Plot hole(s) in game(s) that are still unanswered.

[Akytalusia]

star ocean III's ending never sat well with me.

Spoiler: ending spoilers

the heroes lose. the universe gets destroyed. but surprise, everyone's still alive, and the universe keeps existing. no one knows how, and it's never explained.

there are fan theories, but no evidence i recall in-game, and i've never seen an official source to explain it either.

 

[The Madman]

You're misunderstanding the concept of infinity. Infinite does not mean all encompassing - as an example, there are infinity integers (whole numbers) but that doesn't mean that every number is represented in the group of integers. Just because there are infinite parallel universes, that doesn't mean that every single possible universe occurs.

Hope I explained that okay

In an infinite universe something might only occur once if it has an infinitesimal chance of happening. For example as the theory goes even if the universe is infinite and matter is infinite, there would still probably only be one of you or me since the chances of the exact occurrences that led to us happening a second time is pretty much impossible. You can read about it here.

HOWEVER in Bioshock Infinite you see infinite versions of Elizabeth and Booker. By the games own logic there are infinite versions of both in infinite possibilities as demonstrated by the whole corny lighthouse metaphor. My question then is why somehow of all stupid things, getting baptized has only produces evil Comstock in this universe of infinite wonder?

They're breaking their own game logic with that, thus why I pointed it out as a plot hole.

 

[WoW Killer]

In Xenogears, what the hell were the people of Earth doing for the 10,000 years after the crash of the Eldridge? When they lost contact with the ship and its super dangerous contents during its ultra critical mission, did nobody think: "Hey, maybe we should go and check if that mega scary Deus machine, the one that's threatening to enslave the entire universe, is actually gone. Like proper gone, and not like slowly rebuilding itself.". But they all thought "Naaaah, it's probably fine. Nothing at all to worry about.". Not to mention the incredibly valuable power source at it's core that gives infinite free energy to all mankind. That's not worth going back to fetch, obviously.

Never did read the books or play the prequels, so maybe that was cleared up at some point.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Heavy Rain.

Pretty much all of it.

Spoiler

Examples are:
- Madison learning the identity of the killer, and being surprised and shocked that it is Shelby, even though he never met her and neither was even aware of each others existence. She later calls Jayden, despite not knowing him either, let alone knowing his number.

- Shelby visits some families of victims of the killer. He receives clues and messages from them sent by the killer. Why do they have that stuff? That's key evidence. Why doesn't the police or FBI have it? At the time you meet them their child is already dead, so there is no reason why they would keep it, unless they're massive masochists and want a souvenir to remember the murder of their kid by.

- Jayden identifies Shelby as the killer based on a type of watch that is traditionally given for promotions. Naturally, the killer must be a cop. Because only a cop could possibly own that particular, commonly available make of watch.

- Jayden has a drug addiction. A debilitating and obvious one. Neither his collegues at the FBI nor the cops in the police station he's working at seem to ever notice something is off about him.

- How the fuck did Shelby set up the Butterfly Trial? Filling a massive labyrinth of narrow tunnels that Ethan only barely fits into with shards of broken glass? With his fat ass?

- In the world of Heavy Rain, you can invade the private residence of a high-profile businessman, slaughter about a dozen of his bodyguards and then possibly put the guy on ice without drawing any attention whatsoever from either the media or the police.

- Ethan's blackouts. Why does he have them at the beginning of the game and why do they eventually stop? Never explained.

There at least exists a plausible explanation for one of those:

Spoiler

Ethan's injuries following the wreck could have easily included a traumatic brain injury that has as symptoms his various blackouts.

But what's never explained is why the hell he has origami figurines in his pocket after each blackout. This is supposed to be some supernatural bullshit about Ethan having a telepathic link with the killer that was later removed from the game. Quantic Dream was too lazy to remove the scenes, or redo them to remove the origami though, so it is the most literal version of a plot hole, since the plot point was completely removed from the game.

The one that bugs me though is:

Spoiler

The segment in the pawn shop where Shelby literally never had the opportunity to murder the proprietor only to be told hours later that Shelby totally murdered the guy

This sequence is a huge plot hole, but not for the reason that you think. Shelby actually did have time to murder the old man, since during this section you don't control him, you control the woman (forgot her name), and Shelby goes to the back of the shop with the old man to look at records while she stays in the front, walking around and looking at stuff. So Shelby actually has about 5 minutes to kill the old guy.

