Top 10 Worst Plot Twists in Video GamesSeptember 11th, 2007 by Monique
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Plot twists are great dynamics to any story if used correctly. When Darth Vader turns to the hero, Luke Skywalker, and tells him, coldly, calculating, “Luke, I am your father,” it’s the perfect cinematic device. The hero shares the same blood as the villain, and this revelation is powerful. If the hero is related to the villain, does he have the same potential to do evil? Is he himself evil? What makes a person good or evil, if not blood?
Of course, not every revelation is so poignant. Sometimes the script writers drop the fucking ball. Sometimes the plot twist is stupid, unbelievable, or simply unsurprising. So without further ado, here are the top ten worst plot twists in video gaming history.
10) In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Link time travels to a dark and dreary world where Ganondorf reigns supreme. The future is bleak and he’s all alone. But he’s not alone for long. Almost immediately he gets help from a mysterious character bearing the Hylian symbol named Sheik. Everyone knows this plot twist, and it’s that Sheik is actually Princess Zelda. So why does this plot twist suck so terribly, aside from being totally obvious? Because Sheik sucked, both in design and attitude. In principle, I can see why Zelda needed a disguise. I can dig it. But what I can’t dig is why Sheik would strum the harp, say something mysterious, and vanish into thin air while looking like something the cat dragged in. Look, Zelda, if you’re going to help out the Hero of Time, do something more than teach him how to play the Bolero of Fire while disguised as a man. If you can get away from Ganondorf long enough to sing a song, can’t you help Link through a dungeon or two using your sage powers? Like, say, the Water Temple? Of course, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remains one of my favorite games–bad plot twist or not.
09) Another awful plot twist is in Resident Evil: Code Veronica X. The protagonist Claire Redfield decides to go find her brother, Chris, and ends up in an Umbrella prison on Rockfort Island three months after Raccoon City’s outbreak. While imprisoned there, the island becomes infected with the T-Virus and Claire manages to escape her cell in the chaos. As she struggles to survive, she encounters a crazy bitch named Alexia Ashford who wants her dead. Or so she thinks. The twist here is that Alexia isn’t Alexia at all! The Alexia Ashford Claire meets is actually her identical twin brother, Alfred Ashford. Why is this plot twist so lame? Well, maybe because there’s nothing scary whatsoever about a cross-dresser who thinks he’s a woman, especially as the main villain. This is survival horror. I want monsters, zombies, and self-destruct systems—not an effeminate, incestuous twin. What’s Alfred going to do, paint Claire’s nails to death? Giggle manically a little more while wearing a blond wig? It’s original, I’ll give them that, and the game itself has significantly more depth than Alfred Ashford provides… as well as zombies, a real villain (his sister comes back in disc 2) and all the typical RE stuff we’ve come to love. Still, a bad plot twist and a bad villain.
08) Samus Aran is really a female.
Now of course you know this, and you’ve probably seen Zero Suit Samus in screenshots from the upcoming Smash Bros Brawl. So how could this be a plot twist, you ask? Well, the first game of the series led players to believe she was actually a male until the end of Metroid, in which she reveals she’s actually an attractive young woman by taking off her suit. Nintendo even went so far as to write male pronouns in the North American instruction manual, and make her power suit in the first game more masculine than later versions. Many gamers were utterly dumbfounded by this plot twist. As much as I love the series and the character of Samus Aran, I have to re-state how silly I think gender bending is, especially when it adds nothing to the plot–I mean, Samus being female does nothing for our empowerment, and if you think a secret ending in which she’s revealed as a female does something for females, chances are you’re not one. This plot twist was entirely unnecessary, albeit a surprising twist, and pretty fucking weird when you think about it. Who got paid for this one?
07) Street Fighter is a great series. I am not trying to take away from it. But in Street Fighter 2: Turbo, when the fighters are competing for the tournament, it’s interrupted at random by Shin Akuma who kills M Bison (you have to get a perfect score for this cut scene, but it’s considered canonical and the “true” ending to the competition). This interruption ends the tournament prematurely. What the fuck. Whoever wrote this needs to fucking die. It’s confusing and a total cop-out to the competition. We never get to know who won, and the game ends rather anticlimactically. It’s a total kill joy; I guess Capcom sucked ass at writing plots in the early 1990’s. This is only number seven on the list, instead of number one, because it’s a fighting game and I have to take that into account. We don’t really play the SF series for the engaging plot and so it’s forgiven, a little.
