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[Two Words]

EDIT- To be more clear, I am talking about massive changes to the gameplay. To the point where the game would be described as a totally different genre. A game's story making a sudden change isn't what is meant here.

For those that haven't seen From Dusk Till Dawn and don't care about spoilers:
The first half of the movie is about 2 criminal brothers kidnapping a family and using them as a vehicle to get into Mexico and meet at a club to do a drug deal. The scenes are typically very serious and high stakes with the family scared the whole time. They eventually get to the club and after Selma Hayek does a strip tease and puts her foot in Quinten Tarantino's mouth, everybody in the club turns into vampires and the movie becomes a campy vampire killing movie.



As those of you who have seen it know, From Dusk Till Dawn is a movie that has a dramatic change halfway through the movie in plot and tone. You're basically watching a completely different movie once the flip happens. How would you feel if you bought a $60 AAA game that was marketed to be a particular game and was suddenly changed halfway through. Let's assume the quality of the second half is equally good, but entirely different. How would you feel about the game doing this? Would you have an objection to it based on being mislead?


Something like the Raiden bait and switch of MGS2 doesn't really compare, before somebody suggests it. It would be more like an open world AAA game turning into a visual novel halfway through.

 

[we.are.the.armada]

can you describe the plot/tone shift, it's been so long so I'm not sure how dramatic it was

 

[pizzacat]

So brutal legend but not ass

 

[Icyflamez96]

I don't think it would be taken well at first but then would eventually be looked back at as being an iconic move or something.

With your specific example at least, and only if the game had a ton of hype and the change in genre wasn't revealed until people played the game themselves.

 

[Haunted]

http://twinbeard.com/frog-fractions/

So brutal legend

good call

 

[Chris_C]

I went in to From Dusk Till Dawn not having a clue what the movie was about, so it was a fantastic experience. I'm doubtful modern marketing campaigns would be savvy enough not to show us everything in trailers, but I'd very much welcome it.

 

[joe2187]

can you describe the plot/tone shift, it's been so long so I'm not sure how dramatic it was

Heist gone bad turned into campy vampire stripper gore fest.

 

[Two Words]

can you describe the plot/tone shift, it's been so long so I'm not sure how dramatic it was

The first half of the movie is about 2 criminal brothers kidnapping a family and using them as a vehicle to get into Mexico and meet at a club to do a drug deal. The scenes are typically very serious and high stakes with the family scared the whole time. They eventually get to the club and after Selma Hayek does a strip tease and puts her foot in Quinten Tarantino's mouth, everybody in the club turns into vampires and the movie becomes a campy vampire killing movie.

 

[Solaire of Astora]

Spoiler

Bloodborne

did it.

Not quite as drastically, but still. It was something no one saw coming, and it was received very well.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

Another film comparison to this concept would be horror movie

Spoiler

The Cabin in the Woods.

I like subverting expectations, so I would be all for it as long as it was well executed. One that people were hoping for in Genei Ibun Roku #FE's case was that halfway through the game, it becomes an apocalyptic nightmare game like Shin Megami Tensei, where the flashy idol aesthetic disappears. That would be really crazy, and impressive.

Portal kind of does this.

 

[bananafactory]

can you describe the plot/tone shift, it's been so long so I'm not sure how dramatic it was

Without spoiling, imagine if Titanic turned into Mad Max halfway through

That should give you an idea of how much it changes

 

[bengraven]

I'm still shocked no one realized the vampire thing until halfway through. The ads and making of were fucking everywhere back then.

 

[WhateverItTakes]

A indie game (last few years) that does this a little is

Spoiler

Little inferno

Spoiler

The fireplace that's been the entire focal point of the game blows up, and in finally stepping away from it you realise there's a world out there

There aren't a huge amount of instances where such a thing is appropriate but I think it's something that can really hammer home a message in a powerful way. Plus I would always respect the balls it takes to force a player to switch to a completely different mindset

 

[120v]

some of the greatest games had plot/tone shifts (may not be particularly what you had in mind, but i think LttP and FFVI count). you probably don't see it as much now because it'd be very resource heavy in a modern AAA game

as for upending gameplay conventions... eh. maybe?

