Introduction
Video games are meant to deliver experiences you can’t get, and often, that means experiences that you don’t see coming. Hi, folks, it’s Zaid, and today on Aura Riot, 10 of the most unexpected moments in video games.
Hey, before we get going on this one, I think it’s really important to say, this is a spoiler-ific video. The title should tell you, but I feel like I should also tell you. We’re literally revealing moments in video games that you do not expect.
10. The Not-So-Safe Workbench in “Last of Us Part II”
Let’s start this off with a moment that inspired the list in the first place. As video game mechanics and tropes have gotten more defined, there’s been a growing movement in recent years of games deciding to take those standard, expected parts of game design and do something surprising or unexpected with them.
I’m not saying throwing in twists on the standard formula is new exactly. It just definitely feels a little more common to see games that aren’t intentionally subversive indies or anything that Hideo Kojima has touched. It’s not just that stuff, it’s everyone. Everyone’s doing it now. Even the biggest AA monsters are like, well, you know what we’re talking about here.
This moment, it’s fairly infamous now. So there’s an entire article about its development by one of the guys who made it at gamedeveloper.com. An interesting read if you wanna see just how much work goes into making what is a moment that’s maybe one to two minutes of actual playtime.
If you’re unaware, the thing I’m talking about is the part where you go into some random, optional abandoned apartment. You do your usual looting and finding a workbench, standard feature of any game, even like this. You upgrade your guns, you use your resources, et cetera. These are one of those contrivances of game design. We just accept that there’re identical-looking workbenches scattered around this post-apocalyptic world because that’s the game mechanic. It’d be like wondering who left all the typewriters around “Resident Evil.” The answer is the game designers did because typewriters are save things. That’s the game. That’s how it works.
So at this point, you know what to expect from these things. They’re always gonna be safe places and when you use it, you’re on a menu. It’s like pausing the game. There’s never any danger of anything happening, right?
Except for this time, something does happen. You get grabbed outta nowhere while using the workbench and you’re forced to fight against a group of deserters that are hiding out in the house. It’s a brilliantly subversive bit of game design and while small, it’s one of those standout moments in the entire “Last of Us” series ’cause of how unexpected it is the first time it happens.
9. The Joker Being Alive in “Arkham Knight”
Even for a developer well-known for screwing around with player expectations, I have to admit, this one still caught me by surprise. The guys behind the “Arkham” games love to trick and play around with what’s real and what’s not. They had a ball doing some crazy stuff with the Scarecrow’s Fear Toxin and “Arkham Asylum” so of course, they’re gonna go nuts with stuff in “Arkham Knight” where the Scarecrow is one of the primary villains.
You know that the fakeouts and the jump scares are coming, of course, but they space ’em out very carefully so when they do hit you, they come outta nowhere.
And they save the most unexpected twist for last. By that, I mean first, because what I’m talking about here happens at the start of a New Game Plus.
If you need a refresher, “Arkham Knight” starts with the Joker’s body getting cremated, just so we’re clear, he dead, which he isn’t because of course he’s not. But I don’t want to get into all that ’cause it’s too confusing.
So the game starts with the Joker’s corpse getting burnt up. When you start a New Game Plus for the first time, you’re gonna assume this little opening sequence remains the same, except it doesn’t. Instead of what normally happens, the fire starts and the Joker suddenly bursts to life and starts cackling.
It’s a small thing, but it’s really unexpected. We’ve been through it once already after all. There are new enemies in the New Hame Plus, but nobody could have predicted that there would be new cut scene events.
Here’s the thing, there isn’t anything new. That opening bit is it. It’s ultimately a small thing, but it’s so sudden and outta nowhere, it deserves a spot on this list.
8. The End of Act One in “Clair Obscur”
This one’s gonna go down in RPG history, I know it. Everything about the opening hours of “Clair Obscur” sets up the Gustave as the main character. He’s the traditional sort of RPG protagonist. He’s got a celebrity voice actor. He’s got strong motivations with his girlfriend passing on during the prologue, and just everything about him screams main character.
