10 Video Games That Made You Work Out The Answer Yourself

Video games at their most infuriatingly ambiguous.

By Jack Pooley /

It can be extremely satisfying to get to the end of a story and finally have all the answers neatly laid out for you. Ambiguity is sometimes overrated, but a lack of clarity can also enhance a story's enduring legacy.

Advertisement

Dropping a compelling mystery and then leaving players to figure out the answer for themselves is an easy way to ensure a game remains alive in the ever-shifting pop-culture conversation.

And so these 10 games, each of them massively popular and tremendously successful, left players to do the mental leg-work and make sense of it all themselves.

While some might understandably feel frustrated at the lack of concrete, committal answers to these questions, and even accuse the developers of outright laziness, in many cases the enigma has generated such spirited discussion and excited investigation that no clear-cut answer could possibly live up to it.

No matter what your own opinion on each mystery might be, and no matter which fan theory you might ultimately subscribe to, these games found endless intrigue in that which players can apparently never know for 100% certain...

10. Fallout

The Question: Who started the Great War?

Advertisement

In the world of the Fallout games, the Great War was a nuclear holocaust in which all nuclear-equipped nations - namely the U.S., China, and Russia - launched their weapons and sent the world into a permanently radioactive, post-apocalyptic state.

The games have never categorically confirmed one way or another which nation started the Great War, for though U.S. President Richardson tells the player that China launched first, he can't be considered a remotely reliable source on the subject given his position.

China are certainly a highly probable candidate, as are Russia, while Fallout 4 gave birth to the theory that an AI, P.A.M. (Predictive Analytic Machine), may have gone full Skynet and coaxed America into launching first.

Ultimately the "who" isn't that important given that the Great War really just generated a canvas on which the series' stories could unfold, but considering humanity's natural desire for resolution, fans will debate which nation damned humanity to a bleak future forever more.

Advertisement