10 Video Games That Messed With Your Saves

Toby Fox's Undertale was released in 2015 to great acclaim, with its combination of memorable characters, cheeky fourth wall breaks and belting tunes winning the hearts of many a player. It also won plaudits for putting traditional video game morality under a microscope, as seen in its now notorious Genocide Route.

Much as the label suggests, the Genocide Route invokes the spirit of Emperor Palpatine by asking the player to "Wipe them out. All of them", the "them" in this case being the game's cast of monsters. Once you go down this path of overkill, the game's save points start displaying the number of monsters left in each region, tacitly encouraging the player to hunt down and slaughter them.

Do so, however, and the game locks you out from replaying it. As Chara - the game's omniscient narrator - puts it, there's no-one left to go back to.

Erk.

Fortunately, if you wait 10 minutes Chara offers to restore your saves and let you try again. The cost? "Your human soul".

Now, obviously we have no way of knowing if Toby Fox is actually harvesting the souls of his audience. But, years from now, when you slip free of your mortal shackles and enter the gates of Valhalla, see if you can find a video game developer surrounded by subservient thralls bound to his every whim. That'll be Toby Fox, luxuriating in the triumph of his evil scheme.