There's really nothing quite like an unpredictable ending or a juicy plot twist in a game. Right when you think everything is going according to plan, something happens that can throw everything off course, make you agonize over your next decision, or even have you second guess every decision you've made up until that point. Whether or not it's a narrative-driven game that has you carefully make critical decisions, a solid story with a great twist can make for some memorable gaming moments.
With this in mind, we wanted to take a look back at 12 games that treat its plot twists like rollercoasters. Some of these twists are abrupt changes in perspective that happen towards the end of their respective campaigns, while others are more subtle and play the long game, slowly teasing the big reveal until it finally surprises you when you least expect it.
This feature will be full of spoilers, so this is your final warning. The games that we'll be talking about are Resident Evil, Resident Evil 5, Pokemon Gold and Silver, Final Fantasy VII: Remake, GTA: Vice City, Braid, Modern Warfare 2, Red Dead Redemption, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, BioShock, Batman: Arkham City, Metroid, and The Last of Us: Part II.
If you'd rather see these moments in motion, be sure to check out the video version of this feature.
Albert Wesker from Capcom's Resident Evil series is one of the most sinister villains in gaming. He started his reign with a good ol' plot twist 25 years ago in the original Resident Evil, which saw Wesker lead the members of STARS through a mansion filled with zombies, mutants, and other horrors. So it comes as a bit of a shock that Wesker, the stoic leader of STARS, is really a spy for the evil Umbrella Corporation.
Wesker makes his big reveal as a double agent to either Jill or Chris (depending on who you played as) before releasing the bio-superweapon known as the Tyrant to kill the remaining members of STARS. Jokes on him though, the first thing the Tyrant does is impale Wesker straight through the gut. However, as it was revealed in Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Wesker injected himself with an engineered virus before his demise, giving him the regenerative powers and super strength needed to survive. He would go on to be a real pain for Chris Redfield and friends for quite some time, only meeting his end at the hands of Chris and Sheva in Resident Evil 5. But given how often folks don't stay dead in the Resident Evil series, we wouldn't be surprised to see him again one day.
Pokemon Gold and Silver was a stellar follow-up to the original Red and Blue. Featuring a totally new region to explore known as Johto, you explore the land and capture a variety of new Pokemon in order to become the very best trainer. While the majority of the game takes place in Johto, completing all the gym battles surprisingly opens up a pathway to return to Red and Blue's Kanto region. And that's not even the biggest twist--after travelling across both the Johto and Kanto regions, battling 16 gym leaders, and defeating every member of the elite four, there's yet another challenge awaiting you.
Once you trek through Gold and Silver's final dungeon in Mt. Silver, you encounter a mysterious trainer who, without saying any words, challenges you to one final Pokemon duel. Once the fight starts, you find out that it's none other than Red, the original trainer from Pokemon Red and Blue--you're fighting against who you played as in Red and Blue. Red is a successful Pokemon master, so his team is full of heavy hitters, including Charizard, Blastoise, and, of course, Pikachu. This reveal is an incredible callback to the original game, and also Gold and Silver's toughest battle, making it a memorable fight that many fans still remember to this day.
The long-awaited Final Fantasy 7 Remake was released in 2020. While some fans may have been expecting an exact retelling of the original story, the Remake actually spirals into a new timeline altogether, even hinting that iconic events that we saw from the original game won't play out exactly as they did before.
There are significant differences in the remake's story, from the appearance of the Whispers that try to keep the timeline "on track," to Sephiroth appearing in the game earlier than expected. The upcoming Intergrade edition will also see Yuffie make her introduction in Midgar, which is much earlier than when she appears in the original game. While the general story is still maintaining the same path as its forebearer, the Remake's many twists to the classic story is, for now, keeping us on our toes for the future installments.
Jealousy, greed, and paranoia; though you don't know it when first starting the game, these are the ingredients for an inevitable backstabbing in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The game's protagonist Tommy Vercetti teams up with small-time gangster Lance Vance to take down Ricardo Diaz, leading to the pair forging a seemingly unbreakable alliance in their rise to power in Vice City. After succeeding in taking down Ricard Diaz and stealing his empire, things look good for the pair. Surely, Lance wouldn't betray Tommy after that, right? Wrong.
Lance becomes fed up with playing second best to Tommy and wants more control of the new empire in Vice City. So in the final mission of the game, Lance reveals he's been plotting against Tommy and planned to join forces with his former boss, Sonny, to take Tommy out. However, this is Tommy Vercetti we're talking about here, so after learning of this deception, he quickly wipes out Sonny and Lance to secure his dominance over Vice City once and for all. It's a climax straight out of the movie Scarface, except that it doesn't end poorly for our protagonist, and he leaves the confrontation with greater control of Vice City.
Braid's unique platforming and time-bending gameplay, paired with the classic tale of saving the princess, is almost what the game is all about. It isn't until the final level that you discover that you aren't really saving the princess after all. Throughout the game, you get a bit of foreshadowing that there may be something more unsettling at play, but you only see the full picture once you get close enough to the princess to see she was running away from you the entire time. You actually play the whole game in reverse, your perspective is shifted to fit the narration of being the "hero." You are not the hero, though. You are, in fact, a total stalker.
The Call of Duty franchise has had quite a few twists in its lifetime, but nothing stings more than the pain of betrayal that General Shepherd hands you in Modern Warfare 2. After the loss of 30,000 soldiers during the events of the original Modern Warfare, Shephard's new mission is growing an army to take out Makarov, who rose to power and became his primary target and distraction.
