Summary
Not every plotline in gaming is going to get some kind of resolution. Mostly, that’s just because a game you might have loved didn’t resonate with the general public, meaning no chances of a sequel, or developers simply move on to other projects which leave a series’ fate up in the air.
In some rarer instances, game developers have completely abandoned certain plots entirely. The series has kept on trucking, but specific narrative threads or ideas that were thought to have been more important have fallen through the cracks. Here’s a few notable examples.
10Resident Evil 6 - Has Anyone Seen Jake?
The Curious Case Of Wesker’s Baby Boy.
We could probably do a whole article on its own about the threads and ideas shown in the plot of Resident Evil over the years that have been resigned to the Capcom vaults. That’s without throwing in the extended media likethe CGI films and TV showseither, but let’s stick with the disappearance of Jake Muller.
A new character introduced in the much-maligned Resident Evil 6, Jake was last seen in a post-credits scene for RE6 where it looks like he’s back to fighting monsters and mutants in the desert. The game sowed the seeds of Jake being an important part of the war on bioterror going forward, but Wesker’s illegitimate son hasn’t been seen since. Where’s Jake, Capcom?
Another fun abandoned plot comes from Resident Evil: Gaiden for the Game Boy Color, which ends with Leon being replaced by a shapeshifting doppleganger with green blood. Gaiden has been rendered non-canon since, but Resident Evil would be a wildly different series if Capcom committed to that one.
9Call Of Duty: Ghosts - Rorke Kidnaps You
Will Activision Ever Acknowledge This Game?
On the whole, the Call of Duty series likes to care about continuity, wrapping up dangling plot threads where possible. Even three separate Zombies storylines have begun to converge in Black Ops 6, while Treyarch have established some links to the Black Ops and Modern Warfare narratives in Cold War’s campaign through the appearance of Zakhaev. The same can’t be said for COD: Ghosts, however.
An ill-fated attempt at telling a new story in a new timeline, Ghost’s depiction of post-ruin America in a war against a South American coalition failed to catch on. The game’s cliffhanger ending, which sees villain Rorke kidnap you and presumably brainwash you, hasn’t been broached in any Call of Duty game since, and likely never will be.
8Mortal Kombat 11 - Dark Raiden
We Wanted More Evil Red Lightning
Mortal Kombat has seen its fair share of rebootsover the years. Okay, two to be precise, but that’s more than most fighting games. Mortal Kombat (2011) birthed a new trilogy in an adjusted Mortal Kombat timeline, with MK X and MK 11 incorporating older characters in different ways. The conclusion of MK X saw Earthrealm protector Raiden become Dark Raiden, a more ruthless version of himself which was poised to be a big focus in the sequel.
Cue Mortal Kombat 11, and while Dark Raiden does appear in the opening chapter or so of the game’s story, he’s promptly dusted out of the story by ‘Kronika time shenanigans’, only to be replaced by a younger, purer Raiden. The story does explain that both Kronika’s influence and Shinnok’s cursed amulet contributed to Raiden turning to the dark side, but it felt like Netherrealm Studios fully abandoned a plot where Raiden became the big bad.
Even the reveal trailer for Mortal Kombat 11 hinted that Dark Raiden would be a bigger aspect of the story than it was, though you could also argue that he died to Scorpion in said trailer, so maybe that was foreshadowing Dark Raiden’s premature exit. Who knows?
7Batman: Arkham City - Pregnant Harley Quinn
No Joker Jr.
Over the course of the Arkham series, there have been plenty of plot threads that were introduced that have been discarded for some reason or another. The ending to Arkham Asylum saw either Scarecrow, Killer Croc or Bane grabbing a crate of Titan from the river, but in Arkham City, the Titan storyline is wrapped up with Bane in a separate sidequest. What would a Killer Croc on Titan look like, or Titan-laced fear toxin? We won’t know.
Meanwhile in Arkham City, eagle-eyed players can find a positive pregnancy test in Sionis Steel Mill, the place where Harley and Joker have been living. The obvious implication here is that Harley Quinn is pregnant with Joker’s baby, but the Harley Quinn’s Revenge DLC, set after the game’s events, changes that room to now include multiple negative tests. Obviously, Arkham Knight featured no Joker Jr. either, unless you count Jason Todd.
As a bonus abandoned plot, Arkham Asylum had Warden Quincy Sharp believe he was the vessel of the spirit of Amadeus Arkham, the asylum’s namesake who went mad and murdered a bunch of inmates. That never gets brought up again, weirdly.
