Well, we’re still seeing new ideas in games today, but what’s perhaps more common are promising ideas that end up flopping. Whether it’s overpromising, poor execution, or trends chasing monetization, these games prove that a great idea alone isn’t enough.

Here are 15 revolutionary gaming concepts that sounded incredible on paper but then folded like a deck of cards with its execution.

Exploring A Full-Sized Galaxy – Starfield

Everything that Todd Howard presented to us about the then-upcoming open-galaxy Bethesda RPG seemed too good to be true. Skyrim in space was enough to get most of us in pre-order lines, but the promises went much further than that. There’s the hundreds of explorable solar systems with thousands of planets, sure, but the customizable space ship and ability to fly your ship and recruit crew members excited me the most. Unfortunately, when the game released, it was apparent that Todd’s promises really were too good to be true. There were practically no memorable characters, nearly every planet was devoid of interesting content, and ship navigation was frustrating and under-utilized. The game sold well enough due to initial hype, but a 97% player drop-off after six months and the broader damage to Bethesda’s reputation paint a clear picture of Starfield’s shortcomings..

Pirate Live Service – Skull and Bones

Just about everybody wanted a large open-seas pirate game where filled to the brim with tense ship battles and sea shanties, but the developer somehow managed to screw that up completely. The biggest failing with Skull and Bones was that it was a $70 title with a predatory live service model tacked on top of that. You had to grind for what seemed like hundreds of hours obtaining the ‘pieces of eight’ just to upgrade your hard-sought pirate ship equipment. The whole experience was just so bogged down in incremental monetization that even the few fans that were left had a hard time sticking with it for long. So much for the first ever AAAA game.

Hunters vs Hunted Multiplayer – Evolve

I wasn’t exactly the biggest Left 4 Dead fan in the world and even I was pretty excited about Evolve in the 2010s. Evolve pitted a group of hunters against a horrific Godzilla-like human-controlled opponent, differentiating Valve’s team-based shooter with an asynchronized matchup. The big distinction with Evolve is the colossal prey is just one human-controlled creature, resulting in a lopsided 4 versus 1 scenario. Matches were novel and hilariously fun … for the first couple hours. Running around as a hulking horror monster in search of four helpless little humans makes it hard to frown. But the novelty wore off pretty quick. The balance issues, very thin post-game offerings, and hefty price tag for what was essentially a repetitive game loop contributed to Evolve devolving to the husk it is today.

Open World Parkour – Forspoken

I remember being pretty hyped for Forspoken right before its demo released. It was made by the Final Fantasy XV studio using their in-house engine, all of which I’d been a big fan of. And the open-world parkouring just looked absolutely mesmerizing to top it off. Well, after playing the demo, I found myself frankly appalled. The best thing I can say about Forspoken is that it looks nice and has a serviceable soundtrack. The dialogue is perhaps the biggest culprit behind it’s failure, but the repetitive enemy encounters and throwaway isekai story don’t help sell the game either.

Your Choices (Don’t) Change Everything – Mass Effect 3

A lot of gamers want a good choice-driven narrative and plenty of games have attempted it over the years. Yet, carrying over those choices for a meaningful endgame remains an elusive accomplishment for many titles. Mass Effect 3 is perhaps the best example of this. Mass Effect 2 was noteworthy for carrying over key decisions made from the first game and branching those off into even more scenarios into the third game. Yet, Mass Effect 3 ended on a whimper with originally only three endings. The worst part about the narrow endgame funnel was just how paper-thin the different endings were. It’s like all the player-driven choices throughout the three games came to the same uninspired conclusion, albeit with a different color tacked on.

Mandatory Crafting – Metal Gear Survive, Fallout 4

I’m all for looting abandoned houses in open-world games, especially when paired with a robust crafting system. Yet, some games rely a bit too much on crafting to advance the main story. In the case of Fallout 4, crafting is absolutely essential no matter what you plan on doing in the game. The game’s big draw, other than being another Fallout, was its settlement creation system. Yet, to properly build up your settlement, you had to grind for loot and craft like crazy. And then on the extreme spectrum, you have Metal Gear Survive, which made crafting the core gameplay loop, and by extension, the only loop the game had to offer. Crafting is a fun aspect of gameplay, but there’s such a thing as too much of it, as is the case with these two games.

