History BrokenAesop / VideoGames

** ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' has a theme of "Constants and Variables" as a metaphor for video games themselves, with the "Constants" being the same story of every playthrough, and the "Variables" being all the different actions that different players will take while playing the game. Aside from the fact that it's the only game to not have MultipleEndings, the final DLC campaign tries to enforce a CanonEnding to the first game to make [[spoiler:Elizabeth's HeroicSacrifice to save Sally]] mean something. The player is still free to render it pointless by getting the bad ending or ignoring any blonde Little Sisters.

** Likewise, elven party member Sera insists she's "[[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch not like other]]" EnslavedElves because she's happy as she is, yet most of her dialogue and character content make it clear she's a [[LowerClassLout maladjusted]] teenager who has a ''lot'' of vitriolic self-loathing and InternalizedCategorism against other elves and herself. Yet every time you try to help her overcome this, the game suddenly flips to imply that ''you're'' trying to pressure her to conform to elven culture because you can't accept an elf who's different. The culmination of her friendship/romance even strongly implies that you're the first person to accept Sera for who she is instead of trying to change her, even though most of the narrative before this was either implying that her feelings were negative and needed to be overcome for her own sake, if not other people's, or acting as though you were doing the ''exact opposite'' of accepting her as she is. On top of that, playing as a female elf and taking pride in your people's history explicitly leads Sera to breakup with you if you try to romance her but refuse to accept her views on the history of the elves, with the player character being framed as the one who is wrong for not doing so.

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': The game teaches the player that people should not always judge people by appearance, origin, or race, with characters across the game having HiddenDepth and more layers than initially shown, such as with the game's companions. The problem with this moral involves The Emperor, who revealed to be the reason as to why the player and their allies are not changing into mind flayers themselves, yet he is overseeing the imprisonment of a githyanki named Orpheus to prevent the Absolute from assimilating him into it's mind flayer hive mind. When it's revealed that The Emperor is a mind flayer, the player can choose to be rude to him constantly and judge him for being a mindflayer and that rude judgement has the emperor reveal that he is manipulating the player by calling them his puppet. This revelation completely undermines' The Emperor's overall morality and convinced some players to turn on him by freeing Orpheus, showing that they were right to judge the Emperor by his appearance and race. This undercuts the moral of not judging others and looking past stereotypes, because even trying to work with the Emperor while not fully agreeing with his actions has him turn against you. The Emperor will even justify his actions (such as hiding the truth) as being the result of ''being'' a mindflayer, playing into the common assumption people have of mindflayers as being controlling and manipulative, meaning he is just as manipulative as his kind are commonly shown to be.

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': The game has players make their own choices with many consequences in the game, but it teaches that people should not always judge people by appearance, origin, or race. This is shown in the protagonist and the potential allies, such as the Dark Urge being tempted to kill but can actively reject the Urge, while companions like Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Astarion, and Karlach all play with expectations and turn out to be generally good people deep down. The problem with this moral involves a mind flayer named The Emperor. He is revealed to be the reason as to why the player and their allies are not changing into mind flayers themselves, yet he is overseeing the imprisonment of a githyanki named Orpheus to prevent the Absolute from assimilating him into it's mind flayer hive mind. When it's revealed that The Emperor is a mind flayer, the player can choose to be rude to him constantly and judge him for being a mindflayer and that rude judgement has the emperor reveal that he is manipulating the player by calling them his puppet. This revelation completely undermines' The Emperor's overall morality and convinced some players to turn on him by freeing Orpheus, showing that they were right to judge the Emperor by his appearance and race. This undercuts the moral of not judging others and looking past stereotypes, because even trying to work with the Emperor while not fully agreeing with his actions has him turn against you. The Emperor will even justify his actions (such as hiding the truth) as being the result of ''being'' a mindflayer, playing into the common assumption people have of mindflayers as being controlling and manipulative.

* The ''VideoGame/CaptainAmericaSuperSoldier'' game for the UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation 3}} is about Cap punching and shield-smashing his way through a Bavarian castle on his way to rescue his teammates and drive Hydra out. This tends to get accompanied by bold statements about how the whole "Master Race" thing is crap, because the Invaders prove that no man is any less valuable to the war effort than any other... except this is coming from ''Captain freaking America'' after a game where he handles almost all the direct combat by himself.

*** The game depicted every Orc as a bigoted and flatly evil character, with many orc NPCs that were [[SuddenSequelHeelSyndrome previously depicted as heroic being put into]] this strawman role. Conversely whenever anyone on the Alliance had any prejudice, the game emphasized they were a TragicBigot and that their feelings were justified. The game's PlayerCharacter blatantly describes Vol'jin the troll as "disgusting", "smelly" and a "savage", even insulting him to his face, with the game depicting this as a justified reaction and even adding flies around Vol'jin to justify. Essentially it made it seem like prejudice is justified as races are either [[AlwaysLawfulGood predisposed to Good]] or [[playing [[AlwaysChaoticEvil evil]].

