Riddle For The Ages / Video Games

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Riddles for the Ages in Video Games.

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• Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed: At one point in the game, the characters decide to watch the entirety of an anime called Striprism. After watching it, they all agree it was great, except for the last episode which was considered bad. Just what made the last episode so awful is never explained.
• Anchorhead: At the end, you learn that your character is pregnant. If she has a son, it might permit the Big Bad to start his Evil Plan all over again by possessing that son. If she has a daughter, she's definitely in the clear. The game ends there, leaving it up to the player to decide what happens next.
• Bayonetta 2: What exactly happened between Madama Butterfly and Alraune, and why does the latter hate the former so much?
• Brandish: Are the Master Ninja Ares confronts in 2, and Jinza from 3 the same person? To this day, Falcom has never confirmed nor denied whether they're completely separate characters or the former.
• BioShock: Why can't boys be used as incubators of ADAM? Dr. Tenenbaum reveals in an audio diary that even she doesn't know, claiming Fontaine joked that it meant one less bathroom to build in the orphanage.
• Bloodborne:
  • It’s unclear if the game’s events are even occurring in reality or are just a living nightmare. While the item description for the Lead Elixer (which has an unknown recipe and is said to only manifest in truly desperate nightmares) and the “Yharnam Sunrise” ending implies it really is, there is no definitive answer. To make things more confusing, the game is heavily based on Lovecraftian lore, and one of Lovecraft's most prevalent themes is that dreams consist of astrally projecting oneself in to the Dreamlands, a real place that it's possible to visit in person.
  • Is Mergo really a baby Great One? Did it actually die from being stillborn? Is it aware of the Nightmare its causing?
  • Just what is the Moon Presence and why did it create the Hunter's Dream? Does it want to stop the Great Ones and if it does, why so? Is it a Great One itself? Does it genuinely want to help mankind or does it have ulterior motives. Very little about it is answered.
  • Just what does the “Childhood’s Beginning” ending entail? Does the Good Hunter turning into a baby Great One mean good things for humanity or will the cycle of man finding the Great Ones and abusing their power continue?
• Club Penguin: A lot of questions in the game were eventually answered, but not all of them:
  • Why is Sensei the only gray penguin?
  • Is Card-Jitsu Shadow real? It's mentioned in one of the comics, but in an unclear way.
  • Who was the new recruit mentioned in the EPF Handbook?
  • Are any of the "rumored puffles" mentioned in the poster showing all types of puffles real?
• Control: Where do Altered Items come from? How are they created? Why do some manifest as Objects of Power that can give powers to certain people? Why only those people? What happened to Doctor Darling? Are Jesse and Dylan originally one person that was split into two by Hydron? What is the Oldest House? What is the Board? What is the Former? There's a lot of information given, but most of it is speculation, and the few actual facts given only raise more questions. But the entire point of the game is that some things will never be known.
• Dark Souls:
  • What are the Primordial Serpents? Where did they come from? Do they still exist? How many are there? What exactly are they even attached too? Even for a game famous for Story Breadcrumbs, almost nothing about them seems to exist in the lore. Almost as if they don't belong.
  • What happened to Gwynevere after she left Anor Londo? There are some similarities between Heide's Tower of Flame in Drangleic and Anor Londo that seem to imply she went there. But the questions don't stop there; was she really the Queen of Lothric? A lot of things point in that direction but her presence is just gone from the world as if she never existed.
  • What is up with the Darklurker? Does it have any connection to the Angels of Lothric?
  • Who are the Angels? The Winged Messengers of the Divine that visited Lothric one day? Were they merely parasites like The Ringed City DLC implied or was there something else going on? It's much more noticeable than most examples in the series because the Angel storyline seemed like it was going somewhere before abruptly ending following the climax of Lothric Castle.
• If it weren't for subtle hints of meaning throughout Daymare Town, it would just be a Mind Screw. Some questions are raised in-story (is it fog or mist surrounding the town?), others remain unspoken (how did the player get there?).
• Demon's Crest: Everything about the The Dark Demon. Perhaps the most enigmatic character in the franchise: Just who is he? What were his schemes? How does he tie to the Crest War? Could he be the true ruler of the Demon Realm? The only things we know for sure about him is that he is the oldest demon in the realm and was in the Human Realm for a time before the Crest War, heavily implying he could very well be actual Satan.
• In Device 6, at the end the text reads that Anna sailed away from the island, but the pictures show her being shot and killed. Since Device 6 can alter text and images, but not both at the same time, which event really happened.
• Donkey Kong:
  • Ever since the series got a soft reboot with Donkey Kong Country, everything regarding Donkey Kong Jr. - from his standing within the Kong clan, to his identity - has been left in the dark for decades. Cranky Kong suggests that he was the title character in the original Donkey Kong, which would make Jr. his son, but earlier material claims that the SNES-era Donkey Kong, Cranky's grandson, is Jr. grown up. To make things even more confusing, whenever Jr. appeared in any game made after the SNES trilogy, he's treated as either a completely separate character, or an afterthought. No one at either Nintendo or Rare has ever clarified anything about Donkey Kong Jr. to this day.
  • Donkey Kong 64:
    • In the game's manual, Cranky mentions he's been working on a game called Great Girdle Grapple and claims it's been included somewhere in the game. No other reference to this is made and some players assumed he's actually talking about the Donkey Kong arcade found in Frantic Factory. Nothing official has been declared.
    • The Fungi Forest lobby features three wooden shutters. One opens to reveal a Banana Fairy, while another contains a Chunky Pad, which is used to access a Battle Arena. The third one, however, remains closed. Hacking the game reveals there IS a small area beyond the door but there's no way in-game to open it.
    • Inside the Creepy Castle museum there's a conspicuous room with a pillar that can be accessed via a Tiny pad located behind the racetrack. Aside from some purple bananas, there's nothing noteworthy inside and it's seemingly only for decoration. Rareware actually commented on this via Scribes and Uncle Tusk, the company's long-defunct fanmail pages. Aside from explaning the pillar DID something at some point, they did not elaborate any further other than saying it was removed due to "developmental fluctuations".
• Double Switch: Who took the statue at the end?
• Dragon Age: Was Andraste truly the Bride of the Maker or simply a powerful mage? The developers say it's up for the players to decide.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition: Was the entity who helped the Inquisitor escape the Fade truly Divine Justinia, or a spirit impersonating her?
• Elden Ring:
  • One of the biggest questions, even prior to the game releasing, was 'who or what shattered the Elden Ring, and why?' While you do find out the 'who', Queen Marika, it's never explicitly stated why she did it. Several potential motivations are left open, but none are confirmed explicitly; it could be anything to grief from losing Godwyn, a desire to destroy the Golden Order she herself created, to spite the Greater Will, or all or none of the above.
  • What is the true relationship between Marika and Radagon? We know that they are currently Sharing a Body and considered the same person, but it's never revealed if Radagon was always part of Marika, or if he was a separate person who merged with her somehow.
  • Melina's mother's identity is never revealed explicitly, despite being a core part of her motivation to travel with the Tarnished: the most popular theory is that she's a daughter of Marika and Radagon, like Malenia and Miquella. Her AI name is MaricaOfDaughter and she has thematic similarities with the two; she has reddish hair like Malenia, she's associated with a butterfly like the other two (Malenia is the Aeonian Butterfly associated with herself as the Goddess of Rot, Miquella is the Nascent Butterfly that always looks young just like he's an eternal child, and Melina is associated with the Smoldering Butterfly as her purpose is also to burn), and she says her purpose was given to her by her "mother within the Erdtree", and the only person there is Marika. On the other hand, she never names her mother and refers to Marika formally as "Queen Marika", and the Frenzied Flame ending shows that her hidden eye is purple, drawing comparisons to the lore figure the Gloam-Eyed Quen.
