8 Heroic Video Game Characters Who Didn't Actually Affect The Plot

5. Frank West (Dead Rising)

Beginning of the game: A zombie apocalypse.

End of the game: A zombie apocalypse. Though thousands of them have been destroyed.

Good... job?

Though Frank West can certainly talk a big game - and has a mean swing with a katana - the vast majority of Dead Rising's story happens without his input. You've got Frank arriving at Willamette Mall and alternately culling the zombie populace or saving random people, sure, though the larger plot involves one Dr. Barnaby and his experiments to mass produce livestock.

The "good" doctor messed up, of course, resulting in the town of Santa Cabeza being zombified by way of carrier wasps, forcing agent Carlito Keyes to take revenge by unleashing the same swarm on the patrons of the mall. Absolutely none of this has anything to do with the actions of Frank, who ends the game by fighting a Special Forces officer called Brock Mason, before a cut to black fills us in as to what happened afterwards.

Turns out the US Government had to admit "partial culpability" due to "information" Frank revealed - though the size of the incident would've tipped their hand anyway - not to mention Carlito's sister Isabella also escaped with the same info and undead-battering life experience. These final text prompts literally spell out that nothing was achieved other than a LOT of dead bodies and a shrug of governmental shoulders - which is perhaps the point - but leaves Frank West as someone who just barely lived up to his job title.