16 Biggest Video Game Plot Twists Of The Decade (So Far)

7. The Citadel A.I. Controls The Reapers - Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3's ending has been roundly trounced so many times that it's hard to think of new ways to lampoon it, shy of just muttering a collection of consonants and carrying on - so why not focus not on the disappointment of thousands, but what the reveal of The Catalyst/Star Child/Intelligence meant for the ME universe? Coming at the end point of both the trilogy and assumedly all life in the galaxy's time as the Reaper invasion was set to wipe every planet clean one by one all over again, Commander Shepard needed a win, and although the collective might of the galaxy's races was building a weapon called the Crucible, how it worked and what it was going to do was a mystery. So come the final invasion of Earth and the playing out of some final villainous beats from an indoctrinated Illusive Man, you're then greeted not by a gigantic control console with a giant, flashing 'Kill Reapers Now' button - instead it's a chat with a long-dormant A.I. that throws out three drastically different (in theory) ending possibilities. What happens during this conversation and particularly after as the explosions amount to nothing more than a few palette-swaps is what etched ME3 into the gaming history books as one of the worst creative decisions of all time, but forgetting that for a second, the very idea of interfacing with a galaxy-saving A.I. that straight up lays out the controls for all life as you know it is pretty damn huge.