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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In Sonic 2006, the entire game plot happens, but the solution to the core conflict is to do some time travel shit and cancel the entire timeline
Most people wish that game could be erased from the timeline IRL too
The Last Of Us.
The entire plot is about getting this girl to a location, only to get there, kill everyone and leave again. They could have stayed at home and the result would have been the same.
Same with The Mandalorian, the ending in Boba Fett completely invalidated the entire show. But that isn’t a video game.
I think this highlights the big problem with Op’s question: it’s not all about plot, character development can be as satisfying and as important even if the world objectively doesn’t change.
Edit: by this i mean your point on The last of us
I mean you’re right, but it makes sense in context in both cases because the plot, or maybe better to say the driving motivation for action by the characters, isn’t the real story.
TLOU isn’t the story of two survivors trying to reach a goal- thats set dressing. It’s the story of a man who lost his daughter being given a chance to confront his grief and grow close with another young woman who would be the same age. The relationship growing, their mutual guilt and relief and joy in finding that familial connection in a dying world IS the story. And the climax isn’t Joel shooting 50 more people, it’s when he chooses her over the whole world. Even when thats obviously the wrong choice.
From a plot view, nothing has changed. What actually “happened” was entirely between Ellie and Joel. But lots of stories are like that. If you released a movie where a grieving man connected with his adopted, formerly abused or neglected, daughter- that could be a good movie and you wouldn’t say “nothing happened” because it would be honest and upfront with its stakes. But fewer people would play that as a game so they have to obfuscate their actual story with apocalypse and zombie trappings.
The Last of Us was more about Joel and Ellie’s relationship growing during their travels.
Had the hospital scene occurred within the first like ten hours of the game, Joel would have had no problem sacrificing her for a potential cure.
Dead Rising.
Everything happens with our without your input. You can just chill out, do nothing, and the game ends.
Bastion.
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.
2017 Prey, sadly.
I get why the ending to 2017 Prey might have been annoying, but I honestly thought it was very in line with the themes present in the rest of the game. The more time has passed, the more I’m satisfied with the ending. That being said, IMO the only right ending is
Spoiler
to murder everyone
Gone Home
Good story, tho
Was going to comment this as well! I enjoyed the story quite a bit too. Despite nothing really “happening” per se I remember the ending feeling emotional regardless.
Came here to say this. I enjoyed the game till the ending which I thought was terrible.
Spellforce 1
Tap for spoiler
The evil mage, who we hunt the whole game, just escapes from the hero character during the cutscene through the time portal that sends him back, where he understands what he have done, becomes the white mage and summons the hero character (as the game does at the beginning).
Might sound like an interesting plot but I was really annoyed the game ended up without giving me the ability to slap the bastard.
Dear Esther
Final Fantasy, if i remember correctly - the time loop is broken so basically none of the bad stuff ever happened.
Yeah, Final Fantasy 1 and 8, I think
What do we think about Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture for this? There is a plot, there is a story, but you as the player have no active role in it. You don’t even see it play out in real time. You’re just there, after, looking at the holes left behind. Nothing changes from the start of the game until the end.
I absolutely loved it, but typing that out, I suddenly realize why most people thought it was really boring.
Halo 3: ODST. You start with your squad, get separated, get back together, and then the game is over. Nothing significant changes except some sexual tension is resolved and an engineer joins the humans for a brief moment.
Driver San Francisco kinda. You spend most of the game in a coma, but you do wake up and do some real stuff for the ending.
Depending on your definition of nothing happens, Mad Max too. At the start of the game Max loses his car, meets this car fanatic and for the entire game he helps you build the “Magnum Opus”, the most badass car the wasteland has seen. At the end, you lose your Magnum Opus, he gets killed, and you get your original car back. You have a big impact on other people throughout the story, but as far as the protagonist is concerned, he is pretty much exactly where he started.
I hated the Mad Max ending, so disappointing
That is pretty much Max in every movie bar the first one though. Wanders about, reluctantly helps some people, wanders off on his own again.
Arguably Mass Effect 1.
You spend the game warning about the reaper threat and you are constantly brushed off. Then the bbg attacks the citadel and you fight them off.
Second game: oh that plot from game 1? Yea, that was an isolated incident by different species and not the enemy you were warning is about.
Game three: HELP!!! The friends of bbg from game 1 are attacking you have to save us.
Mass Effect 2 kind of pisses me off, ngl. The characters are so good, but the plot is really kind of bad. Forcing Shepard to work with Cerberus makes zero sense, especially since my Shepard went out of their way to murder Cerberus employees for what they did to their squad.
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.
Except there are consequences for failure. See the timeline split stuff.
