WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD. Seriously, this entire article is just a never-ending torrent of spoilers. It is spoiler central. Heed my warning. Every single paragraph in this article contains a huge spoiler. You have been warned. This is your spoiler alert.

Humans are constantly changing, evolving, and finding new ways to entertain themselves. One of our favourite past-times has always revolved around different forms of storytelling. First we had campfire stories, then plays, novels, radio, and later television. Video games are a modern, unique, and interactive way to tell an audience a story and one of the most fascinating aspects of storytelling is the use of foreshadowing ( or “spoilers” as it’s known in modern jargon.) For those of you who don’t know, foreshadowing is a literary device used as a way for story writers to hint at later plot points early on. And sometimes, there truly are a shocking amount of hints left scattered throughout most games. The greatest part of any story based game with a shocking twist is going back and playing it a second time and then finding clues scattered throughout the entire game. Which ends up making you feel frustrated that you didn’t figure it out on your own and screaming things at your TV screen like, “I mean come on, his name is Darth Vader... vater is the German word for father! How did I not see that coming!?”

So without further ado, let’s delve into this list of fifteen games (both individual and series) that we didn’t even notice actually spoiled their own twist endings.

15 Life Is Strang-er Than You'd expect

via Reddit

Ah, Life is Strange… killer soundtrack, killer graphics, killer art teacher? I blew through this game in two days during my winter break and nearly went into shock when it was revealed that Jefferson, the art teacher, was the big baddie that was coming for us. But when I watched a “let’s play” a few days later, I noticed something a little off about the first classroom scene. While he is describing the way in which photography can capture real emotions like desperation (creepy,) he pauses to bring attention to Max's selfie. He later makes a big deal of her ignoring him, won't let her leave without a one on one, and makes his intense obsession with Max very clear. At first, he just comes off like an attentive teacher (even though he ignores Kate being bullied in front of his eyes throughout the entire lecture) but the later reveal makes his early obsession incredibly obvious.

14 Death Won't Save You From Jury Duty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4LkTSjn7es

Imagine that you’re enjoying a nice stint in the afterlife and the suddenly some lawyer yanks you out of your peaceful eternity so that you could testify in court. I don’t know about you but I would be pretty miffed if dying wasn't enough to keep me from having to fulfill my Earthly civilian duties. In the episode of Ace Attorney entitled Rise From the Ashes, it is pointed out that dead people cannot testify in a court of law. Seems simple enough. Witnesses need to be of sound body and mind and since the dead have neither, it would be imprudent to force the dead to testify. However, in the game Trials and Tribulations (of the same series) includes a scene in which the final case of the game is centered around the process of bringing a spirit from the netherworld into our mortal domain to testify.

13 Age Of Dark(ness) Souls

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=359408601

Any good story-based game with a heck ton of lore and backstory needs to start off with a good introduction. And Dark Souls is no exception. The introduction scene to this game is epically cinematic and contains all of the exposition needed to understand the game you’re about to be launched into… but it might go a little too far into detail. The introduction tells us of Gwyn’s (the old sun God) war against the dragons and the coming of the Age of Fire (which is brought about when Gwyn kindles the “first flame” and prevents the Age of Dark from beginning). A billion game hours later our character is faced with the same choice that Gwyn struggled with: will we prolong the Age of Fire or initiate the Age of Dark?

12 Bio-Shocked To My Core

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bioshock/comments/21r2h9/someone_unearthed_the_jack_character_model/

If you look up “foreshadowing” in the dictionary, there will be an entire page and a half dedicated to the BioShock series. BioShock lives, breathes, and dies by foreshadowing. Every name, every graffitied wall, every abandoned audio tape, every loading screen, and every offhand remark is foreshadowing for some major event later in the game. In the first BioShock game, one of the first things we see is a family photo. Remember this photo because images like it will pop up time and time again throughout the game. It’s almost like the game is trying to convince itself that the people inside it were real. Like how a little kid will repeat a lie to themselves over and over again when the truth is too much to handle. That metaphor might be a little too accurate as it is later revealed that this photogenic family never even existed.