  • While the Grace of Gold is described explicitly as the blessing of the Erdtree to its followers, where the 'Guidance of Grace' of the Tarnished comes from is never explained. Through its association with gold and powers of revival, and thus life, it's implied that it comes from either the Greater Will or Marika herself; however, Marika is imprisoned within the Erdtree and is completely unconcious, if she's even properly 'alive' when we meet her - this should leave the Greater Will as the obvious solution...except it's mighty weird that the Greater Will would indicate the path to burn the Erdtree.
  • The motivation why the Erdtree has closed its way to anyone seeking to repair the Ring or become Elden Lord is unknown - while it's highly implied this was done by Radagon and the Elden Beast, or the Elden Beast-as-Radagon (Radagon's cross-hatch lattice symbol is visible on the locked entrance), the reason for the seal is never explained other than it being a sign of the land being forsaken; in fact, it takes the Two Fingers, emissaries of the Greater Will itself, completely by surprise and they try to establish connection to their god to get answers - which would take thousands of moons that the Tarnished can't afford. Is it Radagon being such a Broken-System Dogmatist that he refuses to allow anyone to replace the Golden Order by fixing the Elden Ring? Does the Greater Will refuse to have any more Elden Lords, and the Elden Beast is acting out its will? Is the Elden Beast doing what it simply thinks the Greater Will wants, but is disconnected to it like the Two Fingers are? Has the Elden Beast gone rogue and is simply trying to hold control of the world, everything else be damned? It's left to the players to interpret.
  • Almost everything about Godefroy the Grafted. We know he was a member of the Golden Lineage (and thus a relative of Godrick), engaged in grafting, was captured and imprisoned in an Evergaol by a Leyndell knight named Kristoff during the First Defense of Leyndell (which involved Godrick's army besieging Leyndell and being thoroughly defeated), and gameplay-wise he's basically a copy of Godrick's first phase, and we can infer that he looked up to Godfrey since the Godfrey Icon talisman is a drop from his boss fight. Beyond that, he's a total unknown, being mentioned only once (item description for the Ancient Dragon Knight Kristoff ashes, describing how Kristoff captured him) outside his Evergaol fight. We have no clue what his exact relationship to Godrick was, his role in the Shattering (other than being an ally to Godrick), and the circumstances surrounding him turning to grafting.
  • How did the Leonine Misbegotten in the Cave of the Forlorn come across the Golden Order Greatsword? The weapon used to be Radagon's weapon, originally the Full Moon Greatsword Renalla gave him, but reforged for Marika, so how did it end up so far away from him?
  • What is the source of those giant skeletons embedded in the cliffs, and what are the enthroned skeletons outside the Eternal Cities?
  • Who created the Divine Towers, since they bear no symbology from Marika's empire and are clearly older than the bridges leading there? And what killed the dead Two Fingers at the top of each tower?
  • What happened to Malenia and Miquella's divine shadows? All Empyreans have wolfman shadows, and we meet Ranni's (Blaidd) and Marika's (Malekith), but the twins' shadows are nowhere to be found even though they're both confirmed Empyreans. And while the obvious answer is that 'their shadows turned on them when Miquella decided to create the Haligtree, and Malenia dealt with them', Blaidd explicitly says that the Two Fingers can resurrect him whenever they want and only fail to do so after they themselves die, and the only way to kill the Two Fingers is the Fingerslayer Blade hidden in Nokron. So if that's the case, how did Malenia prevent them from coming back?
  • Almost everything about the Ancient Dynasty is shrouded in mystery; the only references to them are in a couple descriptions (the Claymen are apparently searching for oracles from them) and some ruins scattered around the world (the Uld Palace ruins, the ruins in the Lake of Rot, and Mohgwyn Dynasty Mausoleum were once from this civilization). Basically all we know is that a) they existed at some point and were a major power with settlements across the Lands Between, both above and underground, b) they're gone now and few remember their existence, and c) they really liked building statues depicting a robed man with a long beard, holding a tablet with another (a copy of the Babylonian Map of the World) at his feet. This guy was clearly super important, but who he was and what role he played for his people has been lost.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • What happened to the Dwemer?
    • They were a highly technologically advanced race who created all manner of Magitek and Steampunk technology, which remains unmatched by any other race in Tamriel. They were also extreme Naytheists for whom a major part of their outlook was the idea of refuting everything as real. During the mid-1st Era, they discovered the Heart of Lorkhan (the "divine center" of the dead creator god of the mortal plane) deep beneath Red Mountain. Though there are many different versions of the story regarding what happened next, the Dwemer did something with the Heart that caused their entire race to disappear from every known plane of existence in a single instant. The leading theory (which you can put together yourself in the Mages Guild quest line in Morrowind) states that they were trying to break themselves down into their base elements before ascending into divine form. However, they got something wrong with the "reforging" step and instead blinked out of existence. Other theories state that they may have even been successful in their attempt and are currently on said "higher plane"; after all, how would we, still stuck on the lower plane, know the difference? Making it only more confusing is one particular Dwemer ruin that shows that whatever happened was violent and abrupt; it's a residential area, and you find piles of ash that used to be Dwemer in beds or near their piles of equipment on guard duty. Despite the theories, no definitive answer has been given in the series to date.
    • In-Universe, the mystery of the Dwemer has only deepened by the time of Skyrim since much of what was known about the Dwemer was again lost in the 200 years following the Oblivion Crisis and the eruption of Red Mountain (which wiped away a great number of Dwemeri ruins in Vvardenfell, the epicenter of Dwemer culture prior to their disappearance). Even one of the greatest experts on the Dwemer, Calcelmo, knows less about the Dwemer than some amateur archeologists in Vvardenfell during the time of Morrowind.
    • The mystery actually gets weirder and weirder the more you delve into it because every potential answer raises further questions and contradictions. If the Dwarves destroyed themselves then where are their spirits? Even dead souls still end up somewhere in Aetherius, but Vivec, Dagoth Ur and Sotha Sil, three living gods with super senses, all have no idea what happened and Vivec states that he can't sense them on any plane of existence. Could the Dwarves have Zero Summed and been erased from existence? Assuming The Dream is the true cosmology of Elder Scrolls, that would still rely on every last Dwarf failing to achieve CHIM or Amaranth which is a stretch. Additionally, Falion the Wizard claims that he encountered some in the planes of Oblivion, which is still inside the Universe and Yagrum Bagarn was spared from the disappearance for similar reasons. At the end of the day, there's just no way to come up with a good answer with the information we have.
    • Enforced on the meta level. When the development team of The Elder Scrolls Online wanted to explore the disappearance of the Dwemer, the idea was "nixed" by Bethesda Executive Director Todd Howard, who stated "this [is] something we will never do, we will never come out and spoil the mystery and the secrets of the Dwemer".
  • In Skyrim, every other one of The Companions gives an answer when asked why they joined, but Vignar Grey-Mane only says that he's reached an age where you can't remember why anything happened, just that it did. And we never find out any more.
• Escape Velocity Nova: A fan-made sequel replaced one of the governments from Nova with a giant hyperspace rift full of Swirly Energy Thingies and sensor interference. No explanation is ever given, though there are quite a few Epileptic Trees In-Universe. Out-of-universe, the Polaris were removed to stop their super-advanced ships from wrecking game balance.
