78
Games Where Nothing Happens (SPOILERS for various game plots) (lemmy.zip)
submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
71 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago

BioShock 3. Game establishes that it is a multiverse. There are many worlds/universes, but there is always a girl, and always a light house. You did something bad and it caused suffering. At the end of the game, you go back and change something, and create a bright happy future. Everyone sings Kumbaya (literally they play a song called break the cycle). The idea is that there was a single event and everything bad happened because of that. Going back and stopping it prevents all the bad stuff. The problem is, that only works with "Back to the Future" style time travel. The game already established it is a multiverse. So yes, you did create 1 future where everything didn't go to shit. But because it's a multiverse there are still an infinite number of universes where things are still very bad, and there is suffering. For whatever reason the writers just didn't think about that I guess? It seemed really asinine at the time I played it.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

All the Elizabeths come together to kill their Bookers. It's not just one universe. It's every universe. You only get to see your universe's Booker die.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

spoilerI clocked its ending as you became a coalescence of all Bookers, and since all the Elizabeths kill you it stops you in every timeline in which you exist.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

coalescence, I think

[-] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

One moment going to research that.

Update; you are correct and I changed my original comment. Thanks for the correction.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

If it means the same as in french, convalescence is the period of time after an illness during which one recovers. Coalescence would be the action of joining/merging things

btw I never really got the ending of Bioshock Infinite, so your explanation is welcome. It felt a bit masturbatory to me at the time. It doesn't help that I didn't really enjoy the game itself, contrary to the previous two

[-] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It does. My just having woken up brain mixed the two up.

Also, I was actually a huge(ba-dum-tiss) fan of it. It's one of my favorites. It's flawed and you can tell that it had to drop some things to make it out the door but I liked it. My wife and I actually have matching tattoos based on the series.

this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
78 points (93.3% liked)

Games

41497 readers
1132 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]