11 It's The Final Fantasy

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Braska%27s_Final_Aeon_(Final_Fantasy_X)

Final fantasy, final countdown, final boss… it will all be revealed a little too soon. And when I say “too soon” I really do mean it. Final bosses are usually kept under wraps in games (unless the game itself is a revenge-based hero's journey like we see in Fable II) so that their later reveal can become a huge twist in itself. However, Final Fantasy X does not play that way. The game not only reveals the games big baddie early on, it actually reveals the game's final boss within the first half hour of gameplay. Of course, you’re not going to get the chance to face off with that boss for a very long time but at least you will be prepared when that moment finally does arrive.

10 The (Silent) Hill You'll Die On

http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Alex_Shepherd

What kind of person do you picture when you picture a soldier? Tall, strong, brave, honourable… a person who you can trust with your life. None of those qualities come to mind when I think of a certain character from the second game in the Silent Hill series. Alex just doesn’t act like how one would expect a soldier to act and it makes him feel like a total phony. Maybe I’m being paranoid and judgemental... or maybe this was all intentional. Turns out, Alex isn’t even a real soldier after all. He was lying the entire time. It just goes to show that you should always trust your instincts when someone comes across as a total phony... especially when you’re trapped in a horror game.

9 Infinite Wisdom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZaC7KwLrVA

Though I already included a moment of foreshadowing from the inaugural game in the BioShock series, it would be a crime punishable by infinite deaths to leave BioShock Infinite off this list as it wrote the book on foreshadowing. Literally every joke, poster, and frame of gameplay is foreshadowing some later aspect of this game's incredibly complex plot. My personal favourite aspect of early on spoilers/foreshadowing is when Booker passes by the wash basin with the words “Of thy sins I shall wash thee” and sneers over the message. This directly hints towards his alternate selves rejected baptism as well as the later baptism in which Booker almost drowns. I can’t even keep track of how many versions of Booker there are by the end of the game.

8 Godly Emblem

https://fireemblemblog.wordpress.com/radiant-dawn/official-art/micaiah-2/

For eons, the Gods have been using the bodies of both humans and their pets as vessels. And it turns out that video games are no exceptions to this phenomenon. In the game Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, one of the main characters (named Micaiah) is the loving owner of a little bird that is known by the name “Yune.” Coincidentally, that name also belongs to the infamous dark God. A God who was sealed away from the world thousands of years ago. Unsurprisingly, it is later revealed that the sweet little bird is not only hosting the spirit of Yune herself. Yune eventually convinces Micaiah to sing to the object in which she is sealed which allows Yune to channel herself through the body of Micaiah when needed. This just goes to show that one should never name pets after evil beings from the past.

7 Fable As Old As Time

http://firsthour.net/full-review/fable-2

Ah, Fable II... one of the greatest games I’ve ever played with one of the most infuriating endings of all time. But that is a rant for another day because today we are discussing opening scenes. In the first twenty or so minutes of gameplay, we follow our sister around the poorest district of Bowerstone. She tells us her greatest desires in life: riches, notoriety, and to live in a big castle. Unfortunately, she is quickly killed before she can achieve those dreams. However, every single one of her dreams later become our reality. In the space between the second and third Fable games, we become the heroes of the land, the new monarch, have children of our own (who later become the heroes of the third game in the series), and eventually die. Our sister's childlike daydreams became our future and that feels kind of poetic in a way.

6 Prince Of Narration

https://www.play-mag.co.uk/features/playstations-greatest-romances-and-what-you-can-learn-from-them/

All games have to make certain stylistic choices and sometimes those choices are actually plot/thematically relevant. The game Prince of Persia: Sands of Time: is framed by the story-like narration by the Prince himself. He details stories of his adventures as we ourselves relive and play them out in real time. Later on, we end up running into a woman named Farah who serves as a companion to the Prince throughout most of the remaining story. Unfortunately, she ends up running away; a choice which ultimately leads to her own death. The Prince is broken by her passing and ends up using the Dagger of time to kill the big baddie and rewind time back the start of the story. And then, we come out of the game only to see that the entire game was just a visual manifestation of the story of his adventures that he was retelling to Farah herself.