*** The expansion pack had the aesop that PrejudiceAesop and "colonization is bad" aesop, but both aesops stumbled for several reasons.
*** The game depicted every Orc as a bigoted and flatly evil character, with many orc NPCs that were [[SuddenSequelHeelSyndrome previously depicted as heroic being put into]] this strawman role. Conversely whenever anyone on the Alliance had any prejudice, the game emphasized they were a TragicBigot and that their feelings were justified. Essentially it made it seem like prejudice is justified as races are either [[AlwaysLawfulGood predisposed to Good]] or [[playing [[AlwaysChaoticEvil evil]].
*** Anti colonization also stumbled because, again the orcs and their allies as well as the Zandalari Trolls were the only ones to be depicted as wrong for settling Pandaria, with any Alliance character being shown as treating the pandaren and the land respectfully outside of one instance where a character fell victim to an EmotionEater. The most glaring instance was Dwarf character, Twinbraid, previously shown as a genocidal colonist that massacred an entire tribe of natives, now being depicted as a hero out to protect the pandaren, whilst the native people that resisted him were depicted negatively for resisting. As a result, the aesop comes across more as "colonization is only bad when evil races do it".

* There is a subplot in ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' where Flynn expressed his disapproval of Yuri's VigilanteMan actions in [[spoiler:executing Ragou and Cumore.]] The problem was that both were too powerful and well-connected; one of them had ''already'' been tried in a court of law, and was given a slap on the wrist for feeding his own people to his pets ForTheEvulz. The latter is [[spoiler:one of the most high-ranking member of the knights, a combination of military and law enforcement.]] The justice system is [[KangarooCourt shockingly corrupt and ineffectual]], yet Flynn does not propose any immediate solution to allowing powerful mass murderers to walk free and continue their crimes. Since the justice system can't really touch them, what Flynn is proposing is that people get used to it until an idealistic young hotshot can gain enough power and influence to single-handedly reform the corrupt courts. Frankly, if the Empire was a corrupt as we saw it was, it may have ended with a sword in Flynn's back. While the game's intended Aesop was "justice is subjective," the LawfulStupid Flynn comes off as far more in the wrong than the ChaoticGood Yuri. [[spoiler:That said, it's implied that due to the events of the game, thanks to Ioder and Flynn himself ending up in positions of power, things will rapidly start changing. Still, it's very oddly written.]]

** At the end of the progression through the Isle of Thunder, Taran Zhu gives a WhatTheHellHero to the Alliance and Horde, saying that their fighting perpetuates a vicious cycle of retaliation, convincing the two sides to stand down, especially considering that they both have a common enemy in Garrosh. At this point, Nalak the Storm Lord is unlocked as a world boss, thus leading to players sabotaging efforts from groups from the rival faction so that ''they'' get to kill Nalak, a common enemy for both factions, and collect his loot.
** In the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, after killing their way through numerous Horde soldiers, a few of whom (like Nazgrim) were actually pretty decent people, the heroes suddenly decide to make a statement about mercy and justice by taking [[SuddenSequelHeelSyndrome the randomly evil]] Garrosh Hellscream alive. Inevitably, this leads to Garrosh escaping to an AlternateUniverse and creating a massive new Iron Horde for the Alliance and good Horde to deal with in the ''Warlords of Draenor'' expansion. While it's probably not fair to say the heroes should have seen that coming (time traveling dragons were involved), it still undermines the raid's intended moral when, by all rights, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they'd just executed Garrosh when they had the chance.

** Madame Vivienne was intended to be a change of pace from previous mage party members in the series, who were almost all apostates: mages that are outlaws for practicing magic outside the church-mandated school system, the Circle of Magi. Vivienne is presented as a mage who not only supports the Circle, but has flourished within the system, proof that the schools are not just prisons for mages. But it soon becomes clear that she's had a lot of luck most mages don't--she ''is'' very good at magic, but she was at one of the nicer circles and is a human (as opposed to, say, [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII Orsino]], who had the bad luck to be an elf in the Kirkwall circle), and is in a relationship with a powerful nobleman, and built connections from there. At the start of the game, she is adviser to the Empress and has her own suite in the palace. Meanwhile, she looks down on mages who speak out against mistreatment that she personally hasn't had to live with. So rather than "You can be successful within the system if you work hard," her message is closer to "I got lucky and now I support the system because it benefits ''[[ItsAllAboutMe me]]''."