Detective Vision – Batman: Arkham Series, The Last of Us Part 1

Batman: Arkham Asylum made many of us fall in love with detective vision gameplay. Turning on the infrared goggles and snooping the environment for clues just added so much to the setting and gameplay. But then, it seemed like every other game out there started implementing it, and the novelty didn’t quite stick. The Witcher 3 had Geralt investigating hundreds of trails using his witcher sense, but fans generally like it there because of his fun banter. But the later Arkham games and The Last of Us Part 1 tended to overuse detective vision to the point where it slowed down not just the gameplay but story as well.

Procedural “Infinite Story” Generation – No Man’s Sky Launch, Daggerfall

I remember how skeptical a majority of gamers were when Sean Murray talked up his infinite galaxy filled with procedural generation in No Man’s Sky. The game released and, well, a majority of gamers felt correct in their initial skepticism. No Man Sky’s launch lacked the touted multiplayer component that it now enjoys, but it also felt barren and void of meaningful content, something procedural generation often struggles with. An earlier example of empty fields of infinite procedural generated content was Bethesda’s Daggerfall. Daggerfall boasts a staggering 62,000 to 80,000 square miles of traversable land with well over 10,000 towns. It was simply the largest game at the time of release, dwarfing most modern open-worlds today. Yet, the dungeon design was … well, absent. And the actual content within such mammoth maps were repetitive and shallow, even if other systems were novel and fun at the time.

Memory Editing — Remember Me

On paper, Remember Me’s mix of third-person action combat, platforming, and puzzles in the form of Memory Remixing should’ve been the beginning of a new hit franchise. DontNod had the budget and concept for a longlasting series and rewriting people’s past to influence an outcome in the plot was the big selling point. And you don’t just rewrite memories in cutscenes, you actively re-arrange objects called glitches in the subject’s mind like a puzzle. It’s a truly terrifying ability, and one that would’ve rivaled the Animus from Assassin’s Creed if it was used more fully in the game. In the end, Remember Me was known for its subpar combat encounters and underbaked story. If only Remember Me could’ve remembered the Memory Remix mechanic enough for gamers to remember it.

Possess Enemies On-the-Fly — Mindjack

Who remembers the Japanese cover shooter game from the early 2010s, Mindjack? Yeah, probably not many. Besides the generic third-person shooting mechanics and forgettable sci-fi story, it had an innovative mind-hacking mechanic thrown into the mix. Being able to possess enemies and convert them to your side on-the-fly sounds pretty dang fun, until you realize the AI is awful in Mindjack. The repetitive level design and bland missions didn’t help the promising mind-jacking concept either.

Open-World Live Service Campaign — Anthem

Bioware is still chugging along today even after lukewarm releases like Dragon Age The Veilguard and Mass Effect Andromeda, but Anthem was the signal that the  studio just wasn’t the same anymore. Despite building a reputation for rich storytelling and immersive character interactions, EA made Bioware go the live service multiplayer route with Anthem. That decision didn’t go well with longtime fans or newcomers. The launch was plagued by glitches, bugs, and crashes galore. And the long-term looter-shooter loop didn’t do enough to keep players around. This is alll despite a genuinely fun jetpack system that allowed players to fly around with their mechanized soldier through the environment with ease. It’s a fun game to fly around in, but was a chore to actually do anything else.

Superhero Looter-Brawler – Marvel’s Avengers

Marvel’s Avengers was another game that cashed in on the live service looter band-wagon, with the advantage of having the Marvel IP tied to it. There was actually quite a bit of hype building up for Crystal Dynamics’ huge new AAA superhero game. It came out during a time of Avengers high and within a game industry that hadn’t capitalized on it yet. Needless to say, many gamers desperately wanted to pick their favorite Avenger and fight some baddies in a high quality action game. But the aggressive repetition within the mission design and lack of a post-game severely hindered what was supposed to be an ever-evolving game. If you’re going to make a game with the kind of structure of Marvel’s Avengers, at least build it around a compelling story and interesting gameplay.