• Fallout:
  • Who shot the first nuke on October 23, 2077, triggering the Great War and making the world of Fallout what is today? We don't know. Ultimately, we're unlikely to ever get a clear answer, and with even the first game taking place almost a full century afterwards it doesn't really matter. Whoever shot first, the world ended all the same, and the survivors were left to pick up the pieces and start again. Both the Interplay and Bethesda games offer some possible explanations, but they're vague at best. These include:
    • After having lost the Sino-American War earlier that year, China had nothing left to lose and shot first. Note that any ambiguities after this are the result of Bethesda-era retcons. The original games only pointed towards China as the culprit and series creator Tim Cain outright stated that the Chinese fired first.
    • America, thinking China was too weak to do anything, tried to finally finish off their adversary and shot first.
    • Vault-Tec, wanting to either conduct their Vault experiments or just to fulfill their own prophecy of Armageddon, launched the first nukes.
    • The Zetans, who had been watching Earth for centuries and kidnapping people for experiments, tried to force the nuclear launch codes out of the mind of a top-ranking military officer and used them to trigger the war.
    • An artificial intelligence, out of boredom and wanting stimulation, triggered the war simply to witness its outcome.
  • Fallout: New Vegas:
    • Vault 11 presents the player with a "final" holomessage in the form of a recording of the last five survivors of the Vault Experiment, which saw the inhabitants nominate a single person each year to be sacrificed to protect the other inhabitants (the true test was whether the inhabitants would rebel against this order and refuse, which would release the safeguards preventing them from leaving). The final five survivors, having been freed from the Vault, form a Suicide Pact because they can't bear to live with the decisions they've made in the past, despite one inhabitant rethinking his decision and urging them to stop their plan. The recording ends with the sound of four gunshots, with the final survivor (the man urging the survivors to stay alive) sighing and dropping his weapon. The fate of the Vault Survivor is never addressed, and no explanation is given to his whereabouts (despite a male character modeled as a "Vault 21 Survivor" who was modeled, but never implemented, in the final game).
    • Were there other survivors of the Nipton Massacre beyond Oliver Swanick and Boxcars? The existence of a single lottery ticket in two locations far from the town (a wrecked car near Crescent Canyon West, and a single "valuable" variant of the lottery ticket dropped right in front of a sealed train tunnel door south of the Mojave Drive-In) may lead players to ponder the question.
  • Fallout 4:
    • Is Kasumi Nakano a human or a synth? The Institute and Railroad both claim to have no records of her (and the former has no reason to replace her with a synth anyways), she doesn't drop a synth component if she dies (the majority of synths you kill do), and she could easily just be dealing with mental illness and self image issues... but on the other hand, she keeps having a recurring dream about a place that sounds very similar to the Institute, her family is almost suspiciously protective of her and insistent on her humanity, Dima strongly believes that she is a synth (he's certainly an expert on that subject), and the Institute and Railroad also acknowledge that their records aren't perfect and there's a real possibility she could be one of their synths after a memory wipe. The game never answers for certain and instead leaves it up to you to decide, and your character can declare that it ultimately doesn't really matter.
    • On similar note, Dima raises the possibility that you're a synth; he points out gaps in your memory (your earliest clear memory is the prologue sequence where the bombs fall and you're frozen), that many synths are created by copying the minds of humans into them (hell, one of your companions is a synth who was created in such a manner), some of the perks you can take really sound like things only a robot could do (one lets you breathe underwater, another makes you near-immune to radiation, etc.), and given the Institute's Mad Scientist attitude it's not entirely unbelievable that they would create a synth, then pretend it was human for some strange experiment. The topic isn't delved into much, but is left just ambiguous enough that the evidence could go either way.
• Far Cry 5: What exactly happened at the end of the game? Did nuclear war really break out? If so, who fired the nukes at Hope County? Ubisoft has never really come clear on the subject, offering several conflicting reports, which include the following:
  • The nukes were fired by a foreign country, most likely North Korea, given a series of raido broadcasts detailing them as testing their nuclear arms.
  • The nukes were fired by Joseph and the cult in an attempt to fulfill their own apocalyptic predictions.
  • The nukes were fired by a literal act of God in an attempt to protect Joseph.
  • The nukes were fired by whomever controlled Kyrat, be it Pagan, Ajay, Amita, or Sabal.
  • No nukes were fired at all. Joseph was merely hallucinating the whole time and was properly arrested.
• Fez:
  • A lot of questions are raised that don't get answered over the course of the game, and given that the sequel was sadly cancelled, it's likely that we'll never find them out (if we were ever going to anyway). What is the Hexahedron, and why exactly does it break apart at the start of the game? What's going on with the cities of Zu and Nu Zu? What happened to the lost civilization that seemingly built all those ruins? What do either of the endings mean?
  • On a more gameplay-related riddle, how exactly were players supposed to solve the Black Monolith puzzle? Was the method that was ultimately used (hundreds of players brute-forcing the solution) the one that the developers always intended, or is there some clue hidden in the game that we haven't noticed yet? Also, what's up with the "crop circles" that are placed regularly through the game but seem to have no apparent purpose?
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VI: What happened to Banon and Arvis? Despite Banon's role as the leader of The Returners and Alvis being his right-hand man and both being good friends with Locke and Edgar, they are never heard from again after the party departs from Vector to investigate the Cave to the Sealed Gate. We do know The Returners were seemingly wiped out after the cataclysm, so chances are they perished as well.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics: Did Delita actually love Princess Ovelia, or was he only exploiting the power she represented? There are key moments throughout the story that both suggest and contradict whether the warrior was smitten with the lady or merely viewed her as a means to an end.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: What exactly is the relationship between the fantasy world of Ivalice and the "real-world" town of St. Ivalice? An alternate universe? The distant past? The distant future? A Lotus-Eater Machine? Entirely fictional? Final Fantasy itself is name-dropped as a fictional series within the real world that the children are familiar with so how much does that influence Ivalice’s depiction here? Various characters in the fantasy Ivalice express concern that the main characters' desire to return to the mundane one would outright destroy the former (which resulted in the popular meme that this is the only Final Fantasy where "you play as the villains") but given that the game has a Playable Epilogue scenario and later got a sequel, that doesn't seem to be the case. Also, where did the Grimoire, the MacGuffin that lets the characters travel to the fantasy Ivalice, come from and why is it the sole obviously mystical thing in the mundane world?
• Fire Emblem:
  • Just who IS this "Shanty Pete"?
  • What happened to Est after the end of Mystery of the Emblem? The only thing stated in her ending is that she disappeared, and Abel went to search for her, but no clues are given as to any kind of resolution whatsoever.
  • Honestly, how many sisters does Anna the Merchant have in total? Given that alternate universes exist, and at least one Anna knows about them, are they even actually sisters or just alternate versions of each other?
  • Why are there so many legendary weapons and artifacts called the "Fire Emblem" in so many continents of the world? What exactly is their true purpose?
  • The Binding Blade: Lilina is a mage, but Hector and his wives lack any sort of magic potential. Even though Cecilia mentioned that anyone can be skilled at magic if they have such potential, how Lilina herself even got it in the first place is a mystery that is left unsolved, at least for now.
  • In Awakening Chapter 22 pits the Shepherds against the Grimleal's last line of defense keeping the heroes from getting to the Dragon's Table: Aversa and... the Deadlords, five of whom are wielding holy weapons of the Twelve Crusaders. How and where the Grimleal managed to get their hands on the Loptyrian Cult's undead generals and five of the legendary weapons of Jugdral is left a mystery.
  • Fire Emblem Engage:
    • What do Alear and Veyle look like as dragons?
    • The Fell Xenolouge DLC takes place in a world where The Four Hounds are the good guys, called the Four Winds. Each of them also has a slightly different name and appearance to their Hound counterparts from the main timeline, as well as having drastically different personalities. However, Mauvier is the exception, as he is exactly the same in the main timeline and the Xenolouge timeline, with the only difference being that Xenolouge Mauvier dies while he is the Sole Survivor of the Four Hounds in the main timeline. Why is it that Mauvier is the only one of the Winds who is exactly the same while all the others have slightly different names, appearances, and very different personalities?