 

[KZXcellent]

Bloodborne with it's

Spoiler

shift to aliens.

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

Spoiler

Bloodborne

did it.

Not quite as drastically, but still. It was something no one saw coming, and it was received very well.

Huh? What are you referring to? Bloodborne, to me, felt like the most cohesive all all the Souls games.

 

[Hoje0308]

While it didn't change the tone dramatically, that surprise in Metal Gear Solid 2 certainly left a lot of people feeling a similar kind of shock after having their expectations upended.

 

[Two Words]

Bloodborne with it's

Spoiler

shift to aliens.

That's more of a further revelation of the story. The tone of the game is still the same. And the gameplay is still the same. I'm talking about a game turning into an entirely different genre of game.

 

[bengraven]

A indie game (last few years) that does this a little is

Spoiler

Little inferno

Spoiler

The fireplace that's been the entire focal point of the game blows up, and in finally stepping away from it you realise there's a world out there

There aren't a huge amount of instances where such a thing is appropriate but I think it's something that can really hammer home a message in a powerful way. Plus I would always respect the balls it takes to force a player to switch to a completely different mindset

In fairness that's just a kind of "twist ending". That said, you're right, the gameplay changes a bit so maybe it does count.

 

[JumpJeff84]

Spoiler

Bloodborne

did it.

Not quite as drastically, but still. It was something no one saw coming, and it was received very well.

Really? I don't recall a major shift in the game, and I finished it.

 

[Draxal]

Indigo prophecy/Fahrenheit does this. Complete tonal shift in the game.

 

[MoonFrog]

Xenogears Disc 2 comes to mind...

 

[Skid 4 Dead]

Spoiler

Uncharted

did this, and I loved it.

 

[joe2187]

The last memorable one was Dragons Dogma. In fact Dragons Dogma was probably my favorite of all time

Starts out as a somewhat generic fantasy, go fight the Dragon and all that...

Spoiler

And then the fucken god hand appears and swallows up the entire kingdom drenching the world in darkness and unleashing hell beasts upon the land as you drift into an never ending void

.

 

[JumpJeff84]

On topic, I'd be into a game that switched up dramatically like that, assuming of course that both styles were done well.

Could you maybe say that Xenoblade Chronicles X does this? Halfway through you get a big-ass mech and gameplay switches up quite dramatically. Not that they've made a secret of it or anything

 

[Zeta Oni]

Spec Ops: The Line kinda goes with what your saying, but not perfectly.

If done right, I think it could be amazing.

 

[caleb1915]

That's more of a further revelation of the story. The tone of the game is still the same. And the gameplay is still the same. I'm talking about a game turning into an entirely different genre of game.

So definitely Brutal Legend, it was marketed from the beginning as a an adventure style game like psychonauts, but with a Metal theme. Even the demo they released cemented those ideas.

Then just before release they were like HAHA ITS A KIND OF CRAPPY PSEUDO RTS!

 

[Zvonimir Boban]

Indigo prophecy/Fahrenheit does this. Complete tonal shift in the game.

No it doesn't, gameplay stayed the same no matter how dumb the story became.

OP wants games that start off as one genre and then change into something else.

 

[Two Words]

On topic, I'd be into a game that switched up dramatically like that, assuming of course that both styles were done well.

Could you maybe say that Xenoblade Chronicles X does this? Halfway through you get a big-ass mech and gameplay switches up quite dramatically. Not that they've made a secret of it or anything

That's just the game slowly rolling out all of its toys. What I'm talking about would be something like a game being like a Call of Duty game for the first half of the campaign, and then suddenly transitioning into P.T. for the whole second half. And in that process, it deserted its first-half mechanics to fulfill the second half's gameplay.

 

[Obliterator]

Spoiler

Uncharted

did this, and I loved it.

Yeah this is a good example. The end section of the game is kinda out of nowhere directional change.

Also the opening of Assassin's Creed 1 is sort of like this. The game was not marketed as anything other than an Assassin game set in the past. Booting it for the first time and seeing a modern day setting was shocking

 

[Vlaphor]

From Dusk Until Dawn...

How about that?

