9 Dumb Coincidences In Video Games You Just Ignored

By Adam Hogg / February 17, 2017

Coincidence, a developer’s get-out-of-jail-free card. When something needs to happen that can’t be explained naturally and told through plausible scenarios, out comes coincidence. Why does that happen? Why does a certain character appear at a certain time in a certain place?

Because video games, and the need to go home at some point in the day.

As such, many narratives - video games especially - are full of coincidences, and it’s hard to blame them. Writing a story is difficult, and having every character adhere to the same laws of reason and sense is incredibly hard. Sometimes you just must throw caution to the wind and have someone stumble into the story out of the blue, for no apparent reason. But even then, it still doesn’t save them from being incredibly dumb coincidences.

So, from characters magically appearing to progress the story, to others forgetting their motivations for the sake of gameplay mechanics, here are ten of the dumbest coincidences in gaming that you just ignored.

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9. Batman Doesn't Kill... Villain Uses Unmanned Drones - Batman: Arkham Knight

Batman: Arkham Knight was under pressure to be bigger and better than ever and in some ways, it hit the mark. But in these attempts to increase scope, it had to forgo certain things like logic. Everyone is aware of the lengths the game went to in order to have an empty city so Batman didn’t accidentally kill a pedestrian, but people often forget about the unmanned drones.

Despite not making any sense, it is incredibly coincidental that the Arkham Knight – a character that is both aware of and forgoes the 'no killing' rule of Batman – would go in favour of unmanned drones when taking him on. Have them be manned, and there is nothing Batman can do but run away. But instead, the Arkham Knight appears as a bumbling idiot in this regard, despite having him one-up Batman throughout the story in every exchange.

The game offers up no reasoning behind the Knight’s decision to do it, either. In the desire to go bigger, Rocksteady lost the sense of weight behind the story. In evacuating the city and having fleets of A.I. enemies, they dissolved any means of tension that the events could otherwise have.