    • Just who is the Emblem of Foundations, exactly? Why do they seem to be so different from the other Emblems, and what happened to them? Are they a character from a previous installment, an original character, or someone from a completely different franchise entirely? ^note  For the latter theory, it could be someone from Shin Megami Tensei/Persona or Dragalia Lost, since FE has had crossovers with them.
• Five Nights at Freddy's has a few:
  • What exactly is inside the locked box at the end of Night 7 of Five Nights at Freddy's 4? While most of the apparently cryptic lore of the series tends to be explained (sort of) in future games, this particular example is likely to remain a mystery, due to Scott explicitly stating that he changed his mind on the subject of revealing it during the Halloween update.
  • Which animatronic was responsible for the Bite of '87? The first two games gave contradictory answers to the question, and while the end of the second game heavily implies a possible victim of the bite, the identity of the biter remains unknown. The fourth game ends with what appears to be the Bite in question, but according to Word of God the incident shown is actually the Bite of '83, not '87, leaving the fandom back at square one.
  • Three for Five Nights at Freddy's World:
    • Is Scott really responsible for all the enemies attacking the animatronics' world? He calls himself "the puppetmaster", but then calls you out for assuming he was the villain afterwards.
    • On the third to last life of her minigame, the Rainbow says, "They don’t pay me by the hour." Who is she talking about that pays her?
    • Who was Desk Man supposed to represent? Was he meant to be William Afton, Henry Emily, Scott, or someone else entirely?
• God of War (PS4): Who called Jormungandr when Atreus was sick? The only person who could speak his language was Mimir, who wasn't there to do it.
• God of War Ragnarök: Would the mask that Odin found do what he thought it did? It most certainly has magical properties, but Mimir thinks he found a trinket and convinced himself it was the key to ultimate knowledge. We never do learn who's right as by the time it's completed and Atreus could use it on the rift, he's thoroughly sick of Odin in general and soured on Odin's fanatical quest to steal all the knowledge he can, so he breaks the mask instead. It's then sucked through the rift, which closes behind it, thus eliminating any possibility we'll ever know what it truly did.
• Ghost Trick Beauty and Dandy. Beauty claimed she could feel the presence of ghosts like Sissel. The main villain is the only other character with such ability. The scene where she reveals this "sixth sense" is also her last one. They only reappear in the epilogue of the game.
• What is the name of the protagonist in Gothic? What was he imprisoned for?
• There are a couple of unanswered questions for Trials of Mana and it's prequel Heroes of Mana like how did Riesz's father Joster become blind? And what happened to Falcon and Sandarrow that Hawkeye was left orphaned and unawhere of the fact that he's Flamekhan's grandson?
• Just what is it with the corpse at the end of Ikari Warriors? Who is it supposed to be and why is it meant to be important?
• Injustice 2: Just like his backstory, The Joker gives different reasons for his Back from the Dead status in banters, and will go with whatever others think is true despite being Killed Off for Real in Injustice: Gods Among Us. At this point, what would anyone expect from the Joker, who has given multiple sob stories for his crimes and survived countless beatings for over 85 years? At the end, the Monster Clown plans to continue to plunge the world into chaos just as before.
• Inscryption: What exactly would Magnificus have done if he had obtained some of the OLD_DATA?
• Kakuto Chojin: Who exactly is Shadow? Other than Ninjutsu being his fighting style and the fact that he's Vittoria's brother, everything about him is unknown.
• Kindergarten: According to the Flavor Text of the Monstermon card Oglebob Golem, nobody knows what the "Oglebob" part of his name means, as nobody dares to ask him.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • What are the human names of Demyx and Luxord? The other organization members all appear in human form in other games, but these two have not. Kingdom Hearts III implies that they may have been Keyblade wielders at some point, but that vague implication is all we have so far.
  • What are the high-ranking Nobodies commanded by Vexen, Lexaeus, and Zexion? While the members of the original Organization XIII are each shown commanding a certain variety of Nobodies named after job classes in the Final Fantasy series^note Xemnas and Sorcerers, Xigbar and Snipers, Xaldin and Dragoons, Saix and Berserkers, Axel and Assassins, Demyx and Dancers, Luxord and Gamblers, Marluxia and Reapers, Larxene and Ninjas, and Roxas and Samurai; Xion likely never had a variety of Nobodies to command since she was never an official member of the original Organization XIII., these three have not. Even when Even became Vexen again and joined the Real Organization XIII as a reserve member, he’s never shown commanding a unique variety of Nobodies. Since the they’ve all been Recompleted and have undergone a Heel–Face Turn alongside Dilan, it’s unlikely we’ll ever know the answer.
  • What exactly started the Keyblade War? And how was the χ-Blade shattered? Kingdom Hearts χ looked like it was telling that story, but it turned out that the conflict in that game was actually the last stage of the war and that it had been going on since the Master of Masters was a boy.
  • Who is the mysterious figure "Subject X" mentioned in the secret reports in Kingdom Hearts III, why did Xehanort want to study them, what was the purpose of his experiments on them and what is their connection to the Keyblade War and the overall story, if any? All we know for certain is that Subject X was a female and she was apparently very close with Lea and Isa; in fact the real reason they joined Organization XIII in the first place was was to find a way to save her from being Xehanort's experiment. But they never refer to her by her real name or why Xehanort wanted to experiment on her.
  • Who is the Master of Masters and what exactly is his true plan? Are his motivations truly benevolent? While Union X does reveal certain things about him that seem to confirm he's not evil and does have good intentions, though who he is, how he became so powerful and how he relates to the overall story remains a mystery.
• Koudelka: It was mentioned that the Emigre Manuscript also contained instructions of a ritual to attain immortality. It was omitted in the translation of the original document given to the Vatican so it could not be abused by future generations. Only the translator and their protegé are aware of what the ritual entailed as they successfully performed process in themselves. About the one thing we know about it is that they apparently cannot do the same in others.
• Last Scenario: What was being guarded so secretly inside the Third Entalar Seal? In order to access the underground capital of the Havali, the heroes need to destroy the 3 seals that guard the entrance. The third one is located inside a top-secret facility that the heroes mostly skip to go directly to the crystal chamber. The place becomes a Bonus Dungeon later in the game and is full of powerful monster that have seemingly slaughtered all the faculty. Aside from finding out this is where all the Save Points come from and fighting a bunch of strange creatures as bosses, nothing about the true purpose of the building is explained.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Are the Gorons a One-Gender Race or is it we just never see the females? Are they asexual? How do they reproduce? In Breath of the Wild the term "male Gorons" pops up when referring to how they are allowed entry in Gerudo Town, but even then Ambiguous Syntax is at play. Does it mean "male members of the Goron race" or "Gorons, an all-male race?"
  • Lore-wise, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask remains one of the most hotly-debated, divisive titles in the franchise. Fittingly enough, it leaves behind several engaging conundrums for anyone interested in Zelda lore.
    • What was Termina, really? The Hyrule Enyclopedia claims that it was created by Majora's Mask, and that it ceased to exist once both Link and Majora were gone. However, this explanation has plenty of problems, even setting aside the Encyclopedia's dubious canonicity. Are the aliens raiding Romani Ranch just some kind of cruel joke on the part of Majora, or did they actually come from another world to raid Termina? There's a conspicuous red star in the sky that disappears after they raid Romani Ranch. Why does Termina have doubles of people who the Skull Kid never met? Why does Termina clearly have a rather-extensive history of past events, most of which are unlike anything Majora would have come up with? Why is there a flashback of Skull Kid in Termina before even getting the Mask? The Encyclopedia also contains quite a few other continuity errors that further undermine it as a source.
