9 Video Game Endings SPOILED By Trailers
2. Shadow Of The Colossus
One of the PS2’s timeless classics, Shadow of the Colossus still impresses today with it’s unique gameplay and moreover its simple but impressive storytelling.
Throughout the marketing for Shadow of the Colossus, director Fumito Ueda denied any connections the game had to his earlier work Ico. It turns out this was for the express purpose of hiding the game’s plot, which actually did connect to Ico. Rather unfortunate then one of the game’s extended trailers spelt this out for players that watched it closely.
More than just featuring the sleeping Mono stirring from her slumber, which was a very important late game moment; a very brief shot shows our hero Wander with horns atop his head. Not only is this a big part of the game’s twist of narrative, with the intent being the player’s entire perspective shifting at this point, but it also was a hint that Shadow and Ico were more connected than Ueda said.
When the final game was released, the theory became pretty watertight with the horned baby at the end of the game seemingly referring to the curse of horned infants in Ico.
Shadow of the Colossus' story and imagery has always been powerful and most players recommend their friends go in with as little info as possible. Trailers like this don't help that mindset.