He’s even got a full skill tree on top of having his own special moves and unique mechanics that are exclusive to him. In every way, the game makes it clear this is the guy, and then violently pulls out the rug from under your feet at the end of Act one by having him be killed by the main bad guy.
At first you chalk it up to not being real, like some kind of fake out, he must not really be dead. There’s gotta be some way to bring him back. But by the time, characters are all having a funeral for Gustave, it’s pretty obvious this is the end of the line. He’s not coming back, and no, there’s no optional way to revive him either.
You might think they’re gonna “Chrono Trigger” Gustave, but no, he’s not a Morrow, he’s an Aerith. If anything, it’s actually kind of more surprising than the Aerith death in “Final Fantasy VII” ’cause he was the cloud like, and man, does he come off like the cloud.
They killed off the main protagonist of the game up to that point, which just was not just unexpected, it’s ballsy as hell. Could have ruined the game forever for some people. Could have been all downhill from there. But this is actually where the game gets a lot more interesting.
So yeah, the new dude, Verso, acts as a sort of replacement Gustave, ’cause he uses the same weapons, but that’s it. Everything else about him is completely different.
Now, in old school RPGs, they’d kill off characters like this all the time. But in modern characters, we almost never see this sort of thing ’cause unfortunately, catharsis is a large aspect of the modern narrative storytelling of games. Well, I mean it’s always been a part of storytelling, but a little bit too much nowadays I guess is what I’m saying.
I like a story that’s like, “Nope, not validating you today” from time to time.
7. The Southern Environmental Station Ambush in “Death Stranding 2”
Main order 43 seems like it’s gonna be a big mission, but nobody could have guessed ahead of time how crazy it would get. Starts off straightforward enough, the sort of description you’d expect from basically any mission where your primary goal is connecting a station to the Chiral network, blah, blah, blah, Otter Hat, Conan O’Brien, whatever.
You have to do a thing, clear out some ghost, mess around the facility, get it hooked up, pretty standard for look what looks like an important but not climactic mission. Kind of another pit stop on the way to the city, reaching the south.
At this point in the game, you know what to expect with missions. They end pretty much the same way, with you talking to the station’s representative. They connect you up to the network. Bob’s your uncle. Mission results, screen, porter grade, banter, wrap up. That’s it. There’s nothing to suggest this mission’s gonna do anything differently.
Only after talking to the guy and completing the mission, Sam turns around and is immediately ambushed by Higgs.
And what follows is an insane sequence where Higgs continually kills Sam over and over again. The following events are surprising and memorable all by themselves, and the way they incorporate the act of dying in game and have them happen as part of the story, it’s also pretty unexpected.
But the biggest surprise of the whole thing is just when you turn around and just suddenly, Higgs is there and immediately kills you outta nowhere. It’s a huge shocker.
But hey, they can’t do that. It’s cheating, right? Something that just isn’t done in video games, they always give you a fair shot. He just jumps outta nowhere and there’s no way to have predicted or stopped it.
There is actually an early section with a Higgs attack outta nowhere but even that, the game gives you a bunch of foreshadowing by warning, it could be a while before you can do regular orders. In this segment that we’re talking about at the Southern Environmental Station, it gives you no warning, and that’s why it works.
I mean, they kinda lulled you into a false sense of security with that other Higgs attack, I think. Oh, they’ll tell me. They won’t, they don’t have to. Hideo Kojima is simply the god of the world of his creation.
6. The Splicer Machine Mimic in “Turbo Overkill”
The mimics in “Dark Souls” are expected at this point, but mimics in completely unrelated boomer shooters are not. I don’t think I need to further elaborate on this point. If you’re playing doom, you’re not expecting a health pack to suddenly spring to life and try to bite you. That is not how these games work, at least not ’til “Turbo Overkill.”
This game is just completely nuts. You got a chainsaw leg, it’s nonstop chaos. Game’s third act really gives you stuff that you’re not going to expect from a humble boomer shooter. One of those places it will go in the, I guess, unexpected yonder is this. In one of the middle entries of act three called Sunset Synthetica, there’s a random empty alleyway containing a single splicer machine.