 

[cj_iwakura]

Nier has some pretty wild genre shifts, it has a little visual novel and shmup mixed in with action RPG.

 

[Crzy1]

Spoiler

Until Dawn

did the same thing. It did it quite well, also.

Spoiler

Totally didn't expect the wendigo thing, but turned it from a teen horror slasher into a mythical boogeymen plot in a split second. Was jarring, but served to keep things interesting until the conclusion.

Fucking amazing game all over, though.

Edit:

Spoiler

Just realized the play on naming, hadn't hit me before. Not sure if it's what they were going for, but nice.

 

[Choomp]

From Dusk Until Dawn...

How about that?

Wow, it kinda works too

Seriously though I liked the movie and like crazy shifts like that. Why not.

 

[whiteninja]

The nes game Guardian Legend starts out as a shmup. then after beating that first area you transform and its more like an action rpg now. Though the shmup levels are interspersed throughout the game though so it goes back and forth.
I dont think this was ever replicated in another game since which is a shame since it was so awesome.

 

[Fantastical]

Spoiler

Uncharted

did this, and I loved it.

Yeah I thought about that immediately. It's not quite the same because the tonal shift isn't as huge, but it's a decent comparison.

 

[dragonyeuw]

 

[Vlaphor]

The nes game Guardian Legend starts out as a shmup. then after beating that first area you transform and its more like an action rpg now. Though the shmup levels are interspersed throughout the game though so it goes back and forth.
I dont think this was ever replicated in another game since which is a shame since it was so awesome.

The NES game Paris-Dakar Rally Special does that. Driving, mild simulation, puzzle, side-scrolling platformer. It's just all done terribly. Arino challenged it on Game Center CX and the episode has been subbed. Worth a watch.

http://www.sa-gccx.com/episode/paris-dakar-rally-special

 

[BennyBlanco]

i wish a AAA developer had the balls to misrepresent their product like that

 

[DedValve]

Spoiler

Bloodborne

did it.

Not quite as drastically, but still. It was something no one saw coming, and it was received very well.

nowhere near close to what the OP is describing. Bloodborne changed thematically yes but even then it wasn't anything extreme where the story was different, just revealed. And it had no impact on gameplay.

Not in terms of gameplay but....shit how do you spoiler this? Don't click if you haven't played 2015 game folks

Spoiler

Until Dawn did this thematically and it was fucking fantastic

 

[Obliterator]

Yeah

Spoiler

Until Dawn

is another good example

 

[t26]

Hatoful Boyfriend can turn into a turn based RPG

 

[ichtyander]

While talking about Brutal Legend, I'd say Giants: Citizen Kabuto should also be mentioned, since it does a similar thing. MDK2 kinda does its own thing with three different characters, but it's still mostly a TPS with the same gameplay.

It's an interesting concept, and something I'd like to see more of, but it's pretty risky, especially for a larger budget title.

Come to think of it, Spore might not be a bad example. You can kind of go back to certain older gameplay elements but the whole point of the game is to go through different genres and end up with the galactic exploration endgame.

There was quite a large number of mostly (but not always) movie tie-ins in the late 80s and early 90s, especially in the home computer market of the time, and most of these games were designed to let you experience different pivotal moments from the movies, or just make you feel like you're Rambo, or Robocop or whatever.
So most of these games were multi-genre, each level having completely different gameplay, although sometimes they were just cycling through two or three genres a few times.

So something like Platoon on the C64/NES/other platforms is a good example:
- Level 1: sidescrolling shooter / maze
- Level 2: first person shooter / maze
- Level 3: railgun / shooting gallery
- Level 4: third person shooter

It's kinda all about shooting, but the gameplay is drastically different.

Back to the Future II also has sidescrolling hoverboarding, sidescrolling brawler, jigsaw puzzle and a top-down action puzzle.

Also, lots of old games had very distinct bonus stages that had nothing to do with the main gameplay, but it's a very minor example.

 

[Hypron]

I wouldn't mind but the game would need to keep up the same quality after the switch.

I found the first half of From Dusk Till Dawn way better than the later half, and not just because of the tone.

 

[Messofanego]

Genre shifter, eh?