06) Some people will get mad at me for this, but here’s a terrible plot twist for you. Some space aliens fall out of the sky and join the Alliance, somehow knowing how to be Shaman and bringing them to raids in an expansion. Yes, I am talking about Draenai of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. This is possibly one of the most self-serving, fucking moronic plot twists I’ve seen in a game–they wanted a new race for the expansion and they wanted to balance Horde and Alliance, so they threw the Draenai in at complete random to serve their purposes and raping the lore. Or how about the Blood Elves stealing light for their own? Another ridiculous plot, though I suppose more plausible than space Shaman. (See Lorelol.)
05) The ending of Final Fantasy X. If this is a spoiler for you, 
I don’t really give a fuck. It’s a bad game, anyway; compared to the great FF games like Final Fantasy VI every single one of FFX’s plot twists are stupid and the fanboys make me laugh. Quick summation of the game would be that main characters, Tidus and Yuna, are lovers who have to save the world or something. They have to stop evil against incredible odds, and slay Sin. Good so far, safe so far; it’s like every other best-selling Final Fantasy. But in the end, we find out it’s just a dream. Our hero, Tidus, isn’t really real–he’s a mixture of souls. Ripped away from Yuna, the game ends with lovers saving the world and then being apart for all eternity–or until you get a perfect ending on Final Fantasy X-2. What a dumb ending meant to make room for a sequel. Someone should have told the writer that you’re supposed to save the world and get the girl, not end up being a dream. I know a lot of people think this is the saddest ending of any FF, and I guess I would agree. It is sad they couldn’t be more intelligent with their plot twist.
04) Fable has its own lame plot twist, even if the game itself is awesome and one of my favorites for the Xbox. When the hero’s village is raided as a child, the hero is saved by a man named Maze. Maze teaches him how to fight, and raises him to be a true hero. Towards the end, you find out Maze was in league with the Jack of Blades who killed the hero’s whole family and raided the village in the first place. This plot twist is only so indelibly lame because it’s been done a thousand times before, and is beyond cliché. The mentor really being evil thing is getting old. The second I saw Maze I knew he wasn’t what he seemed to be, and I bet you did as well.
03) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic probably has one of the stupidest plot twists. It’s the old amnesia story, with no twist. Near the end of the game, the player fights evil Darth Malak for the first time. Malak was an apprentice of the Dark Lord Revan until he overthrew his master and became the new Dark Lord. Apparently, though, you’re really Revan. You know, the master Malak overthrew. How convenient and seamless; original, even. And by that I mean not at all? Seriously.
02) Possibly the most bizarre twist I have ever seen is in the game
The Bouncer. Square-Enix really dropped the ball with this one. They tried to combine genres, much like Parasite Eve being survival horror and a form of RPG. Unfortunately, unlike PE, this game’s combination doesn’t work; the characters are vapid, the plot extraordinarily dark and twisty to the point of confusion. As it goes, when Dominique gets kidnapped, the lead character Sion decides he’s going to save her. The big twist, however, is that Dominique isn’t even alive. She’s actually a cyborg, created by her brother when she died in remembrance of her. She’s also a weapon of mass destruction or something, but the first plot twist was too much and I turned off the game.
01) Eight words: I’m sorry, the princess is in another castle.
In closing, I like most of the games I ragged on. The point of this entire list is that a bad plot twist doesn’t make a bad game, but they can be amusing and fun to point out–and they’re especially prevalent in video games.
As for my most favorite plot twist? It’s in Silent Hill, or Metal Gear Solid. What’s yours?
September 11th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Good list, I especially agree with the Metroid Prime twist, I keep getting told that it was a great plot twist but I honestly couldn’t care less as it felt to random and thrown in at the last minute to create an illusion of good writing.
September 11th, 2007 at 7:53 am
I’d like to add Final Fantasy VIII to this list. ZOMG the witch you’ve been fighting this entire time has actually been mind controlled by the REAL bad guy! I guess it’s cool that you tried to kill us cause you really didn’t mean it, right?
September 11th, 2007 at 8:51 am
This was pretty fun to read…
I was actually sitting here thinking “I wonder if she’s going to mention the draenei from World of Warcraft.” The Burning Crusade is really where the developers just decided to go “LORE LOL” and fling whatever they felt like at us…which included space goats with shamanistic roots. Space goats. To make matters worse, the females of this race are hot beyond belief and the men look like they’re related to Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. If this isn’t confusing as hell, I don’t know what is, right.