Normally these machines, they exist for modifying your augments, which are basically perks in any other game. Basically a gene bank in “Bioshock,” only with a really obnoxious bark that just puts the circus of values clown to shame.
Using this particular splicer machine, you’ll notice that the usual department store muzak is distorted and weird. The voice lines are a little more sinister. If you’re just rushing through the game, you might not even notice anything at all, but either way, when you turn to leave the area, the machine springs to life and attacks. It’s a boss fight out of nowhere using a unique model that is not used anywhere else.
And it’s found down this random alley that is totally optional. It’s something that’s unexpected ’cause the genre more than anything else. If you’re playing a “Souls” game and entered this large arena-style area, you’d immediately clock something funny going on. But “Turbo Overkill,” you’re just not expecting that in this genre.
This is a boomer shooter made by a small team. They don’t usually have the time or budget for these types of extravagances, but the game just goes above and beyond in more ways than one. It’s pretty ridiculous and amusing and once again, it plays with your expectations quite a bit.
At this point in the game, splicer machines are standard and expected, so having one do something totally different than what you’re used to isn’t exactly scary, but it is surprising.
5. The Shadow Mantle Holder in “Deltarune”
With a game like “Deltarune,” you expect the unexpected. After playing “Undertale” and the first parts of “Deltarune,” it’s easy to assume that you’ve seen everything they can throw at you. And in a way, you have. At this point, crazy twists on the standard battle formula, they’re expected. There’s a lot of mini games shifting gameplay styles.
Act three, yeah, it does, it goes way further with this stuff than any other part of the series, but it’s within the realm of the expected. If you follow the secret path in act three, then it does lead to something even I couldn’t have seen coming.
The initial optional boss of the area doesn’t even use the standard battle system at all. Literally, every enemy and boss fight up to this point has only one thing in common. You have fight ’em in the turn-based battle system. No matter how screwy and unorthodox things would get, that part’s the same.
So here comes act three with the Shadow Mantle Holder at the end of the secret dungeon, which is done entirely within world of a “Legend of Zelda”-style mini game.
It is a secret boss fight that’s just about as challenging as all the others, but it’s an 8-bit “Legend of Zelda” game. Expected pretty much everything from this game, except this. This was, I don’t know how they managed to do it.
4. A Giant Game of Wheels in the “Sea of Stars” DLC
The free DLC of this game is more challenging and better designed than the base game, but for most of its run, it’s what you expect. The dungeons are a little more elaborate, the fights are generally more challenging, but the game still has “Chrono Trigger” crossed with “Super Mario RPG” all over it. It’s not going out on a limb with any of that stuff, and hey, that’s not a problem.
Maybe the story’s a little devoid of real emotion, but it’s enough and the game itself is beautiful and plays great. The DLC’s better than that, so cool.
Then you take on the antagonist of the DLC, the Puppeteer. It’s easy to imagine this going the way of the other boss fights in the game, but no, the fight’s completely different. Instead of being just a standard final boss, you play this giant game of Wheels, which is this game’s answer to “Gwent.”
If you’ve never played it at all, it’s going to look completely incomprehensible, but the basic gist of Wheels is that you deploy units and then charge them up. Once they’re charged up, they attack, et cetera, et cetera.
This isn’t Wheels though. It’s a Wheels boss fight, and that’s what makes it really interesting. The boss takes you on using the rules of the mini game while you’re stuck with just your standard attacks, which puts you at a huge disadvantage.
The only way to survive is to attack the blocks to make them spin a blank space so the units don’t get charged while you’re trying to do damage to the Puppeteer.
It is one of the most bizarre and unexpected final bosses I’ve seen in a game. It really is about as far from a traditional fight as you can get while still using the same battle system.
3. The Escort Mining Ship from “Armored Core VI”
Just getting new missions and objectives when playing through the game a second time is surprising enough, but the real unexpected stuff starts happening in playthrough three, when outta nowhere, they start adding even more new stuff.
