IMMEDIATE AND INTENSE SPOILER WARNING!!!: The very nature of even knowing this thread's intention and seeing a game title is potential enough to spoil something, so if you are averse to it at all, I'd sit this one out folks.
Okay, so maybe it's not a "second act" per se, but many games have pulled or at least tried to pull the rug out from under players by revealing that what they thought was the final level where they defeat the big boss is really just the half-way checkpoint where the game REALLY opens up. Now this has varying degrees of success, I mean sometimes the world map and the fact that there's clearly inaccessible locations is enough to tip you in on the fact that there's more coming, but other times it really does go that extra mile.
There are many ways a game could qualify for this, but basically it has to have a set-up where, at least in the narrative or presentation of the game it appears to be building to a major plot climax that should supposedly satisfy the major conflicts but instead presents new ones or further complicates matters and further extends the game opening up new parts of the game to explore.
What does NOT qualify are like Legend of Zelda second quest or New Game + type deals where you replay the same story but with new challenges.
So let's go, what are games you know of that have surprise second acts and how do you feel about them?
Okay, so maybe it's not a "second act" per se, but many games have pulled or at least tried to pull the rug out from under players by revealing that what they thought was the final level where they defeat the big boss is really just the half-way checkpoint where the game REALLY opens up. Now this has varying degrees of success, I mean sometimes the world map and the fact that there's clearly inaccessible locations is enough to tip you in on the fact that there's more coming, but other times it really does go that extra mile.
There are many ways a game could qualify for this, but basically it has to have a set-up where, at least in the narrative or presentation of the game it appears to be building to a major plot climax that should supposedly satisfy the major conflicts but instead presents new ones or further complicates matters and further extends the game opening up new parts of the game to explore.
What does NOT qualify are like Legend of Zelda second quest or New Game + type deals where you replay the same story but with new challenges.
So let's go, what are games you know of that have surprise second acts and how do you feel about them?