I’ll just add a quick one though: Not really a huge plot twist since it occured in the beginning of the game…but in Shadow Hearts, where you find a cute puppy and decide to take it with you. You get kind of attached to the little dog, who has helped you through the game for a short period of time…and then he transforms into the creepy old man villain that’s out to kill you.
I was upset with that one.
Poor puppy.
September 11th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Great blog! I enjoyed that one.
As for plot twists, I’d have to say two that come to mind would be…
The Legacy of Kain Series - (Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance). There were so many interesting twists in this series it would be hard to explain them all. Damn that whole “fate” and “destiny” thing.
and
StarCraft (Sarah Kerrigan and her little “change”)
September 11th, 2007 at 10:04 am
I’d also have to say that any of the Tom Clancy franchise games at least deserve an honorable mention
I still long for the day when game makers actually hire script writers. Until that day comes: all hail the bad plot twist.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:08 am
The Bouncer, I was thinking about that game the other day.
It was an interesting list, I skipped FFX cause I’ve been meaning to finish it.
Generally agree to the whole thing, fun to
I’ve been trying to think of something to contribute, but if I pick up a bad game (because of plot) I generally don’t fall through with it.
How about this one: The Eldar Scrolls. The last two games have virtually no plot unless you can find their question line. Ha!
September 11th, 2007 at 10:24 am
I would have to agree with the Metroid plot twist being horrible, but for a different reason. I just really hate how they reward you with Samus all but stripping for better completion times and percentages. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Metroid, it’s my all time favorite franchise, but I just don’t understand why they have to keep doing that.
September 11th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Benny–Thanks. And yeah,t hat’s my sentiments. I really like Samus, but it just seemed lame.
Goon–Ahaha, every FF has a plot twist like that. Do you remember FF9 and how Queen Brahnne isn’t evil, she’s being manipulated by Kuja who is being manipulated by Garland? YEAH OK RANDOM PLOT TWISTS.
Dana–Someone actually argued to me that Draenai aren’t a plot twist, they’re a part of the lore. DEFINITELY ARE, I MEAN, THEM BEING SHAMANS AND ALL…THEIR SPACE SHIP… TOTALLY IN EVERY WC GAME. The broken Draenai were a part of the plot, but them having space goat cousins was definitely not!
Phil–Kerrigan would probably be #5 if I made a top 10 list of plot twists I loved.
Ed–True that, ahah. It’s been a while since I’ve played a Clancy game though.
Ryan–Some of Morrowind’s plots bother me as well as Oblivion. But then I can ignore that, because the world itself is so cool. Most of the time anyway
Ezlo–That’s a great point. I think Samus is badass, but do they really have to strip her down repeatedly?
September 11th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Just wanted to point out that in Metroid for the Japanese NES instruction manual, in fact.. probably every Japanese Metroid instruction manual, they use a “genderless” pronoun, so that it’s not a he/she pronoun, but one that does not give the gender of Samus away. In short, in Japan, gamers did not know Samus was a woman until the end of the game
When it came over to America, “he” was put in place of that pronoun, and it’s a mystery if this was just a translation error or a goal to try and fool people.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:44 am
I wasn’t too impressed with WarCraft 3, sending Arthas over to the dark side, so to speak. It was Blizzards next immediate strategy release since StarCraft, which did a similar thing with Kerrigan, so it was just too similar too soon. I felt it was a rather lacking aspect of an otherwise solid story (as far as strategy games go).
September 12th, 2007 at 7:21 am
I think one of the craziest plot twists was in Star Ocean 3.
These characters go from different planets, fight intergalactic wars, go through dangerous dungeons, and even start fighting these “Gods.” This is all until the beginning of Disc 2. SPOILER**** In Disc 2, you travel to the planet Styx to go through this time gate and apparently defeat this evil entity called the Creator. they reach Styx which is infested with the Destroyer and Enforcer gods. They go through the time gate…. and they land…… In the real world. You find out that they were just a video game created by a gaming company, Sphere.
I loved the game, but that plot twist was stupid!!! Ugghh!