AAA Episodic Storytelling – Telltale Games

Where’s Telltale Games been, by the way? Episodic interactive game dramas just aren’t the same since Telltale’s reign in the 2010s. Telltale’s The Walking Dead fomented a revolution in the episodic potential for smaller-scale video games. But it seems that ever since Telltale’s Game of Thrones, the formula just hasn’t seen the same kind of success. The stagnant cell-shaded art style contributed to gamers just getting tired of Telltale games, but the realization that choices were largely illusory or at least highly bottlenecked also likely played a role in the genre’s decline.

Time-Manipulation Shooter — TimeShift

Everyone loves a good bullet-time Matrix moment in movies or TV, especially so when we get to control it. TimeShift leaned into the slow-motion cool factor and then cranked it up a notch with full control over time itself. Centering a first-person shooter on time manipulation abilities just seems limitless in its potential. But despite the ability to freeze time in the middle of firefights, the game just felt lackluster to play. Like Anthem, the game had one cool thing going for it: the time-bending abilities, with nothing else to compliment that. The story, while told within a cool dieselpunk setting, was awkwardly paced and surrounded by forgettable characters. And the enemies were bullet-sponges without much thought put into their encounter design. We all love a good time-bending mechanic, but TimeShift just didn’t make a good game around it.

Cloud-Powered, Fully Destructible Cities — Crackdown 3

Gamers were surprisingly delighted by the chaotic sandbox that Crackdown 2 provided and hyped up the next game beyond what it was capable to deliver. The third game executed on the sandbox action hero concept about as well as MindEye did the GTA formula (okay, maybe not quite that bad). Where the second Crackdown delivered on laughs and mindless fun, the third drilled repetitive urban landscapes and bland mission design into our tired hands. Even the advertised cloud-powered destructible environments didn’t make the final cut into the game, except for the now-dead multiplayer mode that nobody played. Crackdown 3 failed to iterate or improve on the chaotic sandbox formula that fans loved about the second one, so much so that even Terry Crews couldn’t save it.

Mass Effect 3

Bring up the topic of video game endings, and Mass Effect 3 will undoubtedly be mentioned. As the grand finale of a trilogy that honored hundreds of player decisions, Mass Effect 3’s outro felt incredibly lackluster and underwhelming. Heck, many 10-hour games contain more branching conclusions than ME3. But ME3 has a heart of gold that can get overlooked. Some of the most memorable highlights in the entire saga take place within the third game. Mordin has perhaps the most heroic moment of the series, and a hefty amount of story threads get a satisfying resolution. For players who were appalled by the simplistic ‘crayola coloring’ endings, it really is the journey and not the destination that makes Mass Effect 3 so spectacularly special.

According to Gaider, EA had a preference for the sci-fi franchise rather than Dragon Age‘s fantasy settings and more strategic gameplay. He wrote about the marketing team also having the same preference since they were unsure of how to market a dark fantasy franchise like Dragon Age, while Mass Effect‘s sci-fi trappings and more action-oriented gameplay were more marketable.

“While I was at BioWare, EA *always* preferred Mass Effect, straight up,” wrote Gaider. “Their Marketing team liked it more. It was modern. It had action. They never quite knew what to do with [Dragon Age], and whenever DA outperformed ME, ME got the excuses. If you ask me, it was always just shy of the axe since DA Origins.”

With his post, Gaider was responding to a fan of the Dragon Age franchise who commented on the sense that EA seemingly had a preference for Mass Effect even from the perspective of someone outside of the industry. A follow-up question was asked about whether the marketing team’s inability to figure out how to work with the Dragon Age franchise led to each game being quite different from its predecessor.

“Maybe in part,” responded Gaider. “I’d say the biggest reason was that, while I was there, the BioWare teams were bad at overreaction. They’d take the feedback/criticism to heart – both our own and the fans’ – and generally fixed that but also over-corrected. And then there was EA’s influence on top of that, yes.”

