10 Video Games That Trick You Into Playing The Villain

Much like Until Dawn, Heavy Rain is an interactive drama game which casts the player as a handful of characters while they attempt to deduce the identity of a serial killer.

But Heavy Rain is a little more cagey - David Cage-y, even? - with how it attempts to trick players, because though the player does indeed control the killer throughout the game, this character is also presented as an unreliable narrator without the player's knowledge.

The Origami Killer is eventually outed as private investigator Scott Shelby, one of the four playable characters, which comes as quite a surprise given that the player was in control of Shelby when one of the game's characters, an antique shop owner called Manfred, was murdered.

Controversially, Cage opted to break with the game's established on-the-level storytelling to make Shelby a secret unreliable narrator, because as we learn later, Shelby of course killed Manfred.

Given that players expected Heavy Rain to give them maximum agency over the playable characters' decision, many were understandably miffed by what felt like a cheap cop-out. Still, you definitely didn't see it coming, did you?