Bruce Willis is a ghost, Snape kills Dumbledore, and Aeris dies….
I learned of each of these plot twists before watching The Sixth Sense, reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and playing Final Fantasy 7, though I wouldn't say the experiences were "spoiled" for me. Maybe I was a bit more observant on my first time through, but I wasn't in it for the twists alone. No one would care about a shocking plot revelation if the story wasn't compelling from the start. But what if they're not in it for the story?
Video games have a tougher time with spoilers, because, whether or not you care about story, a ruined surprise can deplete a lot of a game's fun. What's worse is that some of these twists are significant selling points begging the question "How do you draw attention to a game's surprise without spoiling it?"
Let's look at a few examples of games that succeeded and failed at blowing players' minds.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
To play upon Lovecraft's recurring theme of otherworldy creatures driving people mad, Eternal Darkness' characters slowly grew more insane as the game progressed. Increasingly bizarre and frightening scenarios occurred as the characters slipped deeper into madness until the player eventually began to feel the effects, too. That was the intention, anyway.
Silicon Knights implemented a number of clever gimmicks to mess with the player's head, but not only was the game sold on this system, it measured the character's sanity with a convenient meter — and allowed players to reduce the negative effects with a spell acquired midway through the game. Chances are, if you picked up Eternal Darkness, you did so with the intent of experiencing insanity, which effectively lessened the gimmick's intentions and assured that you would grow tired of it before reaching the end.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
As a reimagining of the original Silent Hill, Shattered Memories took the opportunity to make significant changes to the series' established mechanics. Stare at a poster of a sexy pin-up or eye those bottles of booze in the psychiatrist's office — the game noticed, and the terrifying demons that chased you throughout Shattered Memories' action sequences then gradually changed to reflect your (supposed) fears, obsessions, and guilty pleasures. Of course, most gamers knew about this feature before playing the game, so they knew they were being watched.'
Unfortunately, developer Climax based the mechanic around a very limited pool of generalized assumptions — those demons lost a bit of their shock value when the players already knew what actions summoned them. But the sheer novelty of the system was still a strong selling point.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Unlike Eternal Darkness and Shattered Memories, Sons of Liberty featured a twist that probably would have deterred potential customers had they known about it beforehand. Everyone naturally assumed the follow-up to the hugely popular Metal Gear Solid would see the return of protagonist Solid Snake. After all, Konami released a lengthy pre-launch demo featuring Snake doing what he does best.
What the demo didn't alert players to was the fact that it represented the entirety of their time controlling Snake in Sons of Liberty. When they reached the ending point of the demo in the full game, they suddenly found the hero replaced with Raiden, a feminine novice who chats with his girlfriend throughout his dangerous mission. This wasn't a brief jab at players' expectations, either. Raiden was the hero for the rest of the game.
You can argue the change didn't make a huge difference as the two characters were fundamentally the same, but in a series that intertwines its epic plot with realistic mechanics, the switch was a big deal. Not only did it mess with the player's head by building up certain expectations through the demo, but the plot also mirrored the structure of the previous game in a way that wouldn't have worked had Snake remained the main character. 'The result? Sons of Liberty was the most divisive Metal Gear game ever — but also one of the most jarring and effective, in part because it was able to attract a large number of players while still hiding its vital secrets.
These examples illustrate the effect twists can have on video games over other mediums as well as the devestating effects of spoilers. You can still enjoy The Sixth Sense for what it is even if you know its secret going in, but it's difficult to be fooled by Eternal Darkness' tricks when you bought the game specifically for them.