The first game in the Dragon Age franchise, Dragon Age: Origins, was released all the way back in 2009. Several DLC releases followed, and it also received a full-fledged sequel in 2011 with Dragon Age 2. The series then went quiet for a while as BioWare started wrapping up the Mass Effect trilogy before getting Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014.

The most recent game in the franchise was last year’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard, released in October 2024 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review. As for some insight into some of the game design decisions that were made around The Veilguard, check out our coverage of the UX designer’s comments on changing the game’s interface due to feedback from QA teams.

Unfortunately, Dragon Age: The Veilguard underperformed in the market according to EA’s earnings report back in January. EA CEO Andrew Wilson revealed in February that he believed it was because of the RPG’s lack of multiplayer and shared-world features. According to Wilson, despite its warm critical reception, the game failed to resonate with a broader audience in the competitive market.

While I was at BioWare, EA *always* preferred Mass Effect, straight up Their Marketing team liked it more. It was modern. It had action. They never quite knew what to do with DA, and whenever DA outperformed ME, ME got the excuses. If you ask me, it was always just shy of the axe since DA Origins.

— David Gaider (@davidgaider.bsky.social) 2025-04-14T07:11:01.939Z

Maybe in part? I'd say the biggest reason was that, while I was there, the BioWare teams were bad at overreaction. They'd take the feedback/criticism to heart – both our own and the fans' – and generally fixed that but also overcorrected.And then there was EA's influence on top of that, yes.

— David Gaider (@davidgaider.bsky.social) 2025-04-14T07:57:50.921Z

1. Mass Effect 3’s Endings

The biggest innovation the Mass Effect trilogy gave to the industry was its consequential choices affecting the events of its sequels. You could kill off beloved characters, and even have access to exclusive quests tied to specific choices. But all of that brilliant branching narrative comes crashing down when Shepard activates the Crucible to destroy the Reapers at the finale of Mass Effect 3.

Players are presented with three endings, all color-coded and nearly identical to each other. Sure, the outcomes of the endings are different, but the scenes that accompany them show the same dramatic sequence with some very slight alterations. Mass Effect 3’s illusion of choice is presented to you by the Star Child character, a shoehorned projection that pops up out of nowhere. The endings of Mass Effect 3 feel so cheap and inconsequential that many fans refuse to play through the trilogy again because of them, despite how excellent the games themselves are.

THE LAST OF US PART 2

We had to start with this one, because it’s hard to think of many games that have ever been as divisive as The Last of Us Part 2. From a gameplay and design perspective, there’s little to dislike about this stealth horror action-adventure gem, but its story was one that continues to provoke strong reactions one way or another to this day. With half-true spoilers leaking out before the game came out, The Last of Us Part 2 seemed like it was on this path even before launch.

METAL GEAR SOLID 5: THE PHANTOM PAIN

Hideo Kojima has a knack for directing games that people are either going to love or hate (except, of course, when he creates ones that everyone just universally loves), and MGS5 is surely one of those divisive works, which is putting it mildly. From not being a finished product to controversial narrative decisions, there was plenty about The Phantom Pain that rubbed many the wrong way. At the same time, gameplay-wise, it was nothing short of a revelation, so you’re also going to get plenty of people telling you that it’s one of the best stealth games ever made.

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT

You know a trilogy is an all-timer when its weakest instalment is supposedly Arkham Knight, but compared to just how ubiquitous the love for Arkham Asylum and City was, Knight definitely had way more detractors. From predictable twists and revelations related to the central villain, to a bloated open world with an excess of repeated side activities, to, of course, is controversial implementation of the Batmobile, Arkham Knight stumbled in enough areas for many to take issue with it.

FALLOUT 4

For about a decade or so, Bethesda consistently delivered genre-defining open world RPGs with the likes of Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim, but Fallout 4 was definitely a step down from that. It was, of course, still a great game in its own right, thanks in large part to its compelling world, but there were many who felt that it shed too much of what made Bethesda RPGs great, from the simplified progression mechanics to the poorly implemented dialogue wheel.

