The 10 Lamest Video Game Plot Twists Ever

We know them all too well: bad video game plots. There are too many games out there with weak stories or just plan uninteresting ones. Some however have good enough gameplay to get us hooked only to slap us right in the face with an obnoxious plot twist. A game twist revolving around “it was all a dream” or “you’re in the Internet, Matrix, digital copy of a dead universe” and the like are worn out cliches that seem to be a writer's default.

Here’s a look at some of the games that got it all wrong, or fell asleep at the wheel through the most important parts. Some of these games were otherwise solid plays but lost its focus; while others are just straight-up bad. One or two just might have you scratching your head. Like why the hell did they put my wife in my arm? Read on.

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If Bayonetta didn’t already make you uncomfortable with it’s obtuse female lead character, then its plot will leave you wondering why the hell anyone would bother writing a story for it in the first place. Halfway through the game Bayonetta rescues a little girl who has a resemblance, glasses mainly and an affinity for lollipops, to the main character. After another bunch of clunky gameplay we find out that, wait for it, the child is Bayonetta.

Talk about clunky; the developer seemed to forget that their main character had been trapped in a coffin for the last five centuries and how to write a plot. Even Bayonetta didn’t care when the game revealed who the kid was, that’s pretty lame.

When Nintendo discovered that their Mario sequel was too hard, they made that crazy-difficult version Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels and Nintendo reached into it’s junk bin of prototype games and pulled out Doki Doki Panic, changed the characters and created Super Mario Bros. 2: Mario Madness.

It never felt exactly like a Mario game as the movements seemed a little different, all this new plant life apeared in turnip form. The game’s big twist at the end is telegraphed throughout, but that doesn’t make it any better. After finally pushing through to the end we discover that the entire game was a dream in Mario’s little head. We figured Mario wouldn’t save the world all at once but a dream? That’s pretty much just a way of saying everything you just did didn’t matter anyway.

Far Cry as a series redeemed itself with the release of Far Cry 3. But the original game felt like the developers just dumped as many plot clichés as they could find into one big confusing pot.

We start off happily killing mercenaries only to discover that there is something else on the island, these completely uninteresting genetic experiments. From that point on annoying monsters jump us for the rest of the game as we try to discover the secrets inside a volcano. We really just wanted to kill mercenaries, why all the X-Files?

Resident Evil 5 has one of the most yawn-inducing plot twists ever. Not only do we see it coming from the moment the game starts, but the characters seem equally disinterested.

We meet a mysteries hooded figure that is obviously Jill. The only problem is that it took way to long to get to the point. In fact, saying it’s a plot twist is even a stretch since everyone saw it coming. In a game and genre, survival-horror, that relies on mysteries and surprises, Resident Evil 5 really let us down with this one.

Heavy Rain is alternately considered to have the best and worst plot devices of any game. It tries to pull off a gotcha, out-of-nowhere ending that is largely successful but has a couple of massive plot holes.

As the Origami Killer is revealed as actually the a character we’ve been sympathizing with the entire game is shocking. But if you were half awake during the game then you would have noticed a glaring plot hole. During one of the killings, in-game, the killer is in a completely different room than where the murder takes place. But during a flashback sequence he’s shown strangling the victim. He’s in two places at once? We bet the developers over at Quantic Dream would love the opportunity to fix that glaring screw-up in an otherwise deeply moving, plot-driven game.

The Final Fantasy series has some of the best and worst stories and plots of any game series. In fact the range of the quality of content of a Final Fantasy games always has us a little worried. In Final Fantasy X Square Enix really betrayed us with an epically bad plot device.

We play as Tidus who finally after the long-teased romantic tones of the series finally gets some sort of fulfillment at the end of the game and falls in love. This beautiful love-laced ending is then dumped all over when it’s revealed that he is just a dream. “Its just a dream” is probably the worst plot device ever created. There’s nothing like the feeling that we’ve just wasted 40 to 60 hours of our lives on a game by dropping that bomb.

To play the Fallout series is to play one of the most well thought-out series in gaming. It seems the developers have thought of every detail. In Fallout 3 the complex winding plot searches and then destroys our moral compass.

But the ending of game had a cringe-worthy moment when we’re faced with a suicide mission. We must stop Project Purity by entering a control room flooded with radiation that will surely kill us. Players must choose which character to sacrifice, except there is one big problem. Your radiation immune sidekick is standing right beside you.

We waited a long time just staring at the friendly Ghoul but he never stepped it up. This kind of oversight by one of our favorite developers was really a let down and a plot hole almost as the big as the game. An expansion for Fallout 3 would eventually fix this screw-up but the damage was already done.

The first God of War blew our minds. Amazing art and gameplay on a scale we’d never seen before with a solid story line to boot. The second entry let the story drop a bit but kept us interested for the finale. God of War 3 was supposed to sum up the tale of Kratos by discovering the ultimate truth of his existence.

After three long games Kratos finally gets Pandora’s Box only to discover that it contains an ultimate weapon: Hope. Yep, that’s it. The ultimate weapon that is going to save humanity in a hack n’ slash game is hope. What the hell are we suppose to do this? Just as we were getting excited about charing on Mount Olympus and destroying Zeus we get shut down with touchy-feely hope.

Many gamers out there have never had the opportunity to play Bionic Commando, perhaps they should be glad about that. The game’s story revolves around Spencer, the main character, being used by governmental types to eliminate a terrorist organization under the guise that he’ll be reunited with this long-lost wife.

But at the end of the game it’s revealed that the crazy bionic arm that Spencer uses to crush enemies with, is his wife. Huh? We could try to explain this, but it won’t make much sense. The game really doesn’t try either. It attempts to wrap the story up as the bionic arm needing a soul inside of it to fuse to the owner but just comes off sounding like an abstinence PSA.

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time does many great things. It has a unique weapons crafting system, a well thought-out character development and a massive universe with lots of gameplay potential. Until we get to the end that is.

The story builds around Fayt and his crew who end up on a lost world when some serious evil, the Executioners, show up and start taking the place apart. To stop them the crew must destroy those controlling the monsters in another universe. The crew braces themselves for one last desperate attack. They step into the portal and discover that they are a simulation. Basically, the world is a video game being played by children.

A massively-multiplayer online game that no one can reset. Even worse this doesn’t really affect the gameplay, it just happens then we go on to a happy, virtual character ending. Even though none of the character’s lives really matter because they’re characters within a game, within a game. Is your mind blown? Nope, probably not.