    • What was Majora's Mask? What happened to the tribe that made it? Why was it so powerful and evil? Was it always sentient? The only explanations come from the Happy Mask Salesman, who is not exactly a reliable narrator, and those explanations mostly boil down to him saying "I don't know either; please get my mask back before we all die."
    • The Happy Mask Salesman himself is a very mysterious figure; the game has nothing to conclusively offer in terms of his relationship to his Hyrule counterpart, his creepy mannerisms, and why the kids on the Moon have his face underneath their masks.
    • What was the Fierce Deity? You can only receive this mask from Majora itself, and it's anyone's guess how it got it. The scant lore hints we get about it all imply that it's just as dangerous as Majora's Mask itself, if not more so, but it remains even more of an enigma.
    • What happened to Navi? Majora's Mask heavily implies that the "friend" Link was searching for at the start of the game was his lost fairy companion, and Hyrule Historia explicitly states that it was. Despite this, the game offers absolutely no answers; she's never even brought up beyond the intro, and Twilight Princess seems to confirm that Link never found her.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Who stole Lenzo's Picto Box? Tingle was accused for it and taken to jail as a result; the Picto Box happens to be guarded in a chest beyond a tiny maze found in said jail, making it seem like the culprit was indeed Tingle. However, there are some major details that deem this unlikely: First, the actual culprit recorded his criminal act in a stone with a wording that greatly differs from Tingle's manner of speech; second, Tingle is never seen in need of a Picto Box, and never comments or expresses surprise on Link having the one found behind the jail (in contrast, he quickly notices when Link has a Triforce chart or the size of his wallter). Thirdly, speaking to the Killer Bees confirms that the unnamed thief disappeared years ago after tunnelling out of the cell as planned, whereas Tingle mentions that he was imprisoned because the townspeople took him to be a troublemaker. Lastly, the maze that leads to the chest with the Picto Box has rats that activate traps leading to the shore of Windfall Island, yet Tingle never used them to escape, hinting that he doesn't even know there's a maze (thus he couldn't be the one who made it to hide the Picto Box if he really stole it).
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, how did Ganondorf have the Triforce of Power despite having never touched the Triforce in this timeline? Even the game makes mention that there's no reasonable explanation for this. Hyrule Historia implies it had something to do with the Hero of Time's return to the past with the Triforce of Courage, but no clear answer is given.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
    • How Ganon became Calamity Ganon. It is implied to be the result of either one of his incarnations failing to reincarnate or Demise's curse completely overtaking him until he became little more than a being of pure hatred. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom answers this; Ganondorf was sealed away in a Leaking Can of Evil that let enough of his curse out to become Malice, and a large lump of Malice congealed into Calamity Ganon. Ganondorf himself is unaware of the events of the previous game.
    • Why do the Gerudo let the all-male Gorons in when they exclude men? Not even the Gorons know.
    • What exactly are the Leviathans? How did they really go extinct? The skeletons' designs imply that they're the remains of the Wind Fish, the Ocean King, and Levias. Despite these clues, there is still nothing else that confirms whether they're variations of the same family, the same species, or even the same whales mentioned at all.
• Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry: How did Larry get from the 1980s to the 2010s without aging a day? The only clues given are Larry waking up in what appears to be a laboratory underneath the city after one of his dates, theorizing he'd been kidnapped and experimented on.^note Maybe it's the lab where you see a new Larry resurrected if you die right away by getting run over in the first game? The lab is never seen in full and becomes inaccessible after Larry leaves it while Larry himself drops the subject as he struggles with adjusting to the new time period and winning over his latest Girl of the Week.
• Life Is Strange:
  • Just who is the mysterious old homeless woman living behind the diner? She's the only person other than Chloe who immediately believes Max when told about her powers, and also claims (perhaps in jest, perhaps not) to be over a thousand years old. Fans commonly speculate that she's another superhuman herself — perhaps even a Bad Future version of Max.
  • Is Sean Prescott aware of the supernatural goings-on? There are a couple things that hint at it, and a Dummied Out line from his son Nathan implies it quite strongly, but the player is never given a straight answer. Given that Word of God has stated that the game's ending had to be seriously truncated due to budget cuts, so it's even debated whether this is an intentional mystery or a plot point that was dropped.
  • What summoned the tornado to destroy Arcadia Bay? Max ultimately comes down on Warren's explanation that it was caused by her overusing her time manipulation powers, thus setting up the gutwrenching Sadistic Choice in the final scene, but if the player pays close attention a number of other possibilities are hinted at as well, including Rachel Amber's spirit attempting to destroy the place that destroyed her, a Native American gravesite being disturbed by one of Sean Prescott's building projects, and even (building off the previous mystery) being summoned deliberately by Prescott.
• Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: Who actually killed Ryuhei Hoshino in the previous game? Sawashiro being the one to do it was already kind of questionable, and Infinite Wealth confirms he took the fall for the real killer. Who that was, though, is never revealed.
• Mega Man:
  • What prompted Dr. Light to create X when Zero was never actually released in his or Dr. Wily's lifetime?
  • Are Serges and/or Isoc from the Mega Man X series actually Dr. Wily preserving himself in robotic forms, or are they something else entirely? Keiji Inafune refuses to give the answer, saying that it's more fun for the fans to decide for themselves. However, as he is no longer involved with Capcom or the Mega Man franchise, Capcom could very well decide to answer this question in the future if they wanted.
  • Considering that doing so would mean having to offer a definitive conclusion to the Classic series, the fates of most of the original cast besides Dr. Light, who is known to pass away after creating X, will probably never be known. What has been confirmed is that the popular fan theory of Zero killing everyone is not true.
  • In Mega Man ZX Advent, is Biometal Model A connected to Axl in any way, or was Master Albert telling the full truth after all?
• Metal Gear: Who were the three other soldiers parachuting into the jungle with Snake in the opening of the NES version?
• Metroid: Other M: Who was The Deleter? The only two plausible suspects are K.G. and James, but the game moves on from this sub-plot and never resolves it.
• Who exactly was the Head from the first Myth series game, and what happened to it?
• Nexus Clash: What really happened to all the millions of people who inhabited the human cities that got pulled into the Nexus to become Valhalla?
• No More Heroes: Who killed Master Jacobs? The only person to be accused of the murder never even met the guy (but did watch his video tape until it got broken), and the issue is never brought up again for the rest of the series.
• Octopath Traveler:
  • Helgenish works for Rufus of the Obsidians—one of the three assassins responsible for the murder of Primrose's father—wears a black jacket, and is later revealed to have no problem committing murder himself; but it's left ambiguous if he is an official member of the Obsidians or is merely allied with them.
  • At the end of Therion's route, the Arc Villain tells him that the Dragonstones will "grant me an even greater power than I have now". It's later revealed that the Dragonstones' true purpose is to unlock the Gate of Finis, wherein lies an Eldritch Abomination God of Evil that was banished there. It's implied that the Arc Villain of Therion's route had already figured this out and was planning to make a deal with said God of Evil to gain immense power, but it's never fully confirmed if this is indeed the case.
• OFF: What is the origin of the spectres? Every guardian the player meets offer different explanations: Dedan doesn't know where they come from and instead accuses the Batter of bringing them, Japhet assumes they were sent by the Queen, and Enoch thinks they are the restless souls of the dead. None of their theories are confirmed.
• Otter Island: Just what is the creature on Otter Island and what is Connor's family's connection to it? It's obvious they know something about it, but Connor refuses to divulge more information.