September 12th, 2007 at 9:44 am
@8: A lot of people praise the Samus thing because she was pretty much the first major female console game hero who wasn’t some completely stereotypical portrayal of femininity… I think? It’s probably better understood in its original context of the mid-80s. Suffice to say, it set up for the Justin Bailey code, which was COMPLETELY AWESOME for a 10-year old boy. *cough*
@6: Actually, the thing about the Draenei can easily segue into a post about the Top 10 Worst Plot Holes / Retcons ever…. the retelling of the Sargeras lore was absolutely terrible, and seeing Metzen basically say “whoops, I forgot” when he basically rewrote the lore that was in the fucking Warcraft III instruction manual and thousands of people immediately recognized as contradictary… I seriously can’t believe how a game with fucking nine million subscribers can fuck some really simple shit up so, so badly.
@5: I wouldn’t really call Tidus’ disappearance a twist, since the player basically knew it was going to happen for a while beforehand. It’s similar to FFVI’s ending with regard to Terra, I guess, although Terra didn’t have a lover to have some sad scene with at the end (although Yuna/Tidus didn’t kiss in that scene..)
Hm, I’d try to think of some of my own, but I’m short on time at the moment. Does slutting up Riku/Yuna for FFX-2 count as a plot twist?
September 12th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Stumbled upon your great site, loving it.
Never really played a game with a seriously bad plot twist, although the parts where Trish reveals she’s “evil” and Nelo Angelo is Dante’s brother kinda make me roll my eyes =P
I love the twist in Bioshock though. I kinda saw it coming, but wasn’t expecting THAT.
September 12th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I have to disagree with the Metroid plot twist. It’s easy to forget how little space there was available in older games: That being the reason stories were often told in the manual, if at all, on NES games. It’s also easy to forget that when the game was made there was still a very strong cheavanistic trend (Yeah I’m sure I butchered that spelling) that was pervasive in all forms of media: That of the damsel in distress. While not exactly the best to impliment this twist, I admit, it was still a profound assault on the status quo in the eyes of a ten year old boy’s world.
Some food for thought on perspective!
September 12th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
But see, the reason in the original Metroid they portrayed Samus Aran as a male, is due to the fact that around that time is was still a status faux pas to have a leading woman. Nintendo wanted to make sure they had fans behind them, so they introduced this “male” with ever increasing powers. I’ve read all that somewhere… can’t remember exactly where? But meh, made sense to me.
September 12th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Peter–I see your point about Samus, but I think she could have been referred to as a “she” in the manual, and there could have been no plot twist, and she still could have been an atypical female lead who kicked ass. She’s become rather typical nowadays with her “sexy” pics upon the game’s completion.
Cyrris–I didn’t really like Arthas’ transformation either, now that you mention it. It was a lot like Kerrigan.
Isidro–Haha, I’ve never played the SO series. I’ve heard it’s good, but that plot twist makes me want to check it out now
Aviate–thanks
Glad you’ve been enjoying it.
Bryan/Matt–I do agree that it was an interesting twist, but I really don’t like it. In the end, she’s revealed as a woman and that’s cool, I guess… But if they wanted to to have a lead female and be less chauvinistic, why do they offer slutty pics of her at every completion for good scores? I just think it was a dumb twist, and they should have introduced her as a female first off. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t around in 1986 to understand the politics of the twist, but she’s an awesome character, and I just think it’s lame they called her a guy in the manual.
September 12th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I have to agree, that the Star Ocean 3 twist was utterly vile.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I liked the star wars kotr twist
September 12th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Nice list, but I think that’s a bit of an oversimplification of the KotOR twist. It wasn’t just the knock on the head that made him “not remember”.
I was kind of surprised that FFVIII didn’t make it. Everyone in your party grew up in the same orphanage run by the evil sorceress you are trying to kill (except she isn’t really evil because of some kind of time wizardry BS). And oh yeah, she’s married to the Headmaster of the main character’s school.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Calling the revelation that Samus was a woman in the original Metroid a plot twist is a bit of a stretch. That game came out on the original Nintendo in 1986. In order to see the ending where Samus is revealed to be a woman, you had to beat the game in under 3 hours (or something like that, I can’t remember) I believe it was mostly just a prank by the game designers, to give 12 year old video game geeks something to drool over. Games didn’t really have stories back then like they do now. All you got was a few pages in the manual at the beginning, and maybe some text would scroll at the end. We were so innocent then we had no way of knowing how important story would become.
