By Evan Regan
It's not easy for an open-world game to pull the wool over your eyes for the duration of its campaign. There's so much going on, so many missions, characters, and lines of dialogue to hear, that trying to hide some pivotal twist becomes an act of futility, as the script will inevitably give something away and tip the whole thing off.
At least, that should be the case. However, these games manage to accomplish it in one key area: they disguise the fact that the whole time you're playing, you're actually the villain. This is done in a number of ways, sometimes by removing NPCs and flavor text entirely, other times by distracting you with other objectives so you don't notice the truth staring you right in the face. Whatever the case may be, while you're out trying to save the world in these games, odds are you're actually dooming it.
Warning
There are Massive Spoilers Ahead
Shadow Of The Colossus
Be Careful Who You Ask For Help
There's an inherent mystery right from the outset of Shadow of the Colossus. Who is this woman Wander is carrying, and what's wrong with her? Where did he bring her? And who is the being — seemingly just a beam of light in the ceiling — that Wander is coming to for help? That being, which identifies itself as Dormin, tells Wander that if he kills the 16 colossi populating the land, it can restore the woman. That's all you get. Wander sets out to do just that, and it's simple enough to get behind his motivation. Sure, killing these colossi feels a little... wrong, with the way they fall like majestic beasts, the last of their kind snuffed out by something a fraction of their size, but that's what Wander has to do, right? Then he starts to change.
It's subtle, but definitely perceptible. Wander's skin grows paler, his eyes darken, and black stumps sprout from his skull, gradually becoming horns. By the time the sixteenth colossus is extinguished, Wander looks like a different species, but a deal's a deal. He makes his way back to Dormin, only to discover that the colossi were the seal holding Dormin prisoner. With the last one gone, Dormin takes over Wander's body, transforming him into a giant shadowy beast. A group of warrior priests shows up deus ex machina-style, but they're a bit too late to save Wander. They do manage to lock Dormin back up again, though not without some struggle; a struggle that you, playing as the beast, help perpetrate. When the seal is in place and the warriors have departed, the fallen woman wakes up. Dormin held up his end after all. He just didn't explain the cost.
Prototype
Amnesia Can Mask A Lot Of Guilt
It's easy to view Alex Mercer as the hyper-violent antihero of Prototype, given how he consumes people to steal information from their memories. However, the assumption is that he's, at the bare minimum, the lesser of two evils. Three evils, really, between the military occupation of New York and the monsters born out of the Blacklight virus. The thing is, to go along with his shapeshifting powers and nigh-invincibility, Alex is also stricken with a bad case of amnesia. He can't remember anything from before he woke up as this superpowered bioweapon. It turns out, those memories would have provided some pretty useful information.
These aren't some "oops, wrong place, wrong time" superpowers that Alex has; he worked on the Blacklight project. Not only that, he actually engineered the Blacklight virus, the one that was unleashed on NYC and turned him into a human-eating mutant. By the time you actually control him in-game, "Alex" no longer exists. He's just the virus operating in the form of Alex Mercer, and that realization allows him to shed his remaining humanity like an old skin. That's why, in Prototype 2, Alex has finally become the outright villain that he was always on the cusp of being in the first game, and someone else needs to come in and stop him.
Prey
That Wasn't Morgan Yu
Morgan Yu did, in fact, witness the Typhon invasion of Earth, right at the outset of Prey. However, from that point on, the person you are playing as is not Morgan Yu. You just don't know it. You go about your business on Talos I, fighting off Typhon who pretend to be plungers and bars of soap, using your cool glue gun to make pathways along walls, all the while thinking you're working your way towards your brother, Alex Yu, and a way to destroy the Typhon. Then, the rug pull comes.
Morgan Yu is actually a Typhon imitating Morgan. Talos I isn't actually a space station; it's a simulation. And you aren't beating back the Typhon to find a way to destroy them; they've already won. The invasion of Earth is well underway. This Morgan-Typhon is just one of many such imitations, and it is being tested for its ability to display empathy. If it fails, Alex Yu destroys it, but if it succeeds, Alex turns it loose in an effort to broker peace between humanity and the Typhon. This ending is actually pretty unpopular among the fanbase, because it feels like it invalidates everything you did during the game for the sake of an unexpected twist. However, the fact remains that, while Alex is definitely the bigger villain here, the Morgan you see in Prey is one of the aliens trying to invade the Earth.
Crackdown
Backed The Wrong Horse
Sometimes, it's not just you as a player who doesn't know they're the villain, it's also the character you're playing as. That's the case in Crackdown, where players are told pretty much from the outset that the "work" they're doing — that being blowing up cars, taking down kingpins, and liberating districts — is for the good of Pacific City. That's what Agents do, and since you're an Agent, that's what you do, too. That's why you have the cybernetic suit, the ability to leap over tall buildings and run at extreme speeds, and that's why you spend your every moment wiping out the three major gangs in Pacific City.
However, right after you've liberated the last district and the last kingpin has fallen, you get a call from the Agency's Director. He reveals (surprisingly candidly) that the Agency was bankrolling all of these gangs from the outset. "Why?" you're probably asking. Well, the idea was that making the gangs more powerful would instill fear in the Pacific City populace, enough that they would welcome the arrival of the Agency and their gradual takeover. Then, once the gangs were eliminated, the Agency could assume full control of Pacific City and institute a new world order. It's a bit ham-fisted, but in the end, the player's agent is just a pawn in the Agency's game, led to believe that their actions were for good when in fact they were serving the whims of a greedy organization.
Far Cry 2
All That For What?
In Far Cry 2, you play a mercenary who shows up in an unnamed African country on the hunt for an arms dealer named the Jackal. You land, instantly contract malaria, and get embroiled in the ongoing stalemate between the two local militia factions. As you go along, you meet some friends who will help you on missions — companions, if you will — and eventually you end up taking out both faction leaders regardless of if you side with one or not. Your friends disappear in a big explosion not long after, and you make your way south.
Upon arriving there, the Jackal recruits you to his cause. Believe it or not, he's anti-war (yes, even though he's an arms dealer) and is trying to pit the factions against each other to help some locals flee the area. He needs you to go steal some diamonds, but it so happens that your old companions are the ones who have them. To steal the diamonds, you'll have to kill them. Then, the Jackal's final play: one of you blows up a bridge behind the fleeing locals, the other uses the diamonds to bribe guards at the border crossing to let the locals through. You'll both die in the act, so which one you choose doesn't matter. In fact, much of what you did doesn't matter. You ignited a civil war, killed all your allies (along with countless others), all to save maybe a dozen people. In the end, the Jackal's body can't be found; the one guy you were actually supposed to kill gets away, and everything you did only made things worse. Talk about a botched job.
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This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