STARFIELD

In hindsight, the consensus on Fallout 4 has grown a lot stronger with time, and it’s fair to say that Starfield has contributed to that by being significantly more divisive. With renewed emphasis on player choice and role playing mechanics and a rich sci-fi setting, there’s a lot to love about Bethesda’s space-faring epic. At the same time, it’s also got its fair share of detractors, drawing criticism for the segmented structure of its world, how much emphasis it places on procedural generation, its technical issues, and more.

GRAND THEFT AUTO 4

Even Grand Theft Auto 4, one of the highest-rated and best-selling games of all time, can end up being a divisive game- which, in fact, became clear within weeks of its release back in 2008. Its move to a new engine, its compelling story, and its obsessively detailed open world drew widespread praise, but GTA 4 also represented a shift in tone for the franchise, with a larger focus on grittier storytelling, in sharp contrast to the goofier, over-the-top style of its predecessors (and its successor). For many, that felt antithetical to the whole point of the franchise.

DAYS GONE

Days Gone’s fandom has continued to grow in the time since its release. Its systemic open world is one that constantly encourages players to engage with the plethora of content it has on offer, and from its bike-related survival-lite mechanics to the Freaker hordes, it uses its post-apocalyptic setting in some really interesting ways. It was, however, a technically rough game, and that roughness translated to some gameplay and storytelling areas as well, which meant there were many that it just failed to stick the landing for.

RISE OF THE RONIN

Team Ninja’s first crack at the open world genre hasn’t enjoyed the sort of widespread acclaim that the developer saw with, say, the Nioh games. Rise of the Ronin launched recently for PS5, and was on the receiving end of criticism directed at its generic open world, rough storytelling, and technical deficiencies. It does, however, have plenty of staunch defenders, thanks in large part to its excellent combat (typically enough for a Team Ninja game) and the consistently enjoyable traversal mechanics.

DARK SOULS 2

Probably the weirdest and most experimental of all FromSoftware Soulslikes, Dark Souls 2 is considered by many to be the legendary studio’s black sheep. It’s received plenty of criticism for everything from larger issues like its level design and inconsistent difficulty balancing, to relatively smaller one, to frequently unreliable hit detection. It is, however, also one of the more mechanically interesting games in the series. Is it rougher around the edges than its peers? Perhaps- but to many, that’s what makes it stand out more.

RESIDENT EVIL 3 REMAKE

After 2019’s RE2 remake, expectations from Resident Evil 3’s own remake were sky-high, but the game ended up falling short of many of them. Nemesis wasn’t at all the terrifying pursuer enemy many had hoped he would be, significant portions of the original game had been cut out, and for many, the game was just too short. At the end of the day, it was still a fun, well-produced, polished survival horror game in its own right, but by not hitting the level of quality that most other Resident Evil games have in recent years, it became a notable low spot in the series a fair few that played it.

THE ORDER: 1886

Sony’s first-party output was firing on all cylinders in the second half of the PS4’s lifecycle, but is early efforts were much more hit-and-miss. The Order: 1886 was a perfect example of that. Ready at Dawn’s third-person shooter was an absolutely gorgeous looking game, on top of boasting a fascinating setting and solid, cinematic storytelling. That endeared it to many, but it was also deemed by a large section of its player base to be not only too short, but also bland and unimaginative from a gameplay perspective.

FINAL FANTASY 16

Final Fantasy games are pretty much guaranteed to always be divisive, and Final Fantasy 16 continued that tradition. Are you going to find a large number of fans who’ll swear by its stylish combat, stellar production values, and standard-setting boss fights? Absolutely, you will. You will, however, also find just as many people who’ll call out the game’s complete lack of that tradamark Final Fantasy goofiness, its extreme streamlining of role playing mechanics, and how bland many of its side quests were.

SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM

Silent Hill 2 was the last time we got a Silent Hill game that was universally liked (unless you want to count P.T.), but Silent Hill 4: The Room is perhaps the most divisive of them all. It’s a game of incredibly high highs, but also depressingly low lows. It’s got weirdly designed puzzles, frustrating design choices, and key narrative beats that just don’t hit at all, but it balances the scale with some genuinely chilling psychological horror, top notch visuals (especially for the time), and memorable story moments.