5 A Diablo By Any Other Name

http://www.accessiblegamer.com/diablo-iii-hell-is-other-people/

Ah, Diablo. It is incredibly rare for games to be so blunt and upfront about their contents. This game is literally just about descending into the depths of hell to kill the Devil (a.k.a Diablo.). It's right there in the title. No beating around the bush, no hinting, no surprise bosses, or third act twists. Yet for some reason many people were still shocked when they get to the final boss battle and find themselves face to face with the Devil himself. After hours and hours of battling the unruly undead and never-ending stream of demons invading the town of Tristram, you find yourself summoned to the Cathedral to deal with the big baddie. As you descend further and further into the church’s basement it suddenly becomes obvious that you’re actually descending into hell and that you’re about to face off with the devil himself. This is the one game that you can judge by its cover, trust me.

4 Alucard, Alucard

http://theologygaming.com/the-list-castlevania-symphony-of-the-night-part-4-alucard/

Alucard, what a cool name. It’s mysterious, elegant, and timeless… something that one could totally see suiting an immortal creature of the night. But it looks a little familiar... wait, no don’t tell me. It’s on the tip of my tongue… I got it! Alucard is actually just Dracula backward. That’s right in the third game of the Castlevania series, we meet an odd man named Alucard who is later revealed to be the son of Dracula. Don’t worry, I didn’t see it coming either. This reveal comes to both audiences and Alucard as a bit of a shock as it is revealed during a boss battle between us and the man himself. After committing a tiny bit of patricide, Alucard decides to condemn himself to a century of sleep while he sorts out his feelings towards this revelation and his actions... Hey, like father like son, am I right?

3 The Fallouts Of Obsession

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Enclave_soldier_(Fallout_3)

Like BioShock, the Fallout games thrive on the concept of foreshadowing. Though there are a lot of instances of foreshadowing to choose from, one of my favourite storylines is the one following the Megaton citizen who devotes his entire being to the Enclave. He believes with all of his might and every fiber of his being that, not only will the American government find some way to rebuild itself, but also that they will rebuild the land. He is utterly convinced that they are coming to sort out the wasteland called the US of A and will save us all from the life we’ve been forced into. However, he is sadly proved incredibly wrong when that organization in which he bestowed all of his faith turns out to be incredibly corrupt and kidnaps him (the only person who had any faith in them at all).

2 The Legend Of The Lullaby

http://www.mobygames.com/game/legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/screenshots/gameShotId,882508/platformId,203/

Do you ever hear that old suburban legend that claimed that playing Ozzy Osbourne records backward would reveal secret satanic messages? While I can neither confirm nor deny these secret messages, I can confirm that there is a “secret” message hidden in one of the themes on The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. When Zelda is on screen, she is often seen singing a song entitled “Ballad of the Goddess” which just happens to sound almost exactly like her own theme played in reverse. While this seems like nothing and can be so easily overlooked, the similarity in the song is actually hinting towards a later reveal in the game. It turns out that our beloved heroine is actually the human reincarnation of a well-known deity in the game's lore named Hylia.

1 Mass Cause And Effect

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/File:El_rannoch_reaper.png

In one of the very first missions in the game Mass Effect, we meet a mad scientist who is raving about the end of days. And like most raving lunatics, everyone completely ignores literally everything he has to say. All of his warnings, visions, and fears are brushed aside and treated as if they are simply the incoherent ramblings of a madman. However, it is later revealed that he wasn’t crazy… he was right. And he was smarter than all of us. Everything he predicted, everything he saw, everything he warned us about was true. The monsters he foretold of are just the beacon induced reapers that ravage our world. Everything we predicted came to fruition and we should have listened. Why didn’t we listen? No one ever listens until it’s too late.