Good Day good people.
I am looking for some more examples of Video Games where there is a plot, but for one reason or another, the result of the plot is that nothing happens. My criteria for this is fairly lax on the “how” but in some sense, by some definition by the end of the game, absolutely nothing has happened. I’m hoping some of you fine people may be able to identify some instances of such a thing.
Examples (I've chosen to spoiler tag everything as just being listed gives away certain plot elements. All examples given here are niche titles from over 15 years ago).:
- Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere (specifically the Japanese release): Huge inter-corporate conflict with several different factions and paths you can follow. One you go through all the different endings, the game reveals that it’s just a simulation made by one guy to make sure no matter what happens in an upcoming conflict; your character, an AI, will kill the dude who cucked him.
- Persona 2: Innocent Sin: You spend the whole game fighting Nyarlathotep to prevent him and the Nazis from destroying the world. At the end of the game, you fail and choose to abort the timeline and erase everyone else’s memories, leaving the main character stranded in the doomed timeline.
- Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter: This is the most boring way for this to play out IMO as it’s just a straight coma twist
So please. Let me know any and all games you can think of where the end result of the plot is that nothing happens. The more ridiculous, the better!
(Sorry, for repost. I didn’t know about the crosspost feature)
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A game I like, and I’m not sure this fits 100%, but Voices of the Void.
Keeping things as spoiler-lite as possible, you’re a lone radioastronomer at a deep-space listening outpost in Switzerland. It’s a horror game, so there are “things” out there, but whether or not you get involved is kind of up to you.
Thing do happen, but not to you. You are just a witness to events far beyond your comprehension.
Minecraft ? Other sandbox games ?
The stanley parable, in a way.
the end is never the end is never the end is never
Every Zelda game is a sisyphean adventure where you never really defeat the evil or restore Hyrule, you just reset the board for the next evil apocalypse.
The Far Cry 4 secret ending.
That part at the beginning where you’re sitting at the table with Pagan Min and he leaves briefly giving you a chance to escape. If you just sit there and don’t do anything for like 10 minutes, he actually comes back and takes Ajay to place his mother’s ashes. Then the game ends without a shot fired.
Do secret joke endings even count?
Well, in Hitman 3 you can choose to not kill the last evil guy, which causes you to wake up in the very first game from 2000.
Similarly, Far Cry 5. At the beginning, when you’re told to arrest Joseph Seed, you can choose to just turn around and walk out the door. The sheriff will agree with you, saying it’s best to just leave him and his cult alone and it would’ve only ended in your deaths if you tried to arrest him. Then the game ends.
Firewatch was the biggest disappointment for me because the big mystery they hype up for most of the game just ended up being a nothing burger.
It was incredibly enjoyable for me exactly because I didn’t fall for that “big mystery” hook. Also no, it’s not a nothingburger for any of the characters involved. It’s just not another unrealistic game-y game.