MASS EFFECT 3

Mass Effect 3 is surely an obvious pick for a list such as this one, to the point of being unavoidable. After the incredible heights BioWare touched with Mass Effect 2, expectations from the trilogy’s conclusion were in the stratosphere, but thanks to a controversial ending and much less emphasis being placed on choice-and-consequence mechanics than expected, the backlash against the RPG shooter was strong. Mass Effect 3’s fans, however (of which there are a fair few) will tell you that, in spite of those issues, thanks to its tight shooting mechanics, thrilling set pieces and combat encounters, and an excellent cast of characters, it was still one hell of a game.

DEATH STRANDING

It makes sense to sign off with another Hideo Kojima game. With Death Stranding, Kojima and his team once again ended up delivering the sort of game not many had expected them to, and that once again proved to split opinion. To many, Death Stranding’s surreal post-apocalyptic world, its collaborative and asynchronous multiplayer, and its zen gameplay loop make it an unforgettable experience. Then again, there are those who, simply put, just find it a bit… boring. With Death Stranding 2 coming up, it should be interesting to see how Kojima Productions builds on the first game’s foundations.

Ocelot – Metal Gear Solid Series

Going through everything that Ocelot does in the series may take a while. However, from Metal Gear Solid 1, it’s obvious that the man of revolvers was playing a longer game, working for Solidus to steal Metal Gear’s specs. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty saw him “possessed” by the arm of Liquid Snake, later revealed to be a sham to lower the guard of The Patriots, who seemingly ran the world. In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Ocelot controlled the five biggest PMCs in the world, took over The Patriots’ SOP system and came close to ultimately destroying their AI if not for the efforts of Solid Snake and Otacon.

Scarecrow – Batman: Arkham Asylum

The very definition of mind games, as Jonathan Crane, aka Scarecrow, used Fear Toxin to create elaborate hallucinations to combat the Dark Knight in Arkham Asylum. He even had a giant Scarecrow in an otherworldly setting to prevent Batman from overcoming the illusion. It got even crazier when the game’s initial events occurred again, but this time with Batman in Joker’s place (revealed to be another illusion). After Batman breaks free again, Crane is taken out by Killer Croc and resurfaces in Arkham Knight, where he enacts a plan to break the hero.

Albert Wesker – Resident Evil HD Remaster

Like Ocelot, Wesker’s career of manipulation is long and storied and can take some time to summarize. While he was a major villain in future titles, his manipulation is witnessed first-hand in the first Resident Evil. He was revealed to be working with Umbrella Corporation, even while seemingly guiding and helping S.T.A.R.S., and responsible for preventing Bravo Team’s escape, prompting Alpha Team with Chris, Jill, and Barry to get involved. Wesker also enlisted Barry’s help to destroy evidence, threatening his family in the process, and would unleash the Tyrant to hunt down Alpha Team. Hilariously, despite going so far for Umbrella, it’s revealed that Wesker betrayed them as well to work for a rival company.

Vaas – Far Cry 3

You have to feel bad for Jason Brody in Far Cry 3 – even after surviving an encounter with Vaas, he’s left emotionally scarred from the death of his brother, Grant. While Jason pursues him at every turn and also attempts to rescue his friends, Vaas is seemingly one step ahead every time, leaving Jason to die in a burning building, drowning him, and even outright shooting him. When it seems like Jason has the upper hand when infiltrating Vaas’s compound to kill him, the latter broadcasts his plans to everyone. The two fight, and while Vaas appears to die, he seemingly survives, as seen in the Far Cry 6 DLC Insanity.

