Worst video game plot twists

Every storytelling medium uses the same basic narrative tools in slightly different ways. Video games are unique in that they can borrow from books, TV, movies, plays, and any other format and make it work. Plot twists, for example, can be a very powerful narrative device when done right. On the other hand, games are far more complex thanks to the player being an active participant in the story and pacing that developers need to somehow account for. So, when a story falls flat, it can really bomb and end up leaving you with an unfinished story that will never be concluded. It’s a high-risk, high-reward medium, but those highs are worth the occasional low.

I can’t ignore how low some of those lows are, especially when it comes to a failed plot twist. I’m not talking about plot twists that people didn’t like, such as the opening to The Last of Us 2 or the bait-and-switch of Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2. You may disagree, but they aren’t bad plot twists like the ones I’m going to be talking about.

These are bad because they not only make no sense, but also retroactively make the entire game worse once you learn the “truth.” As much as I hate to admit it, these terrible plot twists have stuck with me just as long as the best have. Hopefully, I can save you from living through these cursed experiences by spoiling the absolute worst plot twists I have ever witnessed in gaming.

1 Heavy Rain — The Origami Killer

It was you all along!

David Cage games tend to start off with such strong promise only to completely faceplant somewhere after the first few hours. I debated putting Indigo Profecy and Detroit: Become Human on the list, but Heavy Rain felt like the worst offender to me.

This game was billed as a mystery game you view through multiple perspectives to try and solve the case. You have the father of the boy who is abducted, an investigating FBI agent, a journalist, and a private detective that you swap between to unravel the clues. While there are tons of choices and branching paths in the game, the identity and revelation of the Origami Killer are always the same, and man, is it unsatisfying. The big twist at the end is that Scott Shelby, the private eye you have been playing as — and even hearing his thoughts — has been the killer all along. It makes all the internal dialogue as well as the actions you take playing as him make absolutely no sense in retrospect.

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2 Bionic Commando — The origin of your arm

Till death do you part

Bionic Commando isn’t a reboot of the original 1988 NES title, but a sequel that came over 20 years later. Reinventing that game for a modern audience was already going to be tough, but the gameplay wasn’t actually so bad. Swinging felt cool, and the combat was solid. Someone at Capcom apparently thought that wasn’t enough and wanted to retroactively ruin the entire franchise with a plot twist so confounding it makes as much sense in context as it does out of context.

The game features protagonist Nathan Spencer trying to find his lost wife, which he technically does, but in the worst possible way. It turns out his bionic arm can’t function without a special catalyst — that catalyst being the brain of a loved one. That’s right, your bionic grapple arm is your wife. I can’t believe those words were said aloud and taken seriously enough to be put in the game.

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3 Batman: Arkham Knight — The Arkham Knight

It isn’t who you think it is… except it is

Arkham Asylum and City featured a cavalcade of iconic Batman villains, but the focus had always been on The Joker. After his death in City, Rocksteady promised a brand-new villain that was completely original to be the focus of the next game. The Arkham Knight was revealed and fans instantly concluded that it had to be Jason Todd. Yes, in the comics, Todd was killed by the Joker, but the games had already played with continuity before.

This might actually have been a good twist, but two things made it flop. First was that Rocksteady insisted that fan speculation was wrong and kept stating that the character was completely new. It wasn’t an outright lie, but only semantically. So, not only did we all know the twist going in, but it became so obvious before its reveal that it wouldn’t have mattered much anyway. The idea of this twist isn’t bad — it’s actually great — but the combination of trying to hide it after it was so obvious before and during the game killed it.

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4 Star Ocean: Till the End of Time — it was all a game

Worse than it being a dream

The laziest plot twist any game, show, movie, or any narrative can have is that it was all a dream.

It completely undercuts any of the stakes, growth, or meaning behind the entire story. Well, I’m here to tell you that Star Ocean: Till the End of Time manages to one-up the dream twist with one even worse.

This is technically the third game in the Star Ocean series. However, they each mostly stand alone and just share elements and ideas. In this game, you play as a young student in the far future who is pulled into a massive conflict after an alien attack. The game plays out as you would expect any JRPG to, though with the interesting wrinkle of being set in the future rather than a fantasy realm. Everything looks great right up until the final moments when the rug is pulled out from under you in the worst way you could imagine.

It isn’t that the entire game was a dream, but a game. No, not just a game to you the player, but a game in-universe. It turns out the entire Star Ocean universe, including the prior games, were all part of a massive simulation created by some advanced species. Your characters aren’t even real, but just AI within that program. It feels just as unearned and thrown in for the sake of a twist, but is such a train wreck that it even wrecks the prior games with collateral damage.

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5 12 Minutes — more than your wife

Just disgusting

The less said about 12 Minutes, the better. It was a cool idea to have a game set in a single apartment with a minimal cast and time loop element to methodically work out how to not only survive but solve the mystery behind the events. Except, the reveal here is not only baffling but downright gross.

It starts out with the tired reveal that your main character is the killer, but it tries to make that more interesting to terrible results. You see, your character not only killed their own father, but that information also reveals that you are your wife’s half-brother. It’s a big swing to try and make that twist work, but 12 Minutes completely strikes out with it.

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