7 Confusing Video Game Plots We Still Don’t Really Understand

Final Fantasy VIII

7 Confusing Video Game Plots We Still Don’t Really Understand

The Final Fantasy series has always been filled with some of the most outrageous stories in gaming history, but few compare to Final Fantasy VIII. The game centers around a group of young military students and a rebellious teenage girl who founded her own resistance group. What starts out as a coup d’etat to overthrow an evil government soon takes a major twist and suddenly delves into magic, sorcery, main character switches, and alternate dimensions. Mix in time-traveling along with a heavy dose of romance, and you have yourself one of the most confusing plots in Final Fantasy history.

Final Fantasy VIII is basically a hot pot that’s brewing with different ideas, regardless of whether they mesh well or not. While you might have thought that your high school rival was actually the main enemy, it turns out that it was this sorceress you never even met instead. Fast forward to a disc later, and the game suddenly reveals that it was another completely different witch who was pulling the strings all along. All that said, Final Fantasy VIII still stands as having one of the most memorable romances in video game history despite the confusing plot surrounding it.

The 3^rd Birthday

7 Confusing Video Game Plots We Still Don’t Really Understand

Square Enix had shelved Parasite Eve up until eight years ago when they released a more action-packed spin-off called The 3^rd Birthday. While it was definitely great seeing Aya Brea in action again, things were just… weird, even for a Parasite Eve game. The story itself exists, although it’s definitely far from what the first two games had to offer. The 3^rd Birthday decided to incorporate time travel (hoo boy) in the mix, ultimately making things a lot more confusing than they should have been.

Basically, your protagonist discovers that she actually isn’t the person she imagined herself to be and is actually in another person’s body. On top of that, she has to kill the real person whose body she’s occupying to stop all of the freakish monsters from destroying the city. This isn’t even counting all of the other events that had been erased or modified due to the effects of time traveling. This story is a doozy and it’ll probably take you another playthrough or two before you start getting a sense of what this confusing plot is really about.

Five Nights at Freddy’s

7 Confusing Video Game Plots We Still Don’t Really Understand

Five Nights at Freddy’s actually has a surprising amount of lore behind the whole hide-and-seek scare fest gimmick. And, hey, for what it’s worth, there’s actually a substantial story behind all of these deathly animatronics and why they’re even killing in the first place. It’s just that the only real issue here is how the plot is pieced out and how players have to work around the jump scares to actually look for the story in the game, which boils down to kids getting stuffed in the animatronics.

You’ll probably pick up some bits and pieces about the overall plot during your first few playthroughs, and even then, you’d have to piece them together to find the true story behind Five Nights at Freddy’s. The whole process can get pretty confusing, and you’re honestly much better off searching a wiki than spending time figuring things out yourself. MatPat of Game Theory’s most time-consuming project to date without a doubt was breaking down the FNAF storyline filled with dead kids, AI, purple Atari guys, literal Purple Guys and more. Thankfully, you can still enjoy Five Nights at Freddy’s without having to process all those confusing bits of plot if you don’t want to.

Bayonetta

7 Confusing Video Game Plots We Still Don’t Really Understand

There’s a lot to love when it comes to Bayonetta, from its quirky cast down to the non-stop, angel-slaying action; and if there’s one thing worth bringing up about the game, it’s definitely the story. Bayonetta is this witch who, apparently, has amnesia and is being chased down by God’s servants for some sort of eye. Moreover, she’s also being hunted down by another Umbra Witch who continues to taunt and tease her without revealing why. Oh, and let’s not forget the little kid who keeps following Bayonetta around as well.

Despite the flashy cutscenes and epic fights, Bayonetta’s story might take a bit of time to fully understand after your first playthrough. Things are explained a bit better in the sequel, but the lore is tossed around all over the place in the first game. Again, it’s really more about piecing things together to see the bigger picture, and Bayonetta does throw in a bit more sense in the overall lore through journal pages scattered around the different levels. If anything, the game’s story is entertaining as it is confusing, but who really plays Bayonetta for the plot?

Metal Gear

7 Confusing Video Game Plots We Still Don’t Really Understand

Where do we even start? Is it the slew of government groups and conspiracies? How about the Ordinary Joe from the second game who suddenly becomes a cyborg ninja? The Metal Gear series has always been filled with strange and weird concepts and ideologies that have been spread through one intricate yet convoluted timeline. In fact, the third game is actually when the series actually starts chronologically, while players probably won’t even understand most of the references in the fifth game if they haven’t followed the story up to that point.

There’s a lot of betrayals going on that you really just get a vague sense of who fights for who. Take Naked Snake, for example, who started out as a good guy and somehow finds himself down a dark and dreary path. The Boss, on the other hand, supposedly defected to the Soviets, yet she was actually still helping the United States all along? Not to mention that her death spurred the Les Enfants Terribles project that led to Snake’s DNA being used for superhuman clones.

At its core, however, Metal Gear deals with plenty of espionage, manipulation, control, political intrigue, and revenge that’s jacked up with plenty of fictional elements. Really, the only thing missing at this point in such a complicated timeline is, well, time travel. Despite all the confusion surrounding the Metal Gear series, Hideo Kojima has still managed to deliver one of gaming’s most iconic and memorable franchises in the gaming industry with amazing gameplay and relatable characters.

Assassin’s Creed

7 Confusing Video Game Plots We Still Don’t Really Understand

All of the games in the Assassin’s Creed franchise are loosely connected, yet bound together by the war between the Brotherhood and the Templars. We’ve seen the same war countless times in the series, and they take different shapes and forms depending on the era and descendants in the game. There have been countless assassins over the recent years, and we’re getting a few more once Odyssey releases in just a few months.

To break it down for you, there’s a machine called Animus that lets a user experience someone’s genetic memories. Modern-day assassin Desmond Miles was captured by Abstergo, the Templar science organization that owns Animus, and was forced to relive his ancestor’s life, hence why we have Ezio and Altair. Things didn’t work out well for Desmond and he, well, eventually died. It’s not like we still needed him anyway because Abstergo now has the ability to let anyone experience the same history without the Animus, hence why the series lives on.

Apparently, the story became such a huge hit that it even spawned novels and comics, adding another layer of depth in each game. While it isn’t technically too difficult to keep up with each game’s story, the overarching narrative has expanded to the point where any average AC fan might have trouble keeping up.

Kingdom Hearts

7 Confusing Video Game Plots We Still Don’t Really Understand

If there is one series that continues to baffle and befuddle player to this day, it’s Kingdom Hearts. What once started as an innocent crossover between Final Fantasy and Disney soon became a tangled web of a timeline that’s filled with spin-offs, side stories, alternate universes, and, of course, time travel. The main games are too few and far between, with side games, such as Birth by Sleep and Chain of Memories, filling in the series with different characters and organizations.

The original story dates back years ago to when there was just one big world with an entity known as Kingdom Hearts that was protected by a weapon known as the X-Blade. Everything was peaceful and quiet back in the day, but people just had to mess things up by fighting for control over Kingdom Hearts. Spoiler alert: things didn’t end well, and now some guy named Xehanort is going around possessing people and making copies of other people. Where does Sora fit into this? He’s basically the janitor who ended up on the short end of the stick and has to clean up after everyone’s mess.

Square Enix has a habit of digging deep into their lore, and the same goes for Kingdom Hearts. Despite the constant confusion over the underlying narrative, the game abides by its own personal stories and has managed to step out from under the shadows of Final Fantasy. If you’re new to the series, there’s going to be quite a lot to take in before the third game rolls along, which is said to tie up a lot of loose ends in the story.