If this was a “NieR” game, that would be, I mean, what you expect, it’d be obvious, but it’s not. It’s an “Armored Core” game. Hell, it’s a From Software game, and there are zero hints at anything in the second playthrough, let alone the third are going to be different with additional missions and new story paths.
Anyhow, I mean, depending on your build, things can be very different, but that’s not what we’re talking about. Even knowing about the new missions though, they still managed to really throw you for a loop with the escort mining ship mission in playthrough three.
Normally, your job is to eliminate the mining ship, but now you’re given the choice to defend it instead. It’s surprising and exciting in of itself, but then the actual mission starts, the entire thing explodes right in front of you and now, something completely different’s happening.
Suddenly, you’re being ambushed by new experimental ACs that were only vaguely even hinted at before, and this kicks off the completely left field plot that only reveals itself after playing “Armored Core VI” three times in a row.
The whole moment is surprising on multiple levels. It’s both the real first new mission in replay three, and it completely changes things from rebels versus corps story that the game has been setting up the whole time.
It all gets revealed now that the story is actually about how All Mind is taking over. All Mind, the AI computer that functions as the menu for the game and mostly delivers flat mission exposition when there’s nobody else around to give you any kind kind of mission orders, that’s the bad guy, the menu screen. The menu screen’s the bad guy.
It’s also unexpected, but it’s a really nice reward for anyone dedicated enough to play through this game three times over.
2. The Knockout Fakeout in “Cuphead”
One of those classic interface fakeouts that a lot of games have pulled in the past, but for whatever reason, this one’s uniquely effective. A major contributing factor is how frantic “Cuphead” is in general and how the game never actually shows you a boss’s health until after you die.
Bosses in this game usually have three phases, or if they do have more, it’s pretty obvious, but in the boss fight with the Moonshine Mob, they pull a nasty trick on you at the last second by having a literal knockout sign appear, only the fight is not actually over. There’s still a bit left. The first time through, this catches you off guard, period.
Even in hindsight, it looks obvious. It’s less obvious the first time around. In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to overlook and just assume it’s the real deal. I think that’s kind of why they did it even. “Oh, we got you with an obvious one there, ha ha ha.”
But that third phase is just the hardest thing. So you’re breathing this sigh of relief ’cause you see the knockout sign, even though it’s not the knockout sign ’cause you’re just like, “Oh, it’s over.” Ah, that was tough.” And that’s when the boss gets you.
They took one of those UI elements that we’ve come to trust and twisted it around on us. I’d probably be more bitter if I didn’t think it was such a good trick. Yeah, I mean, it is too.
1. The True Final Boss in “Drakengard”
Going way back to 2003, this was Yoko Taro’s first game as director. These days, the guy is well known for his unusual design principles in games like “NieR: Automata,” but back then, he was a pretty much unknown quantity and nobody really knew what to expect with him.
Everybody got more than they bargained for with “Drakengard,” a janky but very intriguing, bizarre dragon-riding game for PlayStation 2. It’s split into two major segments, the dragon riding and “Dynasty Warrior”-style on-foot segments. So what do you think the final boss is?
Simon says, of course, I mean obviously, right? Doy, Simon says, that makes sense. Seriously, that’s the final boss of this game. Five endings deep, plot is completely off the rails, the final battle is against this floating naked woman in the sky of modern day Tokyo, and it’s rhythm based. And it’s Simon Says.
It’s absolutely insane, and trust me, none of this madness is foreshadowed in any way. It’s not just completely unexpected, it’s also very hard for some reason.
If you fail, you’ve gotta do the whole thing all over again too. It’s not just an unprecedented gameplay shift that’s just now being introduced. It’s also a really unforgiving and difficult one, perfect combination.
It’s like if an FPS ended with you having to solve the world’s hardest Sudoku puzzle. It’s completely out of place and totally baffling, and that’s what makes it so memorable to the poor souls who actually got this far.
And that’s all for today. Leave us a comment, let us know what you think. And as always, we thank you very much for reading this blog. We’ll see you next time right here on Aura Riot.