The problem with this scene is that Shelby then calls the police on himself for absolutely no reason. To the player this scene is supposed to look like the killer is trying to frame Shelby, but since the killer IS Shelby it makes it look like he's trying to frame himself. And while it's clear to the player that it's a frame up job, the police don't have the same information as the player, and Shelby looks guilty as hell, yet they let him go anyway for no reason.

I could write a paper about all the plot holes and inconsistencies in David Cages games because he couldn't write a cohesive narrative to save his life.

 

[Fox12]

If Silent Hill models its horrors based on individual subconscious and "for their eyes only", how come the first two games share the same creature (the Creeper) yet different protagonists? If the monsters from the first game come from Alessa's subconscious, why does James get Creepers thrown at him as well? Similarly, if Pyramid Head is extrapolated from James's mind as his personal torturer, why does the creature appear YEARS BEFORE in a painting at Alessa's home, or for that matter, YEARS LATER to Alex Shepherd? And how come Lisa Garland doesn't realize she's a puppet nurse, what's stopping her from turning? Why did Frank Sunderland keep Walter Sullivan's umbilical chord all those years?

I think the Creepers are just generic insects that were "infected" by Silent Hill. The Silent Hill wiki said that the were just insects generated by Silent Hill.

As for Pyramid Head there are two explanations. The first is that Pyramid Head is based on the historical human executioners of Silent Hill, and so the various incarnation of the creature are based on them. Therefore it would make sense that there are pictures of him in different time periods because they're just pictures of the executioners from the past.

The second explanation, and the one I like, is that the series was handed to different developers who had no idea what they were doing. They included the character as fanservice because they had no respect for the work that the original developers had put into the series, and because they didn't understand the symbolism of the character. "This pyramid thing is cool, lets put him in our game." As a result I only consider the first four games canon.

As for Lisa, she probably exists to torture the protagonist in the same way that Maria exists to torture James.

 

[Ryotknife]

Everything involving Russian politics in Modern Warfare 3. They really hashed the storyline in that one.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

If Silent Hill models its horrors based on individual subconscious and "for their eyes only", how come the first two games share the same creature (the Creeper) yet different protagonists? If the monsters from the first game come from Alessa's subconscious, why does James get Creepers thrown at him as well? Similarly, if Pyramid Head is extrapolated from James's mind as his personal torturer, why does the creature appear YEARS BEFORE in a painting at Alessa's home, or for that matter, YEARS LATER to Alex Shepherd? And how come Lisa Garland doesn't realize she's a puppet nurse, what's stopping her from turning? Why did Frank Sunderland keep Walter Sullivan's umbilical chord all those years?

Most of those can be sort of explained away, some in game, others not. Most are inferred, so take this with a grain of salt.

Monsters

Spoiler

True, monsters generally represent fears within a person whose psyche the monsters are based on. However, it doesn't necessarily mean a person can't see the fears of another. Take the Abstract Daddies for instance. For James, they mean nothing, but they represent the central fear of Angela. James is able to see them though because while he has his own fears to contend with, the fears of others overlap with his. This can be extrapolated so that, with the Creepers, it represents how Alessa still has a presence in the town, and these Creepers represent her continuing influence. This is mostly speculation however, and much like the monster designs themselves is mostly inferred rather than stated.

Pyramid Head

Spoiler

This one is a bit more explicit. When Silent Hill had a functioning, civil war era prison, the executioners would dress up in a similar garb, and years later The Order would use similar clothes/hoods/helmets for a particular sect of priests. James only sees Pyramid Head because the image comes from when he saw an old painting of executioners, and from there used that image to represent the Judge of his sins. Pyramid Head is a part of James' subconscious, but the image comes from a historical aspect of the town itself. The same could possibly apply to Alex Shepherd, in that he possibly saw the same painting, but took the image of the executioner to mean the infamous Boogeyman. However, I suspect in Alex's case, that was more just so they (Konami) could include Pyramid Head in a next-gen game, for sales of course.

Lisa

Spoiler

Bit tricky on this one. If I remember, part of it has to do with the fact that she looked over Alessa in the hospital, so there's the possibility this was meant to torment her. The other possibility is that Lisa was known to have been supplied White Claudia, and that she may have been in a state where she didn't fully understand what was going on around her. One other thing to consider is that according to a member of the original team, Lisa may have died of an overdose, and therefore the Lisa seen in the game is nothing more than a ghost that doesn't realize it's dead. This may be fitting, seeing as how Lisa is partly named after Judy Garland, who died of a drug overdose.

