When it comes to long-form storytelling, retcons are inevitable. At times, retcons erase a plot development that did more harm than good. In other instances, something gets retconned to make way for a new plot beat.

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Video game series have been using retcons for as long as anyone could remember, but not all of them worked as intended. Where some retcons helped certain games repair their stories and gameplay, others only made things worse.

10 IMPROVED — Final Fantasy VII Remake Is More Than Just A Remake

Cloud And Sephiroth Clash Swords In Final Fantasy 7 Remake

At first glance, Final Fantasy VII Remake was a remaster of the classic game, but it was a lot more. Remake had strange retcons, like characters surviving events they originally died in, characters having new personas, and Sephiroth appearing earlier than before. Turns out, the game is an alternate reality and the opening of a Final Fantasy multiverse.

Final Fantasy VII Remake even closed with a new ending, with Cloud and friends ready to fight Sephiroth in another plane of reality. The only reason why Remake ranks low is that it's still ongoing. As of this writing, it's too early to tell how Remake will affect the legacies of both Final Fantasy VII and the entire franchise.

9 GOT WORSE — Spec Ops: The Line Redefined The FPS, But Killed The Franchise

Spec Ops The Line

The Spec Ops series began in 1998, and it was comprised of indistinguishable military shooters that were dismissed as Call Of Duty imitations at best and army propaganda at worst. When Yager Development began developing a reboot in 2007, they ignored the previous games' story and nationalistic tone and deconstructed them.

The end result was Spec Ops: The Line, a grim modern warfare shooter that demolished everything wrong with the subgenre, including the player's intent. While The Line brought Spec Ops back into the mainstream and became one of the most respected games ever made, it, unfortunately, bombed financially and killed the series.

8 IMPROVED — Saints Row Found New Life By Parodying Itself

The Saints Come Marching In Saints Row 4

When it started, Saints Row was yet another Grand Theft Auto clone in an overcrowded sea of clones. Case in point, the first game was the nth self-serious gang war set in a citywide sandbox not unlike Los Santos or Vice City. To separate itself from its inspiration, Saints Row retconned its original gritty vision for something wackier.

By Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV, the games were now the Saturday morning cartoon versions of a gang war. Key characters and locations remained, but they were now exaggerated spoofs of their previous selves. This parodic retcon didn't just help the Third Street Saints finally step out of GTA's shadow, but it rejuvenated the franchise.

7 GOT WORSE — Devil May Cry's Proposed Prequel Timeline Angered The Fanbase

A Younger Dante Poses In DmC Devil May Cry

When it was first announced, Ninja Theory's DmC: Devil May Cry was said to be both a prequel and a reboot. Giving Dante a fresh start and an origin story weren't inherently bad ideas. However, DmC missed the franchise's point so much that not only was it demoted to being an alternate universe, but its prequel timeline was scrapped.

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DmC replaced the series' fun badass attitude with a more serious one, which is best shown in an edgy Dante who lacked his signature bravado and quips. Fans, meanwhile, felt that these retcons tarnished the series' legacy. In response, Capcom dropped its DmC plans and returned to form with the highly praised Devil May Cry 5.

6 IMPROVED — Far Cry Reinvented Itself By Ditching Its Generic Formula

Vaas Looks At His Prey In Far Cry 3

In its infancy, the only thing that made Far Cry stand out from other FPS games was its tropical setting and sci-fi twist. Starting with Far Cry 2, the games ditched the outlandish elements and doubled down on being gritty and realistic shooters. That said, the best and most obvious changes would only bear fruit in Far Cry 3.

Far Cry 3 was a gamechanger in many ways, so much so that it's considered to be Far Cry's true beginning. The critically acclaimed sequel retconned the originals' story and style, favoring a descent into darkness mixed with survival gameplay and charismatic villains. Far Cry 3's retcons worked so well that they became the series' norms.

5 GOT WORSE — Metal Gear Solid Became More Confusing With Each New Retcon

Venom Snake Confides With Ocelot In Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain

If there's one thing Metal Gear Solid is known for besides meta fourth-wall-breaking, it's retcons. Depending on who's asked, Solid Snake's signature franchise is either a genius when it comes to its retcons and plot twists, or it's borderline self-parody. Without exaggeration, the series' retcons only made an already convoluted conspiracy even more complex.

For example, supernatural feats were explained with nanomachines, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain looped back to the forgotten Metal Gear (1987), and Revolver Ocelot's identity and loyalty always shifted. Many of these twists seemingly came out of nowhere, which made things harder to follow and unintentionally hilarious to some.

4 IMPROVED — Mortal Kombat 11 Cleaned The Series' Canon With Kronika

Kronika Guards The Timeline In Mortal Kombat 11

As a fighting game, the once-controversial Mortal Kombat didn't really need to prioritize its lore and characters, and the series' daunting number of spin-offs and sequels is proof that it didn't. This changed in Mortal Kombat 11, which acknowledged all of the previous entries through Kronika, an extra-dimensional Titaness who oversaw all of time.

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Additionally, Kronika was revealed to be pulling every fighter's strings from the beginning. For instance, she orchestrated Liu Kang and Raiden's rivalry to stop them from uniting against her. Not only did Kronika clean up Mortal Kombat's chronology and give it a fresh restart, but she retroactively tied up dangling plot threads.

3 GOT WORSE — Kingdom Hearts' Retcons Made Its Labyrinthine Lore Almost Impossible To Understand

Xehanort Leads His Variants In Kingdom Hearts

By this point, it's common knowledge that Kingdom Hearts has one of the most complex narratives in all of gaming history. As if determining whether any given entry was canon or a spin-off wasn't hard enough, each game comes with tons of retcons that only make sense to those who played literally every entry and took down notes.

For example, the now-defunct web browser game Kingdom Hearts X is the series' belated prequel, the Keyblade's origins keep changing, which Xehanort the player fights depends on which timeline the game is set in, and more. Figuring out where each game falls in the chronology is arguably easier than keeping track of all the retcons.

2 IMPROVED — BioShock: Burial At Sea Tied Columbia & Rapture's Destinies

Xehanort Leads His Variants In Kingdom Hearts

One of the biggest revelations in BioShock Infinite was the BioShock multiverse, where the original game was a parallel version of Infinite's events. That said, Booker and Elizabeth's visit to Rapture was little more than an Easter Egg that only drove Elizabeth's exposition home. This changed with the two-part DLC, Burial At Sea. 

Burial At Sea wasn't just an alternate reality where Booker and Elizabeth lived in Rapture, but a direct prequel to the beloved classic BioShockThe DLC chapters put many of the original game's lingering questions to rest, while also showing how its characters' actions (especially Elizabeth's) directly shaped the Rapture Civil War and Atlas' downfall.

1 GOT WORSE — Fallout 76 Retconned Almost Everything About The Original Games & Killed The Franchise

The Pip Boy Witnesses Nuclear Winter In Fallout 76

For better and mostly worse, Fallout 76 was a Fallout game like no other. Not only was it the franchise's first foray into online multiplayer, but it was also the first entry that prioritized gameplay experience over interactive storytelling. As innovative and exciting as these retcons sound, they backfired in the worst possible ways.

Fallout 76 didn't just forego the franchise's RPG formula for something developers weren't familiar with but disregarded everything Fallout stood for as well. Cases in point, combat-focused gameplay and the lack of meaningful player choices.  The backlash was so swift that even with some decent patches, Fallout 76 didn't just flop on launch, but killed Fallout overnight.

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