In Modern Warfare 2, you play as members of Task Force 141, composed of highly skilled soldiers such as Ghost, Soap, and Captain Price--with General Shepherd giving the team orders. We're led to believe that Makarov is the one and only threat, but as we discover in the mission titled "Loose Ends," Shepherd rewards Ghost and other members of the Task Force 141 by killing them in cold blood after unknowingly delivering the last piece of incriminating evidence that directly ties the General to his masterplan. The mission title is thus revealed to be ironic, ultimately shedding light on the true villain of Modern Warfare 2.
When it comes to family, many will do everything they can to keep them safe. This conviction is what made Red Dead Redemption protagonist John Marston strike a deal with agents from the US Government, who were holding his family hostage, to clear out the last members of his former gang that were roaming the plains. While John does succeed, even having a touching final moment with his former leader Dutch Van Der Linde, he doesn't quite get the safety he expects. Not long after returning to his ranch with his family to reconnect, US soldiers show up on his doorstep looking to tie up one last loose end of their own. John sends his wife and son away while he makes his final stand, truly saving them once and for all with his sacrifice. It's a shocking and tragic finish to John's story, yet Red Dead Redemption manages to offer up an epilogue starring John's son, Jack, to close out the story with a more satisfyingly definitive conclusion.
Bioware's take on the Star Wars universe with Knights of the Old Republic throws you headfirst into a plot focusing on the mission to restore your lost memories and take down the evil sith lord, Darth Malak. This particular Sith Lord went on a rampage throughout the galaxy prior to the events of the game, destroying members of the Jedi Order and assembling a superweapon called the Star Forge. He was able to accomplish his goals thanks to his training from the all-powerful Darth Revan.
Once you're finally in the position to get face-to-face with Malak, you realize why you're giving him the business. It turns out that your protagonist is Darth Revan. Following a chaotic battle, Darth Revan was captured and brainwashed by the Jedi Order to fight for the light side, allowing you to step into your role as a protagonist. But much like Braid's twist, you're actually the bad guy and responsible for the creation of the Sith Lord that you've been trying to stop this whole time. In true Bioware fashion, you're presented with a difficult decision to make: Stop Darth Malak or regain your true power and fight for the dark side once again.
Following along with the brainwashed theme, you already know that BioShock would make it on this list. Being hailed as one of the most unexpected and subversive twists in gaming, the question "Would you kindly?" took on a life of its own after its big reveal. After surviving a plane crash, BioShock protagonist Jack makes their way through the crumbling failed utopia of Rapture with the help of a man named Atlas, who politely guides you through each mission and helps you figure out what it is that needs to be done. "Would you kindly" is one of Atlas' favorite phrases, though it tends to go unnoticed through most of the story until you get to Andrew Ryan, the founder, and leader of Rapture.
Here you discover that Atlus has not only been pretending to be someone else all along, but has also brainwashed you to do his bidding prior to the events of the game. Atlas is truly Frank Fontaine, a rival to Andrew Ryan who fought for control of the underwater city. Frank is able to manipulate Jack through mental suggestion, controlling his mind with the trigger phrase, "Would you kindly." This means every action you made until this point was all a part of Frank's plan and makes you think back on every time you heard that insidious phrase. It's a shocking reveal, one that puts many of your actions throughout the game into a new perspective, and it makes for a memorable turn of events in the crazy story set in Rapture.
The Joker and Batman have been at each other's throats for as long as we can remember, and the Batman Arkham games is one of our favorite renditions of the ongoing rivalry between the two. Following Batman Arkham Asylum, the Joker is in critical condition, having been injected with a bad strain of the powerful venom formula, which has now mutated into a lethal virus. Also infected by the virus, Batman has to find a cure in the ruins of a destroyed section of Gotham--now walled off and turned into a prison run by Hugo Strange--and stop Joker from spreading the infection to the rest of the city. Towards the end of the game, it appears that the Joker has been healed and is back to his old self, which makes Batman's quest even more difficult.
However, in the final mission, you see that the healthy Joker you've been battling in the third act of the game isn't the real Joker. It's actually Clayface, who honestly deserves an award for superior acting after having fooled the world's greatest detective for that long. Technically, you are given tiny clues to this reveal throughout the game, from Harley's little quips to detective mode showing Joker without any bones, but it still caught many players by surprise. The final boss battle with Clayface and the downer ending revealing the fate of the real Joker made Batman: Arkham City a satisfying follow-up to the original game, and it's still a fan-favorite since its first release.
We've traversed the galaxy as the intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran in plenty of story-driven adventures, fighting space pirates, vanquishing aliens, and looking stylish in one of gaming's most iconic spacesuits. However, the original Metroid for the Nintendo Entertainment System kept its story at a minimum; you don't even get a glimpse of the one behind the suit until defeating the final boss. After defeating Mother Brain and making an intense escape, Samus makes it back to the surface and returns to their ship. Samus then takes off their helmet and, what do you know, this kickass bounty hunter has actually been a woman the whole time. In the '80s, this plot twist was completely unexpected, as the majority of games during that era exclusively featured male protagonists. This reveal, which was understated yet still effective, would eventually pave the way for more female protagonists in games, and solidify Samus as one of the most iconic characters in video game history.
The Last of Us Part II is full of twists and shocking moments, and while the death of Joel is one of the major ones, it actually sets up an even bigger twist: Making you play as his killer.
What is initially thought to solely be Ellie's revenge quest turns into Abby's journey for redemption following her revenge quest. In the second half of the game, you learn that Abby's father is the Firefly surgeon that Joel kills during the ending of the original game, which Abby takes vengeance for at the start of The Last of Us Part II. So even though the story of Part II begins with Ellie and Abby in what seems to be a clear-cut, good vs. evil situation, you eventually see that the two women aren't so different after all. Ellie and Abby's respective stories represent two different sides of revenge, and getting to see Abby's perspective after having been so comfortable with Ellie led to some surprising revelations and some unexpected moments of humanity. And in a way, that's a hell of a plot twist on its own.