Frank Sunderland

Spoiler

According to a note, Frank felt that it was too precious to throw away, given the circumstances in which he found it. Of course, what too precious means is anyone's guess. Guilt maybe? He may have known the tenants, and feels like he could have done more to insure they wouldn't just up and leave their infant behind. Although much like everything else, this is just speculation, although there is technically a "reason" behind it.

 

[teamcharlie]

My preferred solution to the Elizabeth 'plot holes' in Infinite, if you'll bear with me:

Spoiler

Elizabeth's mission has to fail. Why? Because Elizabeth being able to perform her mission requires her to not only have the powers necessary to defeat every extant Booker/Comstock in every reality, but she has to know to do it. If she succeeded, she'd just be regular Booker's daughter, never get sold to Comstock, and never stop him from getting baptized in the past, so the cycle would start over. Unless Jesus himself tells the Lucettes to get their ass to Wounded Knee and kill their benefactor, there is literally no way to prevent a causality loop from buttsexing time unless Elizabeth eventually fails at her job.

That being said, assuming that she's the final boss in Bioshock Infinite's next DLC that particular plot hole should be cleared up nicely by the game. I'm a little annoyed that she's turning into a dimension-spanning sociopath, but I imagine killing your father an infinite number of times starts to do that to you.

 

[Bonk4licious]

Less of a plot hole, though among plot holes, I never understood why, in Mass Effect 3,

Spoiler

does Shepard get his life scene if you got all of the war assets, and decided to destroy the Reapers? Of all the endings, that involved the most explosions and the LEAST opportunity for Shepard to somehow "live."

Honestly I like Indoctrination Theory, but with that extended ending DLC they cut out all possibilities of it. So why exactly was that even there?

 

[Something Amyss]

Also GTA V. When Michael decides to pay Madrazo... Why? Why doesn't he just kill him like he kills everyone else that looks at him funny?

This happens at a point where Michael is still trying to keep his head down. His options were do a milk run job or go to war with a criminal syndicate with no plan, no weapons, no backup worth a damn (And not being a Time Lord). If the (relatively) easy job hadn't drawn attention, it would have been the end of things.

Yeah, he goes big later, but that's after things have gone further and further down the rabbit hole.

I'd like to think even Michael wasn't stupid enough to try and kill the head of a syndicate off the cuff like that.

Then again....That ending....

Honestly I like Indoctrination Theory, but with that extended ending DLC they cut out all possibilities of it.

Good. It was a shoestring theory in the first place. It was your typical conspiracy theory, except in this case it was actually about a work of fiction.

It was also a testament to how shit the narrative was. Fans had to actively construct a new one to try and pretend it was a decent story,.

 

[Bonk4licious]

Honestly I like Indoctrination Theory, but with that extended ending DLC they cut out all possibilities of it.

Good. It was a shoestring theory in the first place. It was your typical conspiracy theory, except in this case it was actually about a work of fiction.

It was also a testament to how shit the narrative was. Fans had to actively construct a new one to try and pretend it was a decent story,.

Oh, definitely. Shouldn't have even come down to it, I think ME3 overall relied way too much on scoping out who Shepard was in cutscenes, because you should be the one doing that, not them. But Indoctrination Theory was really all they had left going for it, and they just kind of wrapped it up as "bad writing, moving on."

Also with GTA5, most of what Trevor did didn't make any sense, and the ending was them being presented with all of their problems, and instead of dealing with them, they just murdered them and moved on, no actual character development. But hey, that's how GTA rolls, it was more about the gameplay to me anyway.

 

[Uratoh]

Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinestrals.

WTF happened to Arek?

 

[Zetatrain]

I posted this in the other thread we had yesterday. Where was

Spoiler

Alex Mason

during all the stuff that was going down in Black Ops II? There is no possible way it took him decades to heal, and yet he just pops up at the end like it's not big deal. Where were you?!

I suppose you could say he was lying low because he didn't want the antagonist to know he was alive. Even if he did come forth and say "hey i'm alive" at the beginning of the game its not like he could have helped at all.

On the subject of BLOPSII I think an even bigger plot hole would be how

Spoiler

Mason survives.

How did Woodson know it was Mason that he was shooting at? I mean while Woodson did find the whole situation a bit fishy there really was no way he could have known it was Mason. In addition what would have prompted Woodson to shoot him in the legs or hell how was the player suppose to know to shoot his legs? And to top it all off, after Woodson shoots he's surprised that it was Mason that he shot.

Now in the final cutscene I think Mason comments that that Woodson was crappy shot, implying that Woodson didn't know it was him and that Woodson did try to kill him. Not only does this create a major dissonance between story and gameplay (the player has to willingly shoot Mason in the legs to not kill him), but it also brings up the question of how did Raul not know Mason was still alive. You'd think he would have checked the body especially since the only places Mason was shot were his legs.

