Speaking as someone who has dabbled a bit in fiction writing and narrative construction, I can say the following with confidence: writing a cohesive story isreallyhard, and it only gets harder the longer it goes. What might have seemed like a good idea at one moment can become a gaping plot hole after only the slightest tweak or inclusion of a new idea, and these holes can be tricky to resolve once they’re tangled up in a bunch of other plot threads.
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Naturally, video games are no exception to this, with even some very well-regarded games over the years having their fair share of plot holes both subtle and massive. If there’s enough awareness of these problems, writers and developers may do their best to fill the hole in subsequent game updates or sequels.
The following games are examples of attempts to fill plot holes, with occasionally mixed results.
Warning: We’re getting into varying degrees of spoilers for all the following games.
9Why Wasn’t Mickey Wearing A Shirt At The End Of Kingdom Hearts?
The Heartless Ate It
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue
Due to the mildly… flighty nature of its setting, theKingdom Heartsseries has more plot holes than a block of Swiss cheese. Some of these have been plugged to a certain extent over the years, though there’s one in particular I want to highlight because, frankly, it’s hilarious.
At the end of the original Kingdom Hearts, when Sora and company are trying to close the Door to Darkness, Mickey appears from the dark depths to help them. However, despite being silhouetted, you can clearly see that Mickey isn’t wearing a shirt when he appears.
While Mickey doesn’t usually wear a shirt in normal Disney stuff, he’s fully dressed in subsequent Kingdom Hearts games.
So why did he go topless?
This is answered in Kingdom Hearts 0.2, which shows what Aqua was up to post-Birth By Sleep. She and Mickey met up in the Realm of Darkness right around the time Sora was closing the door.
Mickey runs to help them out, when a surge of Shadow Heartless tackles him and… makes his shirt dissolve for some reason. It’s an incredibly random and minute plot hole to plug, and the fact that they went to the effort to do so cracks me up.
8Shouldn’t New-U Stations Make Death Irrelevant In Borderlands?
The Devs Say They’re Non-Canon
Borderlands
In theBorderlandsgames, whenever you’re shot dead by bandits or devoured by Pandoran wildlife, you’re revived at the nearest New-U station for a nominal fee. It’s a convenient little bit of technology, but its mere existence muddles the dramatic impact of several major character deaths, particularly Roland and Handsome Jack inBorderlands 2.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t an inconsistency that the series’ writers were able to realistically resolve, so they eventually just threw up their hands and said “they’re non-canon, don’t worry about it.” It’s not the most elegant solution to a narrative dead end, but it’s hardly the only thing Borderlands has ever gotten meta about.
The series has even gone on to lampshade this decision on several occasions. A New-U station in Pre-Sequel stresses that its existence is non-canon, and inBorderlands 3, a station says it can always revive you “unless you died in a cutscene.”
7Why Do You Have To Die In Project Purity In Fallout 3?
For Five Bucks, You Don’t
In the original release ofFallout 3, the game’s main story quest ends with you and your allies attacking the Enclave at Project Purity. After either killing or speech-checking Colonel Autumn, someone needs to enter the purifier’s central chamber to turn it on, and you’re the one everyone’s looking at.
The obvious problem here is that the chamber is flooded with radiation, and you’ll be microwaved like a burrito after standing in there for just a few seconds. It would make exponentially more sense for your rad-resistant allies like Fawkes or Sergeant RL-3 to do it, but they flat-out refuse if you ask.
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With no other choice, you enter the chamber, turn on the purifier, and promptly drop dead.
This plot hole was plugged with the release of the Broken Steel DLC, which allows you to either send your allies in to pull the lever or just has you inexplicably survive the radiation. I’m not actually sure if this was a matter of the story just being incomplete or the devs trying to cover a mistake; I guess it depends on how far ahead the Broken Steel DLC was conceived.
6How Did The Big Daddies Bond With The Little Sisters In BioShock?
Research From Elizabeth
While searching for samples of Lot 192 in the originalBioShock, you come across the remains of geneticist Dr. Yi Suchong in his free clinic, impaled through the body by a Big Daddy drill. In a nearby audio log, Suchong complains about being unable to get Big Daddies to protect the Little Sisters, but after he slaps a Sister, a Daddy enters the room and kills him.
It’s a neat bit of environmental storytelling, but it doesn’t really answer its own question. If Suchong couldn’t get the Daddies to bond with the Sisters, why did that particular Daddy care when he hurt one of them?
This would remain a plot hole until the last bit of BioShock content released to date, Burial at Sea Episode 2.
Here, we learn that, over in Columbia where Fink had been coopting Suchong’s research, Elizabeth was successfully bonded to Songbird by helping it when it was injured. By coincidence, while exploring Rapture, Elizabeth saw a pair of Sisters aiding a Daddy whose air hose had come loose.
It was a proverbial “thorn in a lion’s law” situation, though admittedly, I’m not quite sure how they were able to reproduce that for the rest of the Big Daddies.
5Why Is Resident Evil’s Raccoon City PD… Like That?
It Used To Be A Museum
Resident Evil 2
It’s a long-running joke among fans ofResident Evilthat it must’ve been a nightmare to work at the Raccoon City Police Department, and it’s not just because Chief Irons is morally bankrupt. The station’s layout is, in a word, ridiculous.
