These 5 video game plot twists completely broke my brain

Storytelling in video games has evolved significantly since the arcade days, when you were lucky to get a single line of text explaining the game. Back then, you had to create your own motivation and reasoning for why you were a ship blasting asteroids or a little yellow circle eating pellets in a maze filled with ghosts. Once console games hit the market, the need for a stronger narrative became apparent to keep people interested for longer periods. With the power of current systems and PCs, we are inching closer to photorealistic graphics. However, good graphics do not automatically mean a game will have a good story. Writing a game’s story is unlike any other medium, and few have fully figured out how to use the unique advantages of gaming to tell a compelling story.

Plot twists are a risky tactic in any story. If they are not set up well, they can feel unearned and unsatisfying. If they are too obvious, they fail to be interesting. Twists can go wrong in many ways, but when they manage to hit just right, they can create some of the most memorable moments in gaming. I have been gaming for decades and fell in love with the stories they tell. When I find one of those rare gems with a twist that takes me by surprise but makes complete sense in hindsight, I want to shout it from the rooftops. My neighbors do not appreciate that, so I will share the most mind-blowing plot twists in gaming with you here.

1 Bioshock

Would you kindly?

Because the world and gameplay of Bioshock are so unique and interesting, you never suspect there could be a narrative twist. You play as the standard voiceless protagonist, listening to the voice in your ear for objectives, just like in most other games of the time. This is exactly what Bioshock wants you to think. Atlas, the man on the radio giving you objectives, always uses one specific phrase: “Would you kindly?”

As a player, you follow these instructions without question because that is what the game is telling you to do, right? Wrong. “Would you kindly?” is actually a trigger phrase implanted in your character’s mind that forces them to obey whatever anyone who uses it asks.

This is not just a narrative twist but a metanarrative exploration of how you, the player, are easily manipulated into doing anything in a game if instructed. The reveal, where the supposed villain forces you to brutally murder him with a golf club, is one of the most striking moments in gaming history.

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2 Chrono Trigger

Crono’s sacrifice

Killing main characters in RPGs has been done long before the infamous Final Fantasy 7 moment. What is still rare is for a game to kill off the main character, not just a party member. Yet, in Chrono Trigger, your silent avatar Crono makes the ultimate sacrifice to save his friends in the latter half of the game, dying at the hands of the primary antagonist, Lavos. This comes completely out of the blue as the first meaningful death in the game and hits hard because it is the only character you have been with since the very beginning.

There is a way to bring Crono back before the end of the game, but it is completely optional and requires completing a somewhat tricky side quest. This may diminish the impact for some, but I see it as an amazing motivator to close out the final chapter of the game.

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3 Final Fantasy X

Sweet dreams, Tidus

Explaining the plot of almost any Final Fantasy game in a short paragraph can sound like nonsense. For anyone who has played Final Fantasy X, thinking back on the ending is impossible without getting a little choked up, even when you realize how odd it sounds. After breaking the cycle and defeating Sin once and for all, the dream world it was protecting begins to end.

That world is the one Tidus came from, so he begins to fade from reality without Yu Yevon maintaining the dream. Just like the twist about summoners needing to die to summon the final Aeon, there were clues and hints throughout the game that Tidus was part of that dream. You, like the party, get so wrapped up in the immediate threat and the mission to save Yuna that no one stops to think it will mean the end of Tidus as well. Those final moments on the ship with Yuna as he is forced to say goodbye will still break your heart, even if you know it is coming.

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4 Soma

Ghost in the machine

Soma would be a scary enough game based solely on its visuals, but it is the implications and psychological concepts of consciousness that will truly shake you to the core. You awake in the year 2104 in an underwater facility called PATHOS-II after an incident has occurred, leading to the AI running amok. At this point, a comet has struck Earth, so only those left on the station have survived. However, you are not one of them. You are a copy of a man’s consciousness from 2015, inserted into a robotic body that wakes up in this situation. From your perspective, only a single second has passed between getting a brain scan in 2015 and waking up in 2104.

That is a twist itself, but it gets even more existential when you realize that every time you swap bodies during the game and try to copy your consciousness into an ark to send into space, you are leaving behind a version of yourself. When you reach the ark and are able to upload yourself, you realize you will not be saving yourself. A copy will live on with your memories and personality, but you will be left behind

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5 Silent Hill 2

Bedside manner

There are technically a few endings to Silent Hill 2, so you may not get this twist if you play it differently. However, the default and easiest-to-get ending comes with a major punch to the gut. The entire plot revolves around James receiving a letter from his deceased wife, asking him to find her in Silent Hill. Despite knowing she’s gone, he can’t help but hope and goes to the town, only to be confronted with all his demons.

During the journey, you learn about his wife Mary’s death after a long illness. When you finally reach the end, however, it is revealed that it wasn’t the illness that ultimately did her in. James, out of frustration and disgust, killed Mary himself and blocked it out. Silent Hill forces him to face that reality, and all the iconography, monsters, and trials he went through were in service of that.

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