6 Retconned Plot Points That Ruined Beloved Video Game Characters

2. Gray Fox's Rematch Almost Means Nothing - Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops

What you think you know: Gray Fox is one of the most iconic, recognisable and straight-up badass characters in gaming. Appearing in his ninja form in Metal Gear Solid, the former soldier and friend of Solid Snake once duelled with him amongst a field of mines, only to return post-experimentation in his new guise, hellbent on proving himself.

What you must accept: Like his body, the timeline for ol' Foxy has been royally messed with and cobbled together to fit the wants of an overarching force.

A nicely detailed fan chronology breaks down every aspect of how Kojima and Konami have futsed around with how he came to be, but the biggest takeaway is that Portable Ops turned Gray Fox into a super soldier back in 1970, emerging as 'Null' and battling Big Boss to the death, rather than his augmentations coming 10 years later. Boss wins, and Jaeger regains his memories - though he apparently forgets he's bio-augmented human weapon when he then gets captured in Metal Gear 1, and faces off in hand to hand combat, losing to Solid Snake.

Point being: In Metal Gear Solid, when Fox appears in his Cyborg Ninja getup and proclaims, "I've been waiting for this pain!", it's nowhere near his first rodeo in an augmented body. We now know he tussled with Big Boss as Null, and when fighting Solid Snake. It directly retcons the idea that Jaeger was a soldier sent to infiltrate Outer Heaven, only to get captured and be turned against FOXHOUND, then being experimented on and hunting down Snake purely for revenge.

Now he's someone out for a second rematch against the same bloodline, drastically weakening the stakes of that MGS duel, and contradicting Fox's words when he proclaimed his motivations were "Nothing so trivial as revenge".