Even putting aside the numerous doors and passagewaysinexplicably locked by medal puzzles, the general layout of the building and the numerous random art installations just don’t make sense for a police station.
According to a document found in Resident Evil Outbreak, and elaborated upon further in theResident Evil 2remake, the reason for this is that the Raccoon Police Station wasn’t originally built to be a police station. In the 1980s, in response to the increasing size of Raccoon City and shortcomings of local sheriffs, the burgeoning RPD purchased the rights to the failing Raccoon Art Museum to turn into its headquarters for its great location and ample parking.
So, the reason the station looks like a weird art museum is because it’s literally a weird art museum, with apparently only the bare minimum of renovations performed to make it suitable as a police station.
4Why Was Tails Such A Coward In Sonic Forces?
He’s Been Going Through Some Stuff
Sonic Frontiers
Throughout the 3DSonic the Hedgehoggames, the characterization of his buddy Tails has been a bit inconsistent. In Sonic Adventure, he successfully musters his courage to save Station Square from Eggman’s missile attack, and even goes head-to-head with Eggman in Sonic Adventure 2 after thinking Sonic died.
However, inSonic Forces, when Tails is attacked by a duplicate of Chaos, all he can do is cower on the ground, crying fruitlessly for Sonic to save him.
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Let the fox fly solo for a change
This varying characterization has largely been attributed to multiple different writers handling the games’ stories over the years, though in Sonic Frontiers, they actually address it. During a conversation between Sonic and Tails, Tails admits that he’s been going through an emotional rough patch, feeling like he’s not pulling his weight.
Sonic tries to assure him, citing the missile incident and othermoments of his courage, but Tails brushes him off, outright saying, “I’m wildly inconsistent.”
After some further pep talking from Sonic, Tails admits that he might need to go solo for a while, at least until he can learn to better conduct himself in Sonic’s absence. It’s actually a really nice moment.
3What Happened To Dante At The End Of Devil May Cry 2?
He Just Went Home, I Guess?
Devil May Cry 2
Prior to the release ofDevil May Cry 5, the official series timeline went as follows: 3, 1, 4, 2. At the time, Devil May Cry 2 was considered the latest point in Dante’s personal history, which left his disappearance at the end of that game following his battle with Argosax a longstanding cliffhanger.
However, that doesn’t really work with Devil May Cry 5’s ending, which similarly shows him stuck in the Demon Realm with Vergil.
The solution to this, or at least the one Capcom went with, was tosimply rearrange the timeline.
With Devil May Cry 5’s release, the timeline is now as follows: 3, 1, 2, 4, 5. Devil May Cry 2 has been moved to before Devil May Cry 4, before all the business with Nero and whatnot.
So why was Dante all quiet and brooding throughout 2? I guess he was just in a bad mood. Where did he go at the end of 2? He just left, I guess. Hey, if it were me, I’d take the first available opportunity to bail on Devil May Cry 2 as well.
2How Did Big Boss Keep Dying Throughout The Metal Gear Series?
First Time Wasn’t Him, Second Time Was Nanomachines
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
TheMetal Gearseries has a similarity with Marvel comics in that some of its characters inexplicably keep dying and coming back to life. Now, far be it from me to question Hideo Kojima’s writing, but it would be nice if some of these instances had some semblance of explanation.
One repeat offender is Big Boss, who’s died three times throughout the series. Big Boss’ first death was in the very first Metal Gear game, where he’s the game’s final boss and is killed by Solid Snake in a climactic shootout.
However, as is elaborated upon in subsequent games, especiallyMetal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, that wasn’t actually him. It was his body double, Venom Snake, formerly a medic working for MSF alongside Boss.
Boss’ “second” death was in Metal Gear 2, also at the hands of Solid Snake. This one seemed pretty definitive, but as we learn later in the series, he was rescued and resuscitated by agents of the Patriots, then injected with nanomachines that placed him in a coma. He stayed this way until Ocelot took out the Patriots’ network, and ultimately died one final time at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4 from a FOXDIE infection.
1Where’s Tifa’s Scar In Final Fantasy 7 Remake?
She Got Surgery To Hide Most Of It
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
Fextralife Wiki
In the originalFinal Fantasy 7, and extrapolated further upon inFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Tifa was attacked by Sephiroth at the Nibel Mako Reactor. He sliced her right up the front of her body with his gigantic katana, leaving her near-fatally wounded.
Tifa shows the scar that this incident left to Cloud in Rebirth, as proof that his recollection of the incident is wrong. While we don’t get to see it, it’s presumably pretty distinct.
That begs the question, though: If the scar is so big, how come we can never see it throughout Final Fantasy 7 Remake, despite having clear views of both Tifa’s upper chest and stomach? This is actually explained in an official tie-in novel titled Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Trace of Two Pasts, which coversboth Tifa and Aerith’s pasts.
Apparently, following the attack, Tifa had to undergo pretty severe surgery to reconstruct her entire sternum, up to and including skin grafts. This, presumably, is why the scar is small enough now that it’s only visible if Tifa lifts her shirt.
