this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
30 points (87.5% liked)

Patient Gamers

19022 readers
33 users here now

A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.

Relavent communities: !games@lemmy.world !games@sh.itjust.works !retrogaming@lemmy.world !videogamesuggestions@lemmy.zip !linux_gaming@lemmy.world

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
cod@lemmy.world
briongloid@aussie.zone
BurntWits@sh.itjust.works
30
Games Where Nothing Happens (SPOILERS for various game plots) (lemmy.zip)
submitted 8 months ago by Gaxsun@lemmy.zip to c/patientgamers@sh.itjust.works
30 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/46035991

Good Day good people.

I am looking for some more examples of Video Games where there is a plot, but for one reason or another, the result of the plot is that nothing happens. My criteria for this is fairly lax on the "how" but in some sense, by some definition by the end of the game, absolutely nothing has happened. I'm hoping some of you fine people may be able to identify some instances of such a thing.

Examples (I've chosen to spoiler tag everything as just being listed gives away certain plot elements. All examples given here are niche titles from over 15 years ago).:

  • Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere (specifically the Japanese release): Huge inter-corporate conflict with several different factions and paths you can follow. One you go through all the different endings, the game reveals that it's just a simulation made by one guy to make sure no matter what happens in an upcoming conflict; your character, an AI, will kill the dude who cucked him.
  • Persona 2: Innocent Sin: You spend the whole game fighting Nyarlathotep to prevent him and the Nazis from destroying the world. At the end of the game, you fail and choose to abort the timeline and erase everyone else's memories, leaving the main character stranded in the doomed timeline.
  • Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter: This is the most boring way for this to play out IMO as it's just a straight coma twist

So please. Let me know any and all games you can think of where the end result of the plot is that nothing happens. The more ridiculous, the better!

(Sorry, for repost. I didn't know about the crosspost feature)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Well, technically (old game with recent remake):

SpoilerLink's Awakening

Everything happens in a dream, and when you finish, the MC wakes up. I'm sure there are plenty of others with that format.

But I think that's a copout, so here are a few where either the world resets or plot progression is basically "good job, do it again":

Spoiler

  • Slay the Spire - yeah, there's a separate ending if get to Act 4, but no real closure; many roguelikes/deck builders count here
  • Minecraft - you slay the end dragon, but that doesn't really change anything

I would say Dwarf Fortress, but when you replay in a world, the world's stats remain.

And the cop-outs:

  • most city builders (and tycoon games, etc) - cities generally don't interact and there's no end goal
  • "board" games - Civ, EU4, etc, there's no plot beyond what you create as you go
  • games like Smash Brothers, Tetris, etc
  • Mount and Blade and other sandbox-y games
  • many puzzle games
[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

These are good examples but you've done your spoiler tags wrong.

::: sp0iler 'visible text'

'hidden text'

:::

replace the 0 with an o

linebreaks matter, the closing ::: should be on its own line, and you should have empty lines above and below the hidden body text, created by hitting return/enter.

you also have to have a 'visible text' even if its just a space, ' ', on the first line, otherwise what you probably intend to be your 'hidden text' will instead be your 'visible text', and your spoiler box will open to just being empty.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Thanks, I always screw those tags up.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 8 months ago

Np, they tripped me up for a bit until I figured it out as well, lol

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Ah, double post, but your first one is till wonky, you've got the 'visible text' as the 'hidden text' and the 'hidden text' as just entirely outside the spoiler box!

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Really? It looks fine to me on the website (via my phone):

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh!

Ok, You are right, I am wrong, it looks like that for me as well... I just assumed that visible text underneath the first spoiler block was meant to be hidden.

Derp.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No worries, and thanks for the callout, I usually get it correct but it's been a while since I used a spoiler tag and failed hard. :)

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 8 months ago

Well today we both did an oopsie doopsie, hahah!