The Best Video Game Plot Twist We Never Got To Play

Now, it wouldn't be a video about a video game twist if I didn't have one final twist in the tale for you though, would it? Well, I do. First you need to know that I'm about to heavily spoil Returnal, and that’s because in a way, the title of this article is actually a bit of a lie. While Prey 2 was cancelled and the twist died with it, this recent PS5 exclusive featured a remarkably similar rug-pull. Let me explain...

Returnal is a third-person game where you play as Selene, who finds herself trapped in a time loop after crashing on an Alien planet. Like Samuels, her history is drenched in mystery. And, after a few hours spent blasting your way through the planet's constantly-shifting structure, you start to realise that this isn't Selene's first attempt to get home. Strewn around the environments are dead bodies that look just like Selene, often clutching an audio recording or artefact.

Like in the proposed Prey 2, each time the player died the implication was that you were adding to these corpses - which would actually show up in the worlds of other players' games online - and starting with a new, fresh Selene for each run.

While that's already similar, it's Returnal's mid-game twist that links it close with Prey 2. Here, after a slog through three full biomes, Selene and the player finally manage to escape the planet. Back on Earth you watch the rest of her life play out as she starts a family, grows old in a lovely little house and then ultimately dies a peaceful death. Sound familiar? The final scene sees her lowered into a coffin when the game suddenly cuts back to the Alien planet, with Selene waking up once again. She might have escaped, but she didn't sever whatever formed the time loop in the first place.

So, while it doesn't quite have the same surprise as Prey 2's reveal, at least fans got another awesome game that played around with the same twisty concepts that Bethesda's cancelled sequel was being built around. And whatever happens in the future, let's hope we haven't heard the end of Prey.