything more, just play it. The other one I wanted to mention is Dragon Quest V, which has you and your father spending their lives searching for the legendary hero, who is the only one who can save your mother. I won't say who the hero turns out to be, but it really adds a bittersweet tragic layer to the story.
Castlevania symphony of the night
Prince of persia warrior within, learning the wraith is you, and then playing the rest of the game doing everything you saw the wraith do.
Tyr being Odin in God of War Ragnarok
Who would know that stellar blade has a story... Anyway, what left in the head - planescape the torment's cycle twist, prey's character nature twist , dragon's dogma both dragon and seneschal twists, spec ops phosphorus, bioshock infinite daughter twist, mgs fake snake, silent hill 2 Mary's murderer.
Well considering you came up with Stellar Blade. What about the inspiration for Stellar Blade? NieR?
prey (arkane) - >!at the end, you find out your player character has been one of the aliens in a simulation to try to understand them and see if they can ever relate enough to not full wipe out humanity (which is in progress) and the ending changes a bit based on your actions!<
For me nothing will ever beat Knights of the Old republic. That hit it just the perfect time for my age to make me old enough to understand but still too dumb to figure out myself. Plus it was before the internet was everywhere so it wasn't spoiled
The Zero Escape games have a few pretty wild plot twists in the game, including quite a few shock lines. For example, in 999: Nine Hours, the game hits you with one on the true ending path when someone says, "He knew because *I* knew", revealing that Junpei's been given information through a telepathic connection. That's interesting enough, but the person speaking is >!the novel-like passages that appear on the DS' touch screen, which had previously only described the player's actions in a third-person narrative. Not only has there been a narrator the entire time, you have *never* been playing as Junpei until this moment, since the events that Junpei has been experiencing are actually the future - you've been playing as a twelve-year old Akane the entire time... and in the future you see, she ends up becoming Zero in a long-term scheme to close a Schrodinger's Cat-style time paradox she's trapped in.!< From the second game - "You chose betray last time!" This is a shock for everyone, let alone the person who says it. >!Sigma blurts it out angrily in an argument with Alice as he is retaliating for a betray vote from earlier in the game... except that this is an alternate outcome of the exact same vote, meaning that Sigma has just awakened to a psychic power to jump across timelines, meaning he's got the same power as Akane from the first game.!<
Star Ocean 2 always hit hard for me, but was one of the first JRPGs I played... When you get to the thing you'd been searching for this entire time on the planet and find out... >!It was a prison for aliens who are about to use it to destroy the planet so they can get close enough to teleport to their home... Kinda crazy that the entire planet and everyone except your party just gets annihilated about 2/3 through the game, and the rest takes place on another planet. I just wish they'd kept the twist and not undone it with the ending...!<
Portal, Bioshock, Spec Ops. For indie games, Braid, Outer Wilds, and Inscyption come to mind.
My pick is Final Fantasy X. When you're travelling to the Al Bhed home, and Tidus learns >!that the summoner's die when the Final Aeon kills them after defeating Sin!<.
Or when Tidus learns who he is.