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)
you can choose to return everything the way it was to restore the timeline and rescue the town.
In “What remains of Edith Finch” you arguably don’t change anything. You just discover what has already happened, then you leave and the story ends. Even more so with “Dear Esther”. Less so with “The Vanishing of Ethan Carter”.
Alan Wake? Unclear what happens and what doesn’t, but one possible interpretation is that the main character is just stuck in a room typing on a typewriter for the entire game.
In Xenon, when you finish level 4 it just restarts at level 1. 🙂
Great game but you basically search a house looking for something thatvwould have happenedbto the girl daughter, but in the end, she’s just moved to her own place amd everything if fine with the parents too.
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original Mario until lvl 8, cause the princess always fucking is in another castle (if you discount the mass genocide of mushrooms and turtles ofc)!
In Life is Strange
spoiler
you can choose to return everything the way it was to restore the timeline and rescue the town.
In “What remains of Edith Finch” you arguably don’t change anything. You just discover what has already happened, then you leave and the story ends. Even more so with “Dear Esther”. Less so with “The Vanishing of Ethan Carter”.
Alan Wake? Unclear what happens and what doesn’t, but one possible interpretation is that the main character is just stuck in a room typing on a typewriter for the entire game.
In Xenon, when you finish level 4 it just restarts at level 1. 🙂
All I’ve got are examples of plots where you have no impact on the plot. The world ends, or the world sucks, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
spoiler
Outer Wilds, Diary of a Spaceport Janitor, Umurangi Generation, Norco
I’d say in many time travel plots it is the entire point of the story to make nothing happen.
Like in Day of the Tentacle, you want to go back to yesterday so that Purple Tentacle cannot take over the world.
Gone Home.
Great game but you basically search a house looking for something thatvwould have happenedbto the girl daughter, but in the end, she’s just moved to her own place amd everything if fine with the parents too.