With the way how mechanics are developed, it'd be essentially making multiple games in one. Don't know devs who have that much time and resources to do it well.

The most generally acceptable way of doing this is via minigames with their own mechanics, but those wouldn't change the status quo of gameplay.

You could have changes to gameplay based on day or night, like Alan Wake is an adventure game in daylight and a shooter at night. Based on characters who have different abilities or weapons. But what's being asked in OP is quite the monumental effort.

 

[we.are.the.armada]

Without spoiling, imagine if Titanic turned into Mad Max halfway through

That should give you an idea of how much it changes

The first half of the movie is about 2 criminal brothers kidnapping a family and using them as a vehicle to get into Mexico and meet at a club to do a drug deal. The scenes are typically very serious and high stakes with the family scared the whole time. They eventually get to the club and after Selma Hayek does a strip tease and puts her foot in Quinten Tarantino's mouth, everybody in the club turns into vampires and the movie becomes a campy vampire killing movie.

Heist gone bad turned into campy vampire stripper gore fest.

omg that's right, wow what a crazy movie

yeah, I'd be fine with that kind of game, my friends and I used to joke about a duke nukem game FPS that ends after the first boss AND THEN he realizes how much of a fucked loser he is and tries to save his illegitimate children from drug abuse in a "Heavy Rain"-like game

as for a game that actually exists and does this, well sort of, is Dragon's Dogma - the initial game (20-50hrs) is an open world action rpg but the DLC Dark Arisen feels more like a castlevania style setup.

 

[Chromium.Wings]

I can only think of franchises that did this, not necessarily single games in a series that have done this on that extreme of a scale. Unless

Spoiler

Uncharted

can count?

But series overall that I can say have done this:

Resident Evil - went from a relatively isolated incident with detective-like with some action gameplay encouraging you to inspect as much stuff as possible to figure out what to do next to a large global threat with primarily action-packed gameplay.

Jak and Daxter - from a light hearted open world collectathon to a much more broad open world game with missions that are central to the story rather than quests that can almost all be completed optionally.

Metal Gear Solid - Where can I even begin here? MGS1/2 play different from MGS3 which plays somewhat similar, but still really different from MGS4 with none of them being anywhere near similar to MGSV.

 

[John Rabbit]

Spoiler

Bloodborne

did it.

Not quite as drastically, but still. It was something no one saw coming, and it was received very well.

a game that starts off as conventional horror and shifts to

Spoiler

cosmic****

horror isn't really on the same level as a film almost switching entire genres halfway through it's run-time.

 

[ichtyander]

Just remembered Infiltrator, an oldie with a pretty obvious change of genres, divided in two distinct parts.

The first part puts you in the cockpit of a chopper:

The second is the infiltration mission on the ground, divided into the outside grounds, where you try to detect/avoid landmines and find a way into the base:

And the base interior, where you search the compound while avoiding guards, showing false papers to buy you some time, knock out guards or change uniform (Hitman style) to blend in better:

I mean there's a shit ton of these multi-genre old games, from computers to consoles and arcades, and they pretty much fit the topic, but they were kind of their own thing. Since those games were much simpler most of the time, you could basically pull off doing multiple games into one, and a lot of them were done pretty badly. Still, some of my most beloved oldies are multi-genre games.

 

[Two Words]

Just remembered Infiltrator, an oldie with a pretty obvious change of genres, divided in two distinct parts.

The first part puts you in the cockpit of a chopper:

The second is the infiltration mission on the ground, divided into the outside grounds, where you try to detect/avoid landmines and find a way into the base:

And the base interior, where you search the compound while avoiding guards, showing false papers to buy you some time, knock out guards or change uniform (Hitman style) to blend in better:

I mean there's a shit ton of these multi-genre old games, from computers to consoles and arcades, and they pretty much fit the topic, but they were kind of their own thing. Since those games were much simpler most of the time, you could basically pull off doing multiple games into one, and a lot of them were done pretty badly. Still, some of my most beloved oldies are multi-genre games.

Plus, they were marketed to be like that. There are plenty of games that contain multiple of types of games within them. But they advertise themselves as such.