• Overwatch:
  • Who blew the whistle on Blackwatch's actions?
  • What sent Cole Cassidy towards a past life of crime? How and why did he come up with his alias? And how did he lose his arm, anyway?
• Persona:
  • Just how connected are the PlayStation 1 Persona games and the later ones? To name a specific difference between them, what happened to Belladonna and Nameless (the singer and piano player in the Velvet Room)?
  • In Persona 4, the teenager Saki Konishi strongly resents the department store she works at (for various social and cultural reasons). Her hatred of it is so great that it poisons her inner landscape and creates her Shadow, inadvertently causing her death... but she doesn't simply quit working there. It's never explained why. At one point, she has a flashback to her father asking why she keeps that job — he suggests that maybe she wants the money from it, or that there's someone there she wants to spend time with — but her narration doesn't indicate whether any of these guesses are true. Yosuke's Social Link includes two of the girl's former co-workers, who give credit to the idea that she was working at the department store to save up money and elope with a potential boyfriend. However, the girls are unreliable sources, raising even more questions.
  • Persona 5:
    • How did Masayoshi Shido come under Yaldabaoth's control? Why did the God of Control choose him as his puppet? Indeed, what's his backstory? Details about him and his background are surprisingly scarce. Unlike most villains in the game, we are never given a glimpse of his past (aside from Sojiro's mention that Shido was just a run-of-the-mill Corrupt Politician with aspirations of becoming Prime Minister), leaving his political rise in politics a mystery.
    • What is Futaba's original Treasure? When she enters her own palace, she becomes the Treasure, but Morgana thinks that there was an ordinary treasure before that happened. So what was it?
    • What form does Sae's Treasure take? All we see is a briefcase containing it, which is explicitly not the Treasure, but a fake made to fool Akechi. We never see the Treasure's real-world form because the Thieves' whole plan involved not stealing it so Sae's palace would be left in place, and Sae later reforms on her own, although Makoto speculates that it might be some artifact of her late father, whose death was Sae's Cynicism Catalyst.
• Pikmin:
  • Pikmin (2001):
    • The Bad Ending has The Pikmin carrying Olimar to their Onion after his ship had crashed. This then turns him into a Pikmin. Why did the Pikmin do this? How come Olimar turned into his own, unique Pikmin type? What happened to him afterwards?
    • The Good Ending shows several never-before-seen Onions following Olimar into space as he gets ready to leave the planet. Why did these Onions show up now, all of a sudden? Where were they, previously? Does this mean that there are dozens, if not, hundreds of Pikmin types that we’ll probably never see?
  • The narration for the Good Ending of Pikmin 3 actually provides one for us: Why did the S.S. Drake crash-land on PNF-404 to begin with? The narration continues to say that "Perhaps is wasn't an 'accident' after all…" This could hint that it had something to do with the Plasm Wraith, but no further information is given.
• Pirate101: How did Wyatt Chip die? The only things we know about it In-Universe are that some of the Magnificent 7 blame Duck Holliday for what happened and that "Wyatt learned the hard way what happens to heroes." according to Old Man Bronco. ^note According to Blind Mew, Wyatt died in the line of duty, but the circumstances behind it are intentionally left ambiguous.
• Pizza Tower: Exactly who is Fake Peppino? Better yet, what is Fake Peppino?
• In Planescape: Torment, what did The Nameless One do that even a thousand lifetimes of good deeds wouldn't have been enough to atone for? For that matter, what is his name?
• Pokémon:
  • Just what the hell does the rest of Diglett and Dugtrio's bodies look like? According to Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, Diglett have feet. This is a surprise to other Pokémon and that does not help explain what they look like.
  • Where do Pokémon eggs come from? Despite the fact that you can leave Pokémon in Day Cares and they produce eggs, nobody (not even the daycare staff) have seen Pokémon mate or lay eggs. They appear to simply poof into existence. This "mystery" might have been included to keep the games child-friendly.
  • Meloetta once had red shoes, but it lost them at some point. What these shoes were, where they ended up, what (if anything) they did for Meloetta and how it wore them despite not having feet has never been explained.
  • What exactly turns a regular Carbink into a mythical Diancie? It's apparently a sudden mutation which is a separate phenomenon from regular old evolution and the trigger is unknown. There's also no way to trigger this mutation in the games, either.
  • How are Aerodactyl able to Mega Evolve, despite coming long before the advent of Mega Evolution itself?
  • How did Alolan Raichu evolve into their Electric/Psychic form? No one knows; as far as the populace is concerned, maybe they ate too many pancakes.
  • In Pokémon Sword and Shield you can send your Pokémon on "Poké Jobs", using their abilities for various Mundane Utility tasks. As you do better on small ones you get offers for bigger jobs, with the ad asking for things like Fire-types to stoke a refinery or Psychic-types to consult on complex projects. The last one, requesting Ghost-types, just reads "wE ARe searChing for somE HelP. THE wOrk MUst be kepT coMPlEtely secreT. We wiLl PAY You HANdsomly".
  • Once a year, Stonjourner from all over Galar gather together and form an evenly spaced ring. Why do they do this? Not even researchers in-game know. Theories range from the energy of the earth to the position of the sun.
  • How did Mew manage to give birth to Mewtwo, when it is genderless and unable to breed? The only hints to this are mentioned in Dr. Fuji’s notes in the Pokémon Mansion in Pokémon Red and Blue, and nothing else afterwards is mentioned about the Mew duo’s cloning process.
  • In Pokémon X and Y if the player examines the departing time boards in Lumiose Station, they can find a note reading "I'm going to go for help. Wait in the usual place." Who wrote this note, who was meant to see it, and why it was written are never explained nor alluded to in the rest of the game. All that can be inferred is that the writer is somehow in danger via an unknown entity. Additionally, there's a young boy in the Station who, when talked to, mutters that "it should be someplace right around here," but it's impossible to know if he means the note or something else.
  • Also in X and Y is the mystery of the ghost girl in Lumiose City. If the player goes to the upper floor in a random office building in Lumiose City, they'll be greeted with a cutscene where they step off the elevator, and a Hex Maniac appears in the elevator behind them. She then glides around the player without a walking animation to stand facing away from them, proclaims "No... You're not the one..." and glides off screen, vanishing from the room. In a nearby building there's another Hex Maniac who, after a long pause, tells you not to talk to her, because she needs to listen for the elevator. If these are the same ghost girl—and it's impossible to know for sure—who is the one in the elevator she's waiting for, and why is she waiting for them? It's never been explained, and with each new region it seems less and less likely that it will be.
  • There's a Hex Maniac on Mt. Pyre in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire who also tells the player that they're "not the one." Is she the same Hex Maniac as in Lumiose City? If so, how did she get from Hoenn to Kalos, and what exactly happened to her between the games? If not, then why are there multiple girls running around both talking about "the one"? Either way, it makes the mystery of who "the one" even is that much stranger.
  • Why does Nihilego behave like a young girl? Since the theory that Nihilego was related to Lillie turned out to be a Red Herring, no one knows for sure.
  • What does Mimikyu look like underneath its cloth?
  • The Legendary Trio of Pokémon Black and White is Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem. The game's background lore said that all three were once one dragon; the dragon split itself into Reshiram and Zekrom after its two human companions parted ways, with Kyurem being the empty shell left behind. Kyurem can assimilate another member of its trio, but not both at the same time, leaving the identity and powers of the original dragon a complete mystery. To add more fuel to the fire, there are some hints that the original dragon was an extraterrestrial being, but nothing is made of that, either.