September 13th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
I like how theres been a lot of controversy over you naming Samus’ plot twist… from guys. I really just don’t think it was a good move of Nintendo and I don’t think it added anything for female gamers. I think they thought it would be a cool twist but it really wasn’t…
September 14th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Just to add in my two cents on a probably long closed issue. @Sara, I don’t think it was added at all for female gamers. This site is called Girls Don’t Game after the long running public belief that there are no girl gamers. While this is definitely a stereotype that is quickly getting shattered, back in the 1980s and early 90s when Metroid came out, there were thought to be NO girl gamers, there was never anything added to please the girl demographic short of a Barbie game now and then, and most of the time even the cartridges of those were pink. So you either had macho Contra shoot-em-up action for the boys, or pink Barbie fashion dress-up for the girls. That’s why Samus being a girl was such a big thing, at least in retrospect. The concept of a girl who wasn’t a Princess Toadstool waiting to be rescued simply caused little gamer boy brains to nearly explode, which is why i think they referred to Samus as a he, or at least gender-neutral.
Well, at least for the average boy. I personally had my little sister playing Tails as soon as she could master the art of pushing a button. I’ve had her gaming from Sonic 2 all the way through our weekly WoW time together. I like to think I helped girl gamers a little, but, i suppose that’s just a wee bit egotistical.
September 15th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Fun list I gotta say, I am no wow fanboy, but if you played warcraft 3, you’d already know the Draenei were there. Not really a plot twist, always planned from the first moment.
As for Sheik, it was obvious but can you really expect them to make her help you more? =P Come on, you get Navi “HEY, LOOK!, OVER HERE, *dashes about the screen*” for that. and we all know thats FUCKING annoying.
September 21st, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Pretty good list, although you are totally off on samus, You need to take into the context of when this game was made, back then it was more of a big deal.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:50 am
FFX was awesome.
October 1st, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Oh come on, no ending to Red Alert? Kane was in control of the Soviets all along!
This is awful if only for the fact that the Brotherhood of Nod only CAME INTO EXISTENCE because of Tiberium, which isn’t mentioned once in Red Alert. Awesome tie-in, but completely pointless. Also awful if you hadn’t played C&C1, and had no idea whom Kane was in the first place.
October 9th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
The whole Bioshock “plot twist” certainly wasn’t one of the worst, but I have to say that it was the most blatantly obvious twist possible. Certainly as bad as KoTOR, though neither are really bad because of the reasons the cliche was used. Just as Bioshock used the cliche to further the whole utopia-gone-hell idea, KotTOR used your amnesia as a way to hide the massive struggle over your powers. Certainly there are worse plot twists. Such as Star Ocean. Bleh.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:00 am
I personally enjoyed both the twists of Bioshock and of KOTOR, and instead of playing it to try and guess the twist try and get some empathy going, you think your character in KOTOR would be going “I know I can’t remember anything, but I bet I am so totally that big bad guy that’s dead. OR a zombie…but I’m sticking with my first guess.”
January 25th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I thought Final Fantasy X was one of the best stories I’ve ever seen in a video game. The plot twist at the end with Tidus not being real made the story even better in my opinion.
February 10th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Re: “If you think a secret ending in which she’s revealed as a female does something for females, chances are you’re not one.”: I disagree.
I was a young girl and gamer in the 80s, and Samus being a woman was a HUGE thing for me. At the time when women in games were largely relegated to roles like ‘princess at the end of the caste’, the fact that the gun-toting, power-armor clad loner Samus wasn’t a guy pretty clearly challenged gender expectations, and it was something I immediately responded to — I still have a soft spot for Samus and balk anytime anyone mistaken calls her a “he”, which still happens more than you’d guess.
Moreover, making Samus’s gender a twist had the effect — intended or not — of giving young girls permission to identify with all manner of gaming protagonists for whose genders were not especially important otherwise. For me, it served as a gentle reminder not to be hung up on the pronoun choices in 8-bit games with hardly six words of dialogue , and increased my confidence in imagining myself in the role of the hero.
Certainly, the existence of a tacked on bit of code that lets Samus be seen in rather revealing attire if you meet some esoteric set of conditions undermines the case for Metroid being all that progressive, but if you think that lessens the importance of her being female in the first place, you aren’t thinking with your historical context hat on. She was a woman, she kicked ass, and it’s even better as a surprise because it manipulates predictable misogynistic assumptions in order to create that sense of surprise. IMO, anyway.
May 15th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Interesting read.. although I wouldn’t say that Samus Aran being a girl is a bad twist.. I suppose you can say it was unnecessary but it didn’t ruin anything for me.
Also, my favorite plot twist is in Jak and Daxter XD
Ok.. that’s not true but that is a pretty crazy plot twist if you’ve played the games.