6God Of War - The Soul Of Ares
Secret Text Crawls Still Count As Plots
Something that’s been forgotten in gaming over the years is the idea of gameshaving multiple endingsdepending on the difficulty you play on, with harder difficulties often revealing more vital information or just giving players fun little easter eggs. The Halo series is most famous for this, but the original God of War is guilty of using a similar device to set something up the series has never addressed since.
Completing the game on the hardest difficulty would unlock Secret Message #1, which would give you a phone number to call. Enter the digits, and you’d hear a pre-recorded message from Kratos talking about how he keeps the soul of Ares locked in a vault, and how he might use it to wage war on Zeus. God of War 2, while featuring Zeus as the antagonist, never made mention of Ares’ soul, leaving this plot thread to go unanswered.
5Gears 5 - The Fate Of JD And Del
Talk About A ‘Snap’ Decision
This is arguably the one ‘abandoned’ plotline that’ll see a resolution at some point. The closing chapters of Gears 5 offer an unenviable decision: choose who lives or dies between JD Fenix and Del Walker. For a series that typically only lets you choose whether you want to take the left or the right corridor, it was a pretty bold move, but one that maybe The Coalition hasn’t figured an answer out for.
It’s been years since the launch of Gears 5 and instead of following up with Gears 6, TC decided to make a Gears of War prequel in the form of E-Day, returning to the exploits of Marcus and Dom, and abandoning the new generation of characters and the Swarm threat for some good old Locust blasting.
4Marvel: Ultimate Alliance - Galactus Is Coming
Om Nom Nom.
One of the best parts of Marvel games, or comic book games in general, is that there’s a rich tapestry of characters, events and settings to pull from. The places that a comic book story can go is practically infinite, but in the case of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, the developers left a solid idea on the table in favour of a mediocre retelling of a comic book arc.
After acquiring some vital resources from Galactus (by force) during the events of Ultimate Alliance, the end credits scene implies revenge is on the world eater’s mind. However, the second game in the series decided to adapt the Civil War storyline instead, abandoning the threat of Galactus entirely. Sure, an entire game where the main villain is Galactus might not make a good Ultimate Alliance story, but it’s a cosmic level threat that was thrown aside for a bit of Avengers infighting.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 then opted for a different cosmic-level threat entirely, with the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the X-Men and seemingly everyone else banding together to beat Thanos' Black Order.
3Assassin’s Creed - Jesus
Miracles And Mysteries
With a series as massive and sprawling as Assassin’s Creed is, with spin-offs, extended media, and a lot of lore that’d take way too long to unpack, it’s not surprising that some elements of the backstory have been trimmed over the years. One particular aspect that Ubisoft have shied away from in the series is the importance of Jesus to the overall story.
Through the first few games, Christianity plays a huge role in the historical plot of Assassin’s Creed, with Altair encountering the Ark of the Covenant while Ezio spelunks through old cathedrals. However, the series makes various references to Jesus being a human-Isu hybrid, or that he used the Apple of Eden to perform his miracles. After AC3 though, Jesus wasn’t really featured again.
2Mass Effect 2 - Dark Energy
Guess The Scientists Solved This One Off-Screen.
We’re not breaking new ground by saying that the ending to Mass Effect 3 left players feeling somewhat underwhelmed. Having the entire culmination of the series all amount to one multiple choice question felt like the whole thing was a waste of time. However, ME3 could have been a bit more interesting if a plot thread from Mass Effect 2 had been followed up on concerning Dark Energy.
Mass Effect 2 introduced the idea that the galaxy and even universe is degrading due to the effect of Dark Energy, brought about by the increased usage of Element Zero. It’s climate change on a galactic scale, responsible for the sun near Haestrom degrading alarmingly fast, but the plotline is dropped in Mass Effect 3 entirely. At one point, Dark Energy’s dangers were considered a motivation for the Reapers, which could have made the conclusion more interesting, if nothing else.
1Splinter Cell: Conviction - Megiddo
Shut Up Meg(iddo)
Ubisoft has made a bit of a habit of turning its series into a shared universe of some kind. Splinter Cell has mixed with Siege and Ghost Recon, while Prince of Persia appeared in For Honor for a bit of a scrap. Even multiplayer shooter XDefiant is just different factions from Ubisoft games duking it out, but plans for an overarching Tom Clancy villain organisation were completely nixed.
During the events of Splinter Cell: Conviction, it’s revealed that the conspiracy has been orchestrated by a group called Megiddo. This group is also referenced in Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2, suggesting they’d be a huge adversary in the Clancy-verse, but the group has never been referenced since. Maybe they’ll pop up again in Siege or something.
A reference to Megiddo was made in Splinter Cell: Blacklist, the follow-up game to Conviction, but the organisation, and the Splinter Cell series in general, has gone dark ever since.