  • In Pokémon Sword and Shield, the game's fossil Pokémon, Dracozolt, Arctozolt, Dracovish, and Arctovish, are each made by combining two fossil halves; the Fossilized Bird, Fossilized Fish, Fossilized Drake, and Fossilized Dino. Since we ever only see one half of each fossil, what did these Pokémon look like as whole Pokémon rather than two halves fused together?
  • In Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs, you're able to travel to the ancient past using Celebi and explore several temples on Renbow Island. One of the Pokémon found in one of the temples is Porygon-Z, which is supposed to be a recent manmade virtual reality Pokémon. Why is it one of the wild Pokémon found in an ancient temple in the past?
  • What happened to the humans in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon? With Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon confirming that all games in the series take place on the same planet, it seems that canonically humans were once numerous and technologically advanced enough to create TMs, laboratories and power plants, but in the present day are so rare that they are thought by many to be fairy tales. Was there an apocalypse? A war? Did they all turn into Pokémon themselves? Is there still a human civilization somewhere on the planet that the games just haven't shown us?
• Pulseman: Whatever became of Dr. Shakuei Yoshiyama and his C-Life wife after Pulseman was born?
• What caused Ratchet to crash his ship on Novalis in Ratchet & Clank (2002)?
• There's several surrounding Dutch van der Linde from Red Dead, mostly focused on the nature of his Start of Darkness.
  • The million-dollar question is, of course, was Dutch originally Just Like Robin Hood until his mental state imploded under his ego and mistakes, or was he Evil All Along and found his Mask of Sanity difficult to hold up under stress? Different characters have different opinions on the matter- Sadie Adler, for example, thinks he changed, while John in the second game thinks he was always evil. John appears to have changed his mind and expresses the former opinion in the original game, though that could be a minor continuity error caused by the story of Dutch's fall being written backwards, or just the Nostalgia Filter talking. Arthur Morgan has ambiguous feelings on the matter- if he has high Honor, he'll state that he doesn't know the answer, while if he has low Honor, he'll believe that Dutch was always evil. As a corollary, does Dutch actually love the gang, or does he see them as pawns? Is he even capable of real love at all? Lastly, which of Dutch's bad ideas are legitimate, fueled by his own ego and Micah's bad advice, and which are Dutch purposefully messing up so that the retirement he promises never happens? Does Dutch believe his own hype, or is he lying to keep the others from ditching him? Did his head injury during the trolley heist affect his subsequent judgements?
  • What happened at the Blackwater Robbery, and why did Dutch kill Heidi McCourt? Several gang members note how out-of-character the action is for Dutch, and Micah was said to be involved in the decision, but Dutch never says why he decided to kill Heidi, a bystander who wasn't an obvious threat.
• Romancing SaGa 3: Why did Tatyana run away form her home at Ryblov? We know she's the missing heir of the Rzhyev House and that her family is looking for her and that's it. It wasn't until the remaster that we found out what's her deal: Her older siblings tried to murder her on her birthday so they could inherit the house. That caused Tatyana to panic and go missing.
• What is The Secret of Monkey Island, anyway? This one's mostly played for laughs. Even in-universe, in both later Monkey Island games and other games by the same creators, someone regularly asks the question, and nobody knows. Ron Gilbert himself likes to joke about it, claiming that it's been so long that he completely forgot. Return to Monkey Island was eventually made all about it: Guybrush's quest for it is kickstarted because the question's been bothering him for decades, and in the end the game remains deliberately inconclusive about it, offering very meta-answers such as It's the Journey That Counts or that it's more fun as a tool for speculation than it is to actually know.
• Shin Megami Tensei: What caused the endless cycle of conflict between Law and Chaos? Many different characters throughout the series offer up explanations, but they all contradict each other and it's never made clear who's right, who's mistaken, and who's outright lying. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse finally clears this up: YHWH is in control of both Merkabah and Lucifer, the leaders of the factions, and orchestrated the everlasting war in a way to keep himself in control of every reality for all eternity until the end of time. In the Anarchy ending, a new world is created by the protagonist, one free of everything of the old universe. Without YHVH's followers to wish His return, He is permanently killed, freeing humanity from the Mad God's tyranny forever.
• Silent Hill:
  • Is the being worshipped by the Order truly a Goddess, or is it "merely" a very powerful member of the town's monster population?
  • Who was Alessa Gillespie's father, and what happened to him?
  • What was the shocking thing that Heather sees, but the player doesn't, after she kills the final boss of the third game? The grateful spirit of her murdered father Harry or the birth of yet another new incarnation of Alessa are the most popular fan guesses.
  • What happened to James after the events of Silent Hill 2? The game doesn't have a canon ending and the one thing we know for sure, based on commentaries from characters from later entries, is that James went to Silent Hill and never returned. His ultimate fate after the events of the games is left ambiguous at best.
• While there are many unanswered questions in the lore of Skies of Arcadia, the following are among the most notable:
  • Is the Black Moonstone the last remnant of a destroyed Black Moon? Was there an actual Black Civilization at all?
  • Since Loopers are hinted to be souls of the departed, is Elcian meant to be Galcian's ghost after his defeat in the Hydra? Because Elcian — along with the other late-game bonuses — was added in the enhanced Gamecube port of the game as an afterthought, we may never know the answer.
• Sly Cooper:
  • What was the World Peace Accord of '71, and why did it make producing zombies illegal?
  • Who was the Evil Wolf Priestess? What did she do to earn that title? Why were there ghosts trapped in her tomb with her? And why was her tomb buried on the Contessa's estate?
  • How did Clockwerk become a giant mechanized owl who has lived since the Ice Age? And why does he hate the Cooper Clan so much?
• Sonic Lost World: Where did Eggman find the Cacophonic Conch? How does he know it could take control of the Zetis?
• There are almost too many to count in Submachine, but probably the biggest are, what the hell is the submachine, and who is the player?
• The Stanley Parable:
  • What really happened to all of Stanley's co-workers? The Narrator claims that he erased them in the Countdown Ending, but undermines that claim directly afterwards.
  • How exactly was the fern supposed to be important for whatever the Narrator had planned on the third reset of the Confusion Ending?
• From Stardew Valley:
  • Is Abigail actually the daughter of the Wizard? There are many hints that point towards it, including some rare dialog that implies her to be sensitive to magic and spirits.
  • Possibly related to the above: What exactly did the Wizard do that caused his now ex-wife, the Witch, to leave him and become evil?
  • There are a couple of Creepy Doll artifacts that can be found, their descriptions just say '???', and a rare event that can be triggered by using one of the Witch's dark shrines features a living one of these attacking you.
  • Who or what is really the mysterious Mr. Qi? In a world in which wizards, witches, ghosts, dwarves, mermaids and shadow people exist, he's a complete enigma. It's shown that he has been watching your progress through the entire game and in the end credit sequence he's implied to have a connection with your late grandpa.
• Star Fox 64: Was that really his dad Fox saw after killing Andross?
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Just who is Bowser Jr.'s mother? Why did Bowser lie to him about it? Why does he keep kidnapping Princess Peach if he knows she isn't his mother? Why didn't she protest when he said that she was his mother? The closest thing to a resolution is Shigeru Miyamoto joking that he is Bowser Jr.'s mother.
  • Super Mario RPG: Everything regarding Geno, or, more accurately, "❤️🎶", is a mystery. What is he? Where is he from? Who sent him to help Mario? How is his real name pronounced? Where did he go once the seven stars were recovered?
