If you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t have seen these versions or spiritual successors coming.
Like movies, video games are made with the goal of making money. Most of the time, big-name brands and properties make more money because people know and trust the original property and want more. Games and movies usually have sequels because it’s easier to be sure of a certain amount of success and income.
Some video games like to hint at the future, whether out of hope, faith, or just a creative choice. There may be scenes that hint at certain plot points or characters in the sequel. There may also be hidden clues, puzzles to solve, or Easter eggs to find that show what the developers had in mind. In different ways, many video games give hints about what will come next.
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
Even though The Last of Us is not a sequel to the Uncharted games, the two series have a lot in common because they were both made by Naughty Dog. There are necklaces, names, signs, and other things in both sets that hint at a possible link.
Before The Last of Us came out, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception was launched. In that game, you can find a newspaper with the headline “Scientists are still trying to figure out how deadly fungus works.” This was Naughty Dog’s way of not only teasing about their next project, but also giving away the story’s main idea and some background information.
Horizon: Zero Dawn
When Horizon: Zero Dawn came out, it was meant to be the start of a new series of games that would add to Sony’s growing list of single-player games. Sylens knows this, so in the scene after the credits, he traps the AI Hades so he can ask it who sent the signal that turned it on.
End credits scenes are common in video games and movies, but it shows a lot of faith when a new IP has one that not only hints at a sequel but also tells you exactly what it’s about.
Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Most games in the Splinter Cell series can be played on their own and are based on stealth. The first game to go against that trend was Splinter Cell: Double Agent. At the end of the game, the main character, Sam Fisher, is on the run, his daughter is probably dead, and he has lost everything he knows and loves.
It’s a bad situation, and even though he saves the day, it doesn’t feel like a happy ending. This alone shows that Sam’s journey is far from over. Also, there is a “to be continued” card at the end of the game for erasing any subtlety.
The Secret of Monkey Island
The point-and-click Monkey Island games are funny, tongue-in-cheek adventures. In it, you play as Guybrush Threepwood, a guy who wants to be a pirate. His goal is to find out what is hidden on Monkey Island and become the best pirate in the world.
He goes on his journey, beats the bad guy, and saves the day. But he doesn’t figure out what the secret of Monkey Island is. Slope Game ends with a huge question that hasn’t been solved yet. The second book would end in a similar way, with a cliffhanger. Not until Return to Monkey Island did the secret finally, sort of, come out. This is a series of games that always teases what’s to come but doesn’t always deliver.
Resident Evil 3: Remake
One of the nice things about remaking a game is that you can connect story points and threads from the past. That’s what Resident Evil 3’s remake did. In RE 3, the monster Nemesis follows you around the city. The remake shows that Nemesis is an early version of the parasite seen in Resident Evil 4 that was made through bioengineering.
Nemesis has tentacles that look a lot like Las Plagas from Resident Evil 4, and when it infects zombies with bugs, it leaves behind tentacles like Las Plagas. On top of that, there are documents that prove the link and show that the bug in the fourth entry is the same one in Nemesis. None of this was in RE 3 when it first came out. It not only has more connections to RE 4, but it also hints that RE 4 will be the next game to be remade.
Assassin’s Creed
Every Assassin’s Creed game gives hints about what’s coming next in the series. On computers, you can find documents that hint at character reveals and future plot points. There are also puzzles to solve and clues to figure out.
In the first game, the story ends in a way that makes it seem like there will be more. The characters promise to find more pieces of Eden, and there is also a mysterious set of cyphers, graphs, and glyphs. All of these things point to a disaster that is still to come. As the series went on, this disaster would become the main plot point.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Some games like to say in a very clear way that there will be more. Most of the time, this happens in a cutscene or through a line of conversation. It’s usually part of the story, where people promise to come back or do something.
This was not the case in Batman: Arkham Asylum. In this game, players had to go out of their way to find hints and signs about what would happen in the next game. Even when they did find them, they didn’t always know what they meant. For example, a secret room shows what could happen in the next game, which would be called Arkham City. But players had to dig deep and experiment with how the game worked to find it.
Metal Gear Solid
It’s common for big movies to put a scene at the end of the credits that hints at a sequel, a character, or a story point. It makes people want to see what happens next in the story. They are also in video games.
In the first Metal Gear Solid, after Snake saves the day and puts a stop to the disaster, he and Meryl ride off into the distance. As the credits roll, conversation shows that one of the main bad guys made it through the whole thing, and on top of that, he is working with the President. The first Metal Gear Solid can be played on its own, but the ending gives hints about what will happen in the second game.