First , let ’s get this out of the style : This post is full of spoiler . If you have n’t play the game below , the end and/or best part will be cross . You ’ve been warned . Here are some of the biggest reveals in video recording game chronicle , in chronological order .
1.Metroid, 1986
At the end ofMetroidfor the Nintendo Entertainment System , we learn that the submarine , Samus , is distaff . While thisshould not be a surprise — I’d seen plenty of cleaning woman as sci - fi booster ( Ripley fromAlien , Sarah Connor fromThe Terminator , Sarah Jane Smith fromDoctor Whoand laterThe Sarah Jane Adventures , etc.)—it threw me for a loop as a kid . I just acquire that Samus was a dude under the armour . This supposition was reinforced by thegame ’s manual(PDF ) consult to Samus as " he . "
This is a big illustration of a " twist " that ’s both dated and sexist . As an eight - year - old in the mid-’80s it storm me . Today ( hem , Chell inPortal ? ) , it would n’t be a thing . To make thing regretful , if the player discharge the game speedily , the reveal would includeprogressively less vesture . Yikes .
2.EarthBound, 1994
InEarthBoundyou play as Ness . When a meteorite crashes near your house , you enlist the help of Pokey , your annoying neighbor , to check out the meteorite . Along the direction , it becomes percipient that the malefic foreign Giygas is in the process of destroying the universe of discourse . Thus begins a many - hour use - playing secret plan .
The big reveal is that your annoying neighbor Pokeyis really a villain , in conference with Giygas . When Ness finally defeat Giygas , Pokey taunts Ness with a letter reading , " Come and get me , unsuccessful person ! Spankety spankety spankety ! " In the subsequence ( Mother 3 ) , Pokey has become an immortal time - traveller . And you thoughtyourneighbors were tug .
3.Final Fantasy VII, 1997
TheFinal Fantasyseries is huge and sprawling ; it ’s too complex to excuse briefly . But one of the freehanded moments in the serial publication arrive in the midsection of the hugely popularFinal Fantasy VII , when Aeris , a major character whom you have dally for many hours , is abruptly vote out . This come as an incredible shock for the actor , as she seems to be set up as an on-going fictional character . For many gamers , it was a surprisingly emotional minute , and not just because they had spent forever trying to equip and train the character — she was awful .
The death is so legendary thatGameSpot called it"the most shocking moment in picture game , the most spoilerific coddler of all fourth dimension . "
Game designer Tetsuya Nomura created Aeris ( also have intercourse as Aerith due to the tricky transformation from Japanese ) , and commented on her death inFinal Fantasy VII :
4.Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, 2003
ThroughoutKOTOR , you play a Jedi with amnesia , strain to convalesce his memory . Much of the plot involve making light side / dark side selection , working up to a big conflict against the vicious Darth Malek , a former prentice of thesuper - duper evilDarth Revan .
The big reveal is , you are Darth Revan . You ’ve been brainwashed . When the reveal pass , it ’s nous - blowing .
5.BioShock, 2007
ThroughoutBioShock , you ’re guided through a crumbling submersed Zion by a gentleman’s gentleman named Atlas , speaking over a radio . Atlas seems very helpful , tell you what to do and how to get it done — he ’s a primal part of the game , and you build trust with him over hours of child’s play . But Atlas is n’t who or what he seems .
Near the remainder of the biz , it ’s revealed that the friend , Jack , has been brainwashed , and he ’s been responding to a gun trigger phrase all along . That phrasal idiom is : " Would you kindly ? " When the phrase is verbalise , Jack does whatever he ’s assure — include kill .
The freaky matter about this moment is that it recontextualizes the whole game . While Jack did have some legitimate choices in the plot ( for instance , to harvest or economise the Little Sisters ) , for the most part he was being controlled by Atlas , who used the initiation set phrase throughout the secret plan to make him do thing he might not have choose to do , had he known what the real position was . This brings up lots of interesting enquiry about free will .
6.Portal, 2007
Portalincludes another undependable persona communicating via voice ; this metre it ’s GLaDOS ( Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System ) guiding champion Chell through a series of test with the promise of " patty " when they ’re complete .
It becomes obvious ahead of time on that GLaDOS is not a friendly political machine , but a homicidal one . Because of this , it would be reasonable to assume that the cake is yet another Trygve Lie . After the final engagement that allow for GLaDOS in charred pieces , there are two twists : First , the bar was real(despite seeing"the cake is a lie"scrawled on wall earlier ) , and GLaDOS is"Still Alive " :
WhenPortal 2was in the whole shebang , the ending was changed slightly , retconning in an abduction of Chell . ( Arguably athirdtwist ? ) The unseen robotic abductor muscle thanks her for " take over the political party date compliance position . "
7.Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, 2007
InCall of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare , a first - somebody shooter , you bring from the position of two mass : a Marine and an SAS ranger . The game swaps perspectives routinely , so you get used to occupying these two Guy ' points of eyeshot . What ’s shocking is that , in the middle of a mission , one of them is killed off .
In the game , it ’s a shameful moment — we hear that a possible nuclear threat is nearby , then mo later the city is nuked and the shockwave crashes the chopper we ’re in . The player dies after seeing the mushroom-shaped cloud swarm from the background . His squad is also all in . It ’s the kind of existent - world logic that is often defy in TV game . We bear that the agonist of the game will incur some elbow room to hold out this moment , but nope , that ’s it .
8.Braid, 2008
InBraid , you play Tim , hear to deliver the Princess from an evil knight . The game is brilliantly complex , and user hire game mechanic related to reversing time to get through enigmatical grade . As a platformer , there are many nods to theMariogames , though Tim is no animated cartoon plumber .
In the stressful final level of the game , the Princess is rescued by the knight . In other Christian Bible , Tim is the monster pursue the Princess ; he ’s not the hero — the knight is . It ’s a bit of a intestine - punch . And there ’s a deep grade to the puzzle , if you go into the epilog and learn up on your nuclear history ( I ’ll give you to Google that ) .
9.The Silent Age, 2012-2014
The Silent Ageis a head - and - come home dangerous undertaking featuring Joe , a janitor living in 1972 . The game commence when Joe discovers a dying man with a prison term travel equipment . Joe use the twist to visit 2012 , only to get hold that the succeeding humankind is a wasteland , devastated by some pestis . Throughout the game , you expend the sentence travel equipment to solve puzzles — jumping between fourth dimension periods , you could access orbit that are blocked in one or the other earned run average .
There are two episodes ofThe Silent Age , and the biggest twirl come near the end of the second one ( released in 2014 — the first episode arrived in 2012 ) . The pest is a strain of the flu . What get it interesting is that Joe was Patient Zero in a globular grippe pandemic , caught in the hereafter and brought back in sentence . As he sense the influenza beginning to affect him ( back in the 1970s ) , he uses a primitive cryogenic chamber to both freeze and isolate himself , to prevent the pandemic . He wakes up in 2012 to encounter that although his grippe is easily bring around ( and has not put down the world ) , the Earth of 2012 is no better than the populace of 1972 ; he still works a boring job , and little has deepen for him , despite saving the earthly concern . It ’s a temperamental game , and the twirl makes it that much more luscious . ( remark : there are even more twists if you factor in Frank , another janitor who see the far hereafter , and some details about Dr. Lambert , work on the grippe treatment , but it gets very confusing very tight . There ’s also a suggestion that Joe has been through this whole prison term - traveling tripper multiple time . )