I prefer the "good" ending to the "best" ending because at least it makes sense.

 

[putowtin]

Heavy Rain.

Pretty much all of it.

Spoiler

- Shelby visits some families of victims of the killer. He receives clues and messages from them sent by the killer. Why do they have that stuff? That's key evidence. Why doesn't the police or FBI have it? At the time you meet them their child is already dead, so there is no reason why they would keep it, unless they're massive masochists and want a souvenir to remember the murder of their kid by.

I think the guy (the shop keeper) does explain that by saying:

Spoiler

"The police didn't help him so why should he help them?" The implication being that he'd never told the police about the origami clues, because they didn't help and because he was ashamed that he'd not tried to save his boy

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Heavy Rain.

Pretty much all of it.

Spoiler

- Shelby visits some families of victims of the killer. He receives clues and messages from them sent by the killer. Why do they have that stuff? That's key evidence. Why doesn't the police or FBI have it? At the time you meet them their child is already dead, so there is no reason why they would keep it, unless they're massive masochists and want a souvenir to remember the murder of their kid by.

I think the guy (the shop keeper) does explain that by saying:

Spoiler

"The police didn't help him so why should he help them?" The implication being that he'd never told the police about the origami clues, because they didn't help and because he was ashamed that he'd not tried to save his boy

Which is the stupidest, FLIMSIEST, excuse possible.

"I'm not going to give the police this evidence that could help them catch the killer because they didn't save my son, despite the fact that I didn't give them the evidence that they could have used to save my son!"

This is the level of David Cages writing ability everyone.

 

[Trunkage]

With all the alternate timelines, why didn't any Booker not got anywhere near the church. Alternate timelines miss the fact that there aren't only two option to a situation

 

[CommanderL]

Also GTA V. When Michael decides to pay Madrazo... Why? Why doesn't he just kill him like he kills everyone else that looks at him funny?

This happens at a point where Michael is still trying to keep his head down. His options were do a milk run job or go to war with a criminal syndicate with no plan, no weapons, no backup worth a damn (And not being a Time Lord). If the (relatively) easy job hadn't drawn attention, it would have been the end of things.

Yeah, he goes big later, but that's after things have gone further and further down the rabbit hole.

I'd like to think even Michael wasn't stupid enough to try and kill the head of a syndicate off the cuff like that.

Then again....That ending....

Honestly I like Indoctrination Theory, but with that extended ending DLC they cut out all possibilities of it.

Good. It was a shoestring theory in the first place. It was your typical conspiracy theory, except in this case it was actually about a work of fiction.

It was also a testament to how shit the narrative was. Fans had to actively construct a new one to try and pretend it was a decent story,.

The ending to mass effect 3 also made a huge plot hole for the first game all of it was becuase sovy couldnt open the mass relay and didnt know why but surely starchild could have opened it

 

[Zeras]

Also GTA V. When Michael decides to pay Madrazo... Why? Why doesn't he just kill him like he kills everyone else that looks at him funny?

This happens at a point where Michael is still trying to keep his head down. His options were do a milk run job or go to war with a criminal syndicate with no plan, no weapons, no backup worth a damn (And not being a Time Lord). If the (relatively) easy job hadn't drawn attention, it would have been the end of things.

Yeah, he goes big later, but that's after things have gone further and further down the rabbit hole.

I'd like to think even Michael wasn't stupid enough to try and kill the head of a syndicate off the cuff like that.

Then again....That ending....

Honestly I like Indoctrination Theory, but with that extended ending DLC they cut out all possibilities of it.

Good. It was a shoestring theory in the first place. It was your typical conspiracy theory, except in this case it was actually about a work of fiction.

It was also a testament to how shit the narrative was. Fans had to actively construct a new one to try and pretend it was a decent story,.

The ending to mass effect 3 also made a huge plot hole for the first game all of it was becuase sovy couldnt open the mass relay and didnt know why but surely starchild could have opened it

Think of the Catalyst as a computer: it can't operate the keys or turn itself on - it needs an external operator to function. IMO, that's what the Catalyst is.

 

[Thr33X]

Saint's Row- and pretty much whatever the hell happened to Dex between Ultor Exposed and SR:TT.

 

[Dalisclock]

Saint's Row- and pretty much whatever the hell happened to Dex between Ultor Exposed and SR:TT.

Can you elaborate? Ultor Exposed didn't make it onto PC so I'm not sure what you're referring to.