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This countdown looks at the most predictable narrative turns in gaming history.
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00:00Plot twists are of course commonplace in all storytelling mediums, but they can hit way harder
00:04in games when you spend potentially dozens, even hundreds of hours getting to the end of a story,
00:09only to be hit with a shocking reveal that makes you rethink everything. Not all plot twists are
00:13created equal though, and it goes without saying that some either don't work, or just too damn
00:17predictable, and everyone sees them coming a mile off. I'm Scott from Oculture.com, and these are
00:2210 Video Game Plot Twists Everyone Saw Coming.
00:2510. Jason Todd is the Arkham Knight Batman Arkham Knight
00:29The moment that the first trailer dropped for Batman Arkham Knight and revealed the antagonist
00:33known as the Arkham Knight, many Bat-fans predicted that they would turn out to be none other than
00:37Jason Todd. For one, the Arkham Knight appeared to have many parallels with Todd's own story in the
00:42classic Under the Red Hood comic arc, and honestly it was just tough to picture any other notable
00:47Batman character actually making sense. Rocksteady tried to throw fans off the scent by promising
00:51that the Arkham Knight was an entirely new character, but most of us just weren't having it,
00:56instead remaining firm in their conviction that we knew what was up. Indeed, the Arkham Knight
01:00was ultimately revealed to be Jason Todd, with such a smacky, over-the-head, yep, dual obviousness,
01:05that most fans seem to just wonder why Rocksteady bothered making it a surprise at all.
01:109. It's All In The Bus Driver's Head
01:12The Dark Pictures Anthology, Little Hope
01:14Little Hope was a massive letdown, primarily because its big reveal was such a dull rehash of the
01:19same tired plot twist horror movies have been dining on for decades at this point.
01:23Players take control of four college students and their professor after their bus crashes in the
01:28ghost town of Little Hope, but it's eventually revealed that one of the four students, Andrew,
01:32is actually Anthony, the bus driver, and the rest are figments of his imagination.
01:36Basically, Anthony hallucinated the whole story after accidentally detouring into Little Hope,
01:41the same town where, in his childhood, he survived a house fire which killed his family.
01:45This was ludicrously easy to peg from the very start of the game, though, if you were paying
01:49attention.
01:50For starters, when Anthony drives into Little Hope, we never actually see the vehicle's
01:54passengers, and then once the passengers wake up from the crash, he's mysteriously vanished.
01:58If you've seen the movie Identity, for one, there's a good chance you'll see precisely
02:02where this is going in the first 20 minutes.
02:058. Ichiban Is Arakawa's Son
02:07Yakuza Like a Dragon
02:08Late on in Yakuza Like a Dragon, we learn that new protagonist Ichiban Kazuga is actually the
02:13son of crime boss Masumi Arakawa, and Arakawa's son Masato is actually the biological son of
02:18Yakuza Captain, Joe Sawashiro.
02:20As babies, Ichiban and Masato were abandoned in coin lockers on the same day, and when Arakawa
02:25went back to retrieve his son from the locker, he picked up Masato by mistake, leaving Ichiban
02:30to be adopted by Jiro Kazuga.
02:32And while you might not fully predict the wild coin locker switcheroo, it isn't hard to
02:36suspect something fishy about the relationship between Ichiban and Arakawa from early on.
02:41Arakawa leaves Ichiban for dead after shooting him, but doesn't confirm the kill, which is
02:45either insanely sloppy, or absolutely intentional, as it turns out to be.
02:50Then there's the fact Arakawa is almost weirdly warm towards Ichiban at certain times, as though
02:54the game is tipping its hand to players, giving you a further heads up of what's coming.
02:587. Nicole Was Dead The Whole Time
03:01Dead Space
03:01Dead Space's big twist is that protagonist Isaac Clarke's girlfriend Nicole is dead for the
03:06entirety of the game, having previously killed herself to avoid becoming a necromorph.
03:10Every apparent in-person interaction Isaac has with Nicole is a hallucination, induced
03:15by the extraterrestrial monolith known as the marker.
03:17Now, one easy way you can figure this out beforehand is by reading a list of the game's
03:21chapters and seeing that the first letter of each spells out the phrase, Nicole is dead.
03:26Beyond this, the game hammers home the idea of hallucinations enough that when we see
03:30Nicole looking strangely pristine considering all the death around her, it immediately gives
03:34an off vibe.
03:35Then there's the fact she repeatedly says the very odd phrase, make us whole again,
03:39which doesn't exactly suggest a person who is their best self physically or mentally.
03:432023's Dead Space remake made Nicole's true nature even more obvious through Isaac's
03:47now-voiced interactions with her, enough that it can't be that much of a surprise playing
03:51now.
03:526.
03:53Your Son Is Father
03:55When players come face to face with Father, aka the leader of the Institute near the end of
03:59Fallout 4, it's revealed that he is in fact your son, Sean, who was kidnapped from cryostasis
04:0460 years earlier.
04:05Because video games.
04:07But this one spelt out pretty blatantly for players if you're paying just a little bit
04:10of attention.
04:11Above all else, we know that the player is put back into stasis following Sean's abduction
04:15for an indeterminate period, making it clear that Sean will likely be considerably older when
04:20we next meet him.
04:21Given that Sean's whereabouts is the central mystery of the game, it simply makes sense that
04:24instead of a soppy reunion between father and son, he'd be the bait and switch antagonist
04:29instead.