The Illusive Man – Mass Effect 2 and 3

While the Illusive Man wouldn’t be properly introduced until Mass Effect 2, he’s working behind the scenes throughout the series to get what he wants. He founded Cerberus to put humanity first over the alien races. Brainwashing, human experimentation, blackmail, corruption, genocide – the Illusive Man engaged in all this and more. Even his plan to revive Shepard in Mass Effect 2 and fight the Collectors has an ulterior motive, as he seeks to seize their technology. In Mass Effect 3, he becomes obsessed with controlling the Reapers, even implanting himself with their technology. That he can simultaneously execute so many complex schemes and fight Shepard on so many fronts is a testament to his drive and will.

SHODAN – System Shock

As the artificial intelligence of Citadel Station, SHODAN would go rogue after the Hacker, well, hacked to gain amnesty from TriOptimum’s VP Edward Diego. Not only did she effectively gain sentience, but also gained control of the station and killed everyone on board. Well, almost everyone – some were turned into cyborgs or became mutants to serve her purpose of opposing the Hacker. Throughout all this, she’s constantly mocking the Hacker when not threatening him with violent ends. She’s viewed as the biggest threat facing the Earth before the first game ends, before returning in the sequel with a vengeance.

Third Child – Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

The Third Child first appears in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain with a bang, controlling the Man on Fire and summoning a giant flaming blue whale. He later controls Metal Gear Sahelanthropus, wreaking havoc before Venom Snake can fight back with a mounted turret. He’s also used to prevent the player from doing anything sneaky, like destroying the helicopter that Skull Face emerges from in Mission 30. While not explicitly confirmed whether the Third Child is Psycho Mantis, there have been too many hints throughout the series to suggest otherwise. At least, the Third Child relies more on fire and manipulation instead of, say, turning Meryl against you.

GLaDOS – Portal

One of the most unforgettable villains in gaming, GLaDOS was terrifying due to seeing humans (and, as we found out later, robots) as little more than test subjects. Live or die – all of that is secondary to the testing. In the first Portal, she starts with relatively safe tests to introduce you to the game’s various mechanics before turning the hazards up. You eventually learn that she may have killed all the researchers in Aperture Labs by releasing toxic gas.

Of course, her comments remain spicy throughout, as she mocks protagonist Chell’s life, parents, general skill and more. Insults like “smelly garbage standing around useless,” “a bitter unlikeable loner whose passing will not be mourned” and “horrible person” may sound biting on their own. However, GLaDOS’ phrasing (and Ellen McLain’s incredible voice work) ensures they’re delivered with the right amount of panache.

Scratch – Alan Wake 2

Scratch is a complex being, first created as Wake’s doppelganger and meant to replace him in the real world before being possessed by the Dark Presence. Throughout Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, Scratch opposes Wake and is seemingly defeated, but emerges once more in Alan Wake 2, turning Wake’s escape attempt into a horror story that bleeds into the real world. From there, he causes all sorts of trouble and even succeeds in dragging Saga Anderson into the Dark Place to mess with her mind.

Lisa – P.T.

Lisa’s existence in P.T., the teaser to the cancelled Silent Hills, is pitiful. She was previously expecting, but one day, her husband, claiming there was a monster inside of him, stabbed her. The result is that Lisa’s ghost haunts the halls of the teaser, sometimes appearing in a door frame before disappearing.

If possessed by her, players will hear a third footstep while walking and her ragged breathing. Turning around at this stage isn’t advised, since she’ll kill them. Regardless of whether you’re possessed or not, seeing her watching through the windows outside, the balcony upstairs and the bathroom before moving away.

Scott Shelby – Heavy Rain

Shelby seems unassuming – a private investigator working to find the Origami Killer. However, he’s revealed to be the killer, manipulating the likes of Lauren (his partner), Ethan Mars and families that suffered due to his murders. It’s somewhat out of left field, especially since you play as him at various points, but Shelby’s motive is to ultimately test Ethan and find someone capable of saving their son, which his father failed to do when his brother John drowned in his childhood.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Metal Gear Solid 4 holds the world record for having the longest ending cutscene of any video game, with the epilogue cutscenes cumulatively lasting for well over an hour. And while that might sound tedious at first, such an extensive epilogue was needed to wrap up all essential plotlines in the game. We jump from one beautifully directed scene to the other as characters as they attain some sort of closure to their internal and external conflicts, and finally cutting back to the graveyard where we are treated to an emotionally charged conversation between Old Snake and a stumbling Big Boss which will remain with you long after the credits roll.