• Several players have questioned how on earth the balls in Super Monkey Ball work in the first place. The playable monkeys show no signs of suffocating despite spending most of the gameplay cramped within the plastic spheres which are roughly the same size as their bodies, and the balls themselves seem to protect the critters from 100+ MPH collisions on a regular basis. Heck, in one of the cutscenes of Super Monkey Ball 2, the playable characters successfully perform Tickle Torture while still inside the balls! Supplemental materials constantly flip-flopped between the balls being the result of a magical spell or an invention of Aiai's future self before dropping the question entirely from Banana Blitz onwards.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • Who is the Pyro? What does he look like under his mask? What is she really saying? What is their true gender? People held out hope that Meet the Pyro would explain everything, but Valve being Valve, they didn't. Word of God amounts to "Leaving the question unanswered is funnier than any answer we can come up with now".
  • A meta-example: Was Meet the Spy leaked by accident, or was it a publicity stunt? Valve recovered from it surprisingly quickly, for them, but they insist it was a mistake.
  • On the subject of the Spy, what is his real name and what does he look like under his mask? Again, we'll probably never know what the answer is.
• Tekken: What happened to Jun Kazama?
• Toonstruck: Due to the sequel getting cancelled, we'll never find out how Count Nefarious and Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun are still alive.
• Touhou Project has a crapload of this, probably as ZUN's way of encouraging fanwork. What happens if Rumia's ribbon is removed? What's the deal with Flandre's wings? What's Sakuya's backstory, and why was Eirin surprised to see her? Just how powerful would Alice be if she went all-out? What happened to Youki? Just how old is Eirin, anyway? What's Maribel's deal? Where exactly is Gensoukyou^note Though evidence suggests it's somewhere near the Yatsugatake range? How much of the PC-98 games are canon?
• Undertale:
  • How long was it between the ancient War and the time the game takes place? Bratty and Catty say it's been millennia and the backstory in Waterfall mentions magicians, but the human shown in the opening looks like a stone-aged tribal. Furthermore, how many years have passed between 201X and when the game actually takes place? This is never even hinted at.
  • What were the Fallen Child's motives for killing themself? They hated humanity, that's outright stated, but did they kill themself for Asriel to take the six more SOULs to free the monsters, or did they just want to kill humans? Further, did they actually love their adopted family, or were they just a convenient stepping stone for them? Finally, were they even human to start with, or is their comment at the end of a second No Mercy run about being "the demon that comes when people call its name" meant literally?
  • Just who is Doctor Gaster in relation to the cast? Is he related to Sans and Papyrus somehow? What was the experiment that scattered him through space-time? Why does it seem like Sans is the only one who remembers him and what is the purpose of that machine?
  • Who were the six SOULs and what were their motivations to go to Mt. Ebott to begin with? All we know about them are the main trait of their specific SOUL and which items they used.
• Underrail:
  • What was The Cube? Why did the Faceless want it back? Why did Tanner steal it to begin with?
  • Why is the Earth's surface frozen solid? If BioCorp anticipated this when building the titular Underrail, how did they know it was coming?
  • How did Ezra and the other Technocrats escape from Hollow Earth? Dude implies that the Faceless have DNA from both humanity and the aliens; what are the implications of this fact?
  • Where did Six and his kin come from? What did Tanner do to make Six want him dead? Who's the third survivor of their group?
  • Expedition raises even more questions. What is the Shadowlith? What is Flottsormir? Why didn't BioCorp pursue Lemuria to Abyssal Station Zero? What does the ACoNR do? Did NFT get the technology to make them from the Aliens?
• Vagrant Story: Tia and Marco. Were they Ashley's wife and son killed by thieves some time prior to the events of the game or, as Sidney Losstarot claims, an innocent family that Ashley murdered during an assignment as part of the Valencia Knights of the Peace's plan to use his guilt as a catalyst to turn him into the perfect Riskbreaker? Jan Rosencrantz, a fellow Riskbreaker, confirmed this and even taunted Ashley over it. But given that Rosencrantz is far from being the most truthful individual, his account is sketchy at best. In the final vision that Ashley has of them, Tia tells him to "believe what he knows to be true in his heart". Whether this confirm both Losstarot and Rosencrantz's allegations or not is unclear. The game leaves it up to player to decide what is the real truth.
• Valkyria Chronicles II: What happened to Ambassador Townsend after the end of the game? Even his bio after clearing the game states that what became of him is unknown.
• Valkyrie Profile has the whole deal with Lady Beliza, the demoness that cursed Belenus' home and caused the death of her servant girl Asaka. A bit of info in the Japanese version but removed in the English localization mentions that it was Belenus' late wife who made a pact with her over her jelousy about the budding romance between her husband and Asaka. That's about all we know about her as this plotline was dropped abruptly by the game and Beliza is never mentioned again.
• What Remains of Edith Finch: The whole story of the Finch family is steeped in uncertainty, which isn't helped by the fact that they're all dead and Edith is reading often-unreliable accounts of their deaths.
  • Do the Finches really have a death curse? All the deaths do have clear or implicit mundane causes (usually involving the Finch in question or their relatives doing something reckless, often motivated in some way by the idea that they're cursed), but there is a suspiciously consistent pattern that all but one of a generation die in childhood while the last one lives long enough to have kids, and all the deaths are ironically related to the person's life and interests (i.e. survivalist Sam is killed on a hunting trip, and despite his love of photography, the only photo he wanted to take of himself turned out to be a picture of his death) and could be considered twisted fulfilment of their desires (Gus hated his father's second marriage and wanted to ruin the wedding, so it was ruined when he died during it).
  • Are some of the more out-there stories like Barbara's horror-cliche comic book, Molly's diary (where she recounts transforming into animals), and Milton's flipbook accurate representations of the characters' deaths, and to what extent?
  • Edith mentions that Barbara and Milton's disappearances were never solved. So, what happened to them?
  • What did Edie see when she explored the old house? Dawn tears apart the book before Edith can read it to the end.
  • Who is the father of Edith's son Christopher?
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3:
  • We know the names, faces, and backstories of only a few Moebius (C,D,I,J,M,N,S, and T. X,Y, and Z have backstories and faces, but we don’t know their real names, if they have any). Who were they like before they became Moebius? Why did they become Moebius? What are their real names, and what do they look like under their helmets?
  • Why did Guernica Vandham specifically choose the six main characters to become the next Ouroboros?
  • The end of the game shows that Rex had children with Pyra, Mythra, and Nia. Mio is heavily implied to be Nia’s daughter, and Future Redeemed introduces Glimmer, who is Rex’s daughter and is implied to be Pyra’s daughter as well (although she acts more like Mythra). Who is the child that Rex had with Mythra, and what happened to them?
• Xenosaga: What happened to Dr. Sellers, the only major villain not to die onscreen? He's last seen in the third game at the end of the Merkabah space station dungeon, in what would be blatantly telegraphed as boss room in any other level, only for him to flatly state he will not be fighting you, provide some exposition, and then leave. Immediately afterward, a cutscene plays where the main characters escape the station as the Gnosis swarm over it to assimilate it into Abel's Ark. Sellers is never seen again, but on the other hand, since he helped design the station, he'd know its layout better than you would, so it would seem if there was time enough for you to escape, he could have as well. Did he get eaten, or did he simply decide to get while the getting was good?
• Yoshi's New Island: How and why did the adult versions of Bowser and Mario travel into the past to help their baby counterparts?
• Much of Yume Nikki, since there is no real plot and almost everything is a dream. There are, however, two major ones:
  • What happened to Madotsuki in the past that caused her to become a shut-in, have horrific nightmares repeatedly, and ultimately commit suicide?
  • The exact nature of the ending has been hotly debated ever since the game became available. Does Madotsuki actually commit suicide? Was the waking world of Madotsuki's bedroom actually just another level of the dream world and was jumping off the balcony the only way she could truly wake up? Did Madotsuki only think this was true and sleepwalk off the balcony in an attempt to wake up?

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