04:29Still, it's fun to see the twist play out, and Bethesda have never really been one for
04:33watertight, unguessable plot reveals, but where large, unaccounted for passages of time
04:37are concerned, always assume you're being played.
04:405.
04:41Venom Snake Isn't Big Boss
04:43Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain
04:45The first of two Hideo Kojima games on this list, with the mind-melting plot twist in Metal
04:50Gear Solid 5 that the player character Venom Snake wasn't actually Big Boss at all.
04:54Instead Venom Snake is the combat medic who was on board the chopper with Big Boss,
04:58which crashed at the end of the Ground Zero's prologue release.
05:01Through plastic surgery and hypnotherapy, the medic was turned into a Big Boss decoy,
05:06who we unknowingly play as for the entire game.
05:09Still an impressive amount of fans actually guessed this, pointing to the fact that the
05:13game lets you customize Snake's face at the very beginning for use in Metal Gear Online,
05:17only to of course revert to Big Boss' likeness for the main story.
05:20Then there's the fact that in Ground Zero's the combat medic sounds like Kiefer Sutherland,
05:24with a slightly pitched down voice because it is Sutherland who voices both the medic and
05:28Big Boss.
05:29Lastly, on the chopper you'll faintly see the reflection of your own custom character's
05:33face whenever Venom Snake is peering out the window.
05:36Even though this twist was shockingly ridiculous even for Kojima, he left enough of a breadcrumb
05:40trail in the early going that many figured it out dozens of hours before the shoe dropped
05:44for real.
05:444.
05:45Yosef is the big bad, Astral Chain
05:48First up, Astral Chain absolutely slaps and you should go play it, nowhere near enough
05:52people have played this game.
05:54It's eventually revealed that support character Yosef Calvert is actually the big bad of 2019's
05:59cult classic action-adventure, Astral Chain.
06:01Yosef's ultimate goal is to absorb all remaining life on Earth and duly become a god, but it
06:06seems just about everyone saw Yosef's heel turn coming a mile away.
06:10Even in the earlier chapters, Yosef carries himself in an ominous enough way where it feels like
06:14his villainy is only scarcely contained, aided by cutscene direction that tends to frame
06:18him from a pretty sinister perspective.
06:20On top of this, Jenner even straight up warns you that he's a liar who will do anything
06:24in the pursuit of his sick ambition.
06:26It's so obvious that you couldn't really be blamed for expecting a third act rug pull
06:29where Yosef isn't the ultimate antagonist.
06:32Regardless, it's played totally straight and Platinum pointed it out with a neon signpost
06:36from the jump.
06:373.
06:38Jill is the bird lady, Resident Evil 5
06:40The Resident Evil franchise really doesn't like killing off characters for good, and
06:44so few fans bought into Capcom's claim that the legendary Jill Valentine had been killed
06:49off screen before RE5.
06:51Even though the marketing focused on Jill's grave, and Capcom even took out a glossy magazine
06:55ad showing Chris kneeling, it was howlingly obvious that Capcom was giving fans the workaround.
07:00It didn't help that one trailer showed a woman waking up out of stasis, and while some fans
07:04thought she might be Sherry Birkin, the stone cold consensus was that we were looking at an
07:09alive and well jail.
07:10Capcom couldn't let what remained of the mystery lie, because in the game's final trailer,
07:14they showcased a sequence where Wesker started to unmask the mysterious bird lady character,
07:19while telling Chris he thought he'd be happy to see her.
07:21I mean really, who the hell else could it really be at that point?
07:252.
07:27Tomorrow Is Lu
07:27Death Stranding 2 On The Beach
07:30The moment Elle Fanning's Tomorrow showed up in the marketing for Death Stranding 2 On The
07:33Beach, many fans predicted that she would in fact turn out to be the adult version of Sam's
07:37adopted daughter Lu, somehow.
07:40And while playing the game, it seems so hilariously obvious that Tomorrow is an older Lu that you
07:44might suspect it's a troll from Hideo Kojima, who's gonna reveal all over time.
07:48Instead what you see is what you get, and in the last few hours of the game, Higgs finally
07:53confirms what we all largely already knew, that Tomorrow is indeed a grown up Lu, and
07:57that's that.
07:58Lu is actually Sam's biological daughter through a time bending process involving the Deus Ex
08:03Machina plot device that is the beach in this series.
08:05But at least we got some awesome action cutscenes with Tomorrow Cleaning House to make up for
08:10it.
08:111.
08:12Yggdrasil
08:13Tales of Symphonia
08:14Early on in Tales of Symphonia, players cross paths with a half-elven youth who shares the
08:18same name as the mythologized legendary hero, Mythos.
08:21Later, it's revealed that Mythos went on to become the villainous Crux's leader, Yggdrasil,
08:25and you can probably guess where this one's going.
08:28Indeed it turns out that the Mythos we've been dealing with is Yggdrasil, and if you followed
08:32the most obvious logical path of least resistance, there's a good chance you arrived at that
08:36conclusion before the game did.
08:37After all, despite many reminders that Mythos is a common boy's name, the only one we meet
08:42in the game bears a passable resemblance to Yggdrasil, and so by invoking Occam's Razor,
08:47it isn't hard to reason what might be coming.
08:49Beyond this, Mythos tends to show up just when something pivotal happens, and let's
08:53be honest, the mysterious youngster is actually the secret big bad JRPG trope is as old as
08:58time itself.
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