Red Dead Redemption 2 – American Dreams Quest

While Red Dead Redemption 2 features a rapidly changing America where the law and civilization are making their way into society, acts of heinous criminal activity are still running rampant that still show the signs of the Wild West that this place once was. During their travels, players will come across some brutally murdered people with deformed corpses lying around. Upon closer inspection though, Arthur Morgan comes to the conclusion that all these are acts of a serial killer. If you use Arthur’s detective mode around here, the trails will lead you to pieces of a map. Once all map segments are collected, an American Dreams side quest is triggered which entails bringing the serial killer to justice.

If things had gone differently though, Mass Effect 3 may have had a very different ending. Developing games is an iterative process, of course, and behind-the-scenes, plans tend to change frequently and often significantly. It’s no surprise, then, that how Mass Effect 3 brings the trilogy to a close actually diverges quite noticeably from what BioWare’s initial ideas for the ending were.

As explained by Drew Karpyshyn – lead writer on the first two Mass Effect games, who left BioWare before the launch of Mass Effect 3 – in a Reddit AMA, in that originally envisioned ending, the galaxy would have essentially sacrifice the galaxy-wide network of Mass Relays by using them as a trap, luring the Reapers in with the network and then detonating all the Relays. Interestingly, one of the issues BioWare had with that initial plan was how it could present complications for future entries in the series from a narrative perspective.

“We has some very rough ideas planned out,” Karphyshyn wrote. “Basically, it involved luring the Reapers through the Mass Relays then detonating the entire network to wipe them out… but also destroying/damaging the relays and isolating every galactic community from the others. But we still had to figure out a lot of the details, and there were some issues with that option… like what we would do in the next series of games.”

Whether or not that ending was better than the one we got is up for debate, of course. It’s worth mentioning that Mass Effect 3’s conclusion ended up presenting problems for future instalments anyway, with Mass Effect: Andromeda cleverly telling players that though it’s set hundreds of years after the trilogy, its characters are not only in a different galaxy, their journey there also began between the events of Mass Effect 2 and 3, and they spent those hundreds of years in cryosleep, until their arrival in Andromeda.

The next Mass Effect is also going to have to decide which Mass Effect 3 ending is canon, though I suppose that’s something of an occupational hazard for developing sequels in any series that’s so focused on narrative choices. If the sequel canonizes Mass Effect 3’s “Destroy” ending as many have theorized it will, it will still end up having to deal with everyone in the galaxy being much more isolated from one another due to the destruction of the Mass Relays.

Karpsyshyn, interestingly, returned to BioWare in 2015 and then left again in 2018, and spent that second spell working on Star Wars: The Old Republic and Anthem. In early 2020, he joined Archetype Entertainment, an internal studio at Wizards of the Coast headed up by fellow former BioWare devs James Ohlen and Chad Robertson.

At the time, Karphyshyn talked about how BioWare became “more corporate” as it “grew and became more successful”, and became “less able to make what we loved”. Read more on that through here.

It seems, however, that BioWare Points are being retired. A Reddit user posted an email from the publisher which stated that BioWare Points would no longer be available on Origin from October 11th. As a result, DLC for Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 are now free to claim. This doesn’t apply to Multiplayer Packs for Mass Effect 3 and currencies like Crystals and Platinum for other titles remain.

Those with points remaining can use them to purchase Multiplayer Packs in Mass Effect 3. However, after October 11th, packs must be purchased with Credits. And yes, those who already purchased content with BioWare Points will still have access to them.

While not technically an official announcement, I can confirm that paid single-player DLC for Mass Effect 3 – like Citadel, Omega and Leviathan – can now be claimed for free. The same applies to Mass Effect 2 with its Lair of the Shadow Broker, Kasumi – Stolen Memory, Overlord, Arrival, and so on. So if you’ve never played the DLC for either of these games or the first two Dragon Age titles, now is the time.