8 Video Games That KNEW They Broke The Rules
4. Bethesda Write Two Huge Retcons Into Elder Scrolls Lore
If we're talking piles of plot threads and canon details to keep track of, the wider Elder Scrolls mythology is one of the richest in fictional history. As the games and their in-world books fleshed everything out, suddenly there was an entire tapestry of lords, gods, religions and more to watch out for.
By the time Bethesda had hit Skyrim, most of the wider lore was set in stone, however flash back to the series finding its feet and experimenting across the gargantuan world of Daggerfall, and that game closed out with seven different endings.
Also, there was a lot mentioned across these games of how Oblivion's setting of Cyrodiil was a jungle-like area with luscious greenery - something that doesn't remotely line up with the fourth game.
Bethesda's solution to both? Ridiculously powerful magic.
"The Warp in the West" was the term given to a new type of time-reset called a "Dragon Break", where all seven of Daggerfall's endings ostensibly happen in unison, then reality settled back down again.
As for Cyrodiil? Well one Tiber Septim - a powerful emperor - used more magic to terraform the land instantly, past, present and future, as a gift to his men. Past records in older games are now incorrect, but in-lore the reason given is a "transcription error" from scribes at the time.
Genius... or madness?