10 Weirdest Genre Shifts In Video Games

Speaking of fatality-fuelled walking simulators, we come to What Remains of Edith Finch.

Giant Sparrow's (excellent) game sees the player living through the last moments of Edith's cursed family. Each family member is doomed to die early, with the deaths ranging from the mundane (accidentally falling off a cliff) to the ridiculous (eaten by a sea monster), but the standout demise belongs to Edith's brother Lewis.

Lewis' section of the game sees the player guiding the elder Finch brother through his job at the cannery, repetitively sticking fish heads in a slicer and chucking the bodies away for processing. To escape the drudgery of his daily life, Lewis retreats into a fantasy realm, which the player simultaneously guides him through (via old-school "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" gameplay) while also juggling his real-world job at the cannery.

It's a beautifully executed scene, as Lewis' fantasy world gradually grows in size until it encompasses the entire screen. As Lewis' fantasy life reaches his apex his attachment to the real world breaks down completely, resulting in Lewis placing his head in the fish slicer while imagining being crowned in his fantasy kingdom.

Lewis' story is all the sadder for its relatability - many of us have felt the soul-crushing drudgery of working in a dead-end job - and his fate is a poignant reminder of the necessity of asking for help instead of retreating from the real world when times get hard.