9 Fan Theories That Save TERRIBLE Games

A little fan ingenuity rescued these from the trash heap.

By Jack Pooley /

It's much tougher to go to bat for a bad video game than, say, a bad movie, because a terrible film is generally over in two hours and therefore much easier to enjoy as a slice of hokey schlock.

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But given that the buy-in for a bad game - both in terms of money and time - is often much higher, it's far more difficult to find charm in games that are very clearly below-par. 

With so many brilliant games out there, it's tough to willingly invest potentially dozens of hours in digital dreck.

And yet, some bad games have been redeemed in the most unexpected fashion - not by a series of patches which whipped them into robust shape, but a fan theory with some devastatingly razor-sharp logic.

These fan theories can't paper over every bad thing about these wretched games, but they are able to reframe the story issues and even some of the gameplay jank in some clever and unexpected ways.

Above all else, they'll help you let go of your anger and just embrace these bad games as the oddball pieces of art they ultimately are...

9. The Game Is A Parasite-Induced Fever Dream - Metroid: Other M

Metroid: Other M is the undeniable outlier of the franchise - that one highly divisive entry which a good deal of the fanbase wishes would simply evaporate from existence.

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Set between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion, Other M invoked the ire of fans for numerous reasons - for feeling like a "dumbed down" version of its franchise predecessors, for its woeful story, and especially for infantilising badass bounty hunter Samus herself, who ends up being far too reliant on a man to get the job done.

But many have simply opted to obliterate Other M from their own head-canon altogether by dismissing it as a mere fever dream that Samus had at the start of the next chronological game in the series, Metroid Fusion.

Fusion kicks off with Samus being attacked by the parasitic organisms known as X, leaving her comatose until she's cured with a vaccine. 

And so, why not pawn off Other M's baffling characterisation of Samus as some wacky nonsense her brain cooked up while she was on the brink on death?

With that in mind, it's much easier to just enjoy Other M as the kooky one-off experiment it is rather than forever curse its place in the Metroid lineage.

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