10 Video Games With Bizarre Origin Stories
Smash Bros asked for forgiveness instead of permission.
Every story has a beginning. When players nestle in and select "new game", their story with a title starts... but the game itself may have already been through it's own sagas behind the scenes.
Comparing early concepts and ideas to the final product can often be a surprising and humbling thing, seeing how far that twinkle in the eye of a director had to come in order to find its true voice.
Many games flounder as they attempt to create a hook and sometimes have to take bold risks to find that missing piece of the puzzle. Others merely chance upon greatness by pure luck or perhaps a little bit of cheating.
After all, crafting artwork is not a straight forward process. There's no blueprint. It takes inspiration, experimentation and collaboration - sometimes all in surprising ways.
This list highlights some beloved video games that had some unexpected twists and turns in their development. Saving their company, shifting tone or starting out as merely a little self-experiment, these tales are all proof that anything can happen during the creative process.
10. Batman: Arkham Asylum Was Almost A Rhythm Game
The Caped Crusader has had lots of different video game appearances over the years but most of them stand in the great big shadow of the Arkham series. Starting in 2009 with Batman: Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady Studios told a satisfying set of stories that Batman fans could be proud of but the true star was the frankly addictive combat system.
More than a simple button-masher, Arkham Asylum’s hand-to-hand violence was all about flow and timing. Which makes sense, as it was originally devised as something far more akin to a rhythm game.
Not only would this have meant more obvious button prompts on-screen but that Batman pummelling waves of goons would’ve been set to a beat. A specific combat soundtrack was pitched that would’ve evolved throughout a fight, changing as new enemies joined the fray and altering depending on how many enemies surrounded the player.
The final version of the combat certainly feels rhythmic and discovering that that’s where it started makes a lot of sense. Still, if it had maintained the original concept in its purest form, we can only make educated guesses what the music for this would’ve been like.
After all, it wasn’t until 2022’s The Batman that we all found out that Bruce Wayne was a big Nirvana fan.