History WhamShot / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/TheWitness'': [[spoiler:Arguably the game's final puzzle happens just before the end of the GoldenEnding - a puzzle that turns on a light in a darkened room. The room is revealed to be impressively photorealistic - because it's actually represented by an FMV you control by walking backward and forward. Lying on the couch is a motionless figure with a sheet over it, hooked up to an IV and lying near a computer monitor. To find out who the figure is, simply walk to the end of the path...]]

*** After taking Fort Merceus in the Golden Deer route ... it gets blasted with what appears to be some form of magical ballistic missile or orbital strike.

*** In the first mission, the Young Wolf walls down towards a large cavity in the moon where the Hive have built the Scarlet Keep. And in that cavity, the Young Wolf is treated to the sight of one of those very Pyramid Ships that were seen in TheStinger of the main campaign.

* The final cutscene in the ending to the campaign of ''VideoGame/Destiny2'' has two:
** The first one is the [[BigGood Traveler]] awakening, and breaking free from the cage that [[BigBad Dominus Ghaul]] tried to seal it off in to try to steal its light.
** The second one comes immediately afterwards, as the Traveler awakening had caused it to send out a wave of light that went outside of the galaxy, and past a fleet of pyramid shaped ships, who then light up, and start flying towards the source of the wave of light.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', the Blue Lions' Chapter 11 ends with a hell of a wham shot when you finally unmask the BigBad Flame Emperor. [[spoiler:It's ''Edelgard''.]] Dimitri briefly goes LaughingMad and asks [[YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe if it's some kind of twisted joke]] when he sees that one. The Golden Deer version of the same chapter has the Flame Emperor's helmet vanish after you empty their health bar; far less dramatic, but still qualifies.
*** After taking Fort Merceus in the Golden Deer route ... it gets blasted with what appears to be some form of magical ballistic missile or orbital strike.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2:

** One that accompanies a WhamLine when the party meets the Architect, the reveal that his body is split in half. Players of the first game will know ''exactly'' [[GodOfEvil what his other half became]].

* In Chapter 5 of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'', [[HelloInsertNameHere Cross]] [[TakingTheBullet pushes Tatsu out of the way of a massive energy blast]] and is sent flying. After they land, they try to clutch their left arm in pain but realise that it's been blown clean off. Instead of what they expected to see, they find [[RoboticReveal a sparking, mechanical stump]].----

* At E3 2016, a trailer of a then unnamed game shows a boy being ordered by his father to hunt. The audience initially expect this to be an ordinary father-and-son game until the father turns out to be Kratos, now living in the period of the Norse Mythology, revealing that the game is ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'', a new installment in the ''VideoGame/GodOfWarSeries''.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', the Blue Lions' Chapter 11 ends with a hell of a wham shot when you finally unmask the BigBad Flame Emperor. [[spoiler:It's ''Edelgard''.]] Dimitri briefly goes LaughingMad and asks [[YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe if it's some kind of twisted joke]] when he sees that one.

* In Chapter 11 of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'', Noctis sees [[BigBad Ardyn]] inside the train and attacks him in a fit of rage. Shortly thereafter, he fights alongside his friend Prompto to defend the train. Shortly after taking out the Magitek engines, Noctis sees Ardyn holding Prompto at gunpoint on top of the train, and knocks the former off the train. A moment later, you see ''Prompto'' falling and ''Ardyn'' standing, at which point Noctis, along with the player, realizes that Prompto and Ardyn's appearances had been swapped to trick Noctis into attacking his friend.

*** In the mission, ''Rescue'', the Oseans launch a daring mission to extract former President Vincent Harling from the [[SpaceElevator Lighthouse]]. He, along with an Air Force colonel, try to escape on a captured V-22, but as the V-22 tries to escape, its struck by a missile to the cockpit, which kills Harling’s escort, and Harling then turns the V-22 around back to the Lighthouse. The V-22 then gets harassed by a couple of drones, and when Trigger tries to pull them away, a missile flies right past Trigger, which strikes the V-22, and the player is treated to a scene of the V-22 exploding.

** After you rescue the third victim from the television, the fog comes in and you're confident that you succeeded. At that point, you see a cinematic showing someone else's dead body, although it's later revealed that it was just a copycat crime.

*** You defeat the Divine Powers at Tsukiji Konganji, and when you go to sleep, the cutscene of the current moon phase still shows up.

** In ''VideoGame/Persona2: Eternal Punishment'''s opening sequence, Takahisa Kandori (BigBad of the first game in the franchise) appears on-screen briefly. Given that he's been dead for three years at this point, this is immensely disturbing.
** In ''VideoGame/Persona3'', after defeating [[DiskOneFinalBoss The Hanged Man]], the party returns to the dorm to celebrate the fact that the Dark Hour is gone for good. But when the usual Dark Hour intro animation play the following night, you know you're in for a WhamEpisode...
** During the battle with the Killer in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', he receives the same critical hit cut-in the party normally has, revealing he has a Persona.
** Also from ''VideoGame/Persona4'', after you rescue the third victim from the television, the fog comes in and you're confident that you succeeded. At that point, you see a cinematic showing someone else's dead body, although it's later revealed that it was just a copycat crime.

*** After the FramingDevice, Sae Nijima leaves the interrogation room and meets with one of the player character's allies, Goro Akechi. After she dismisses him and leaves, Goro's dialogue box portrait pops up...and it's a TraitorShot where he's showing a sinister PsychoticSmirk while demeaning Nijima, revealing his true colors as TheMole that sold out the heroes.

* ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'': The shot of Lugo hanging from a noose surrounded by the lynch mob in Chapter 13 and the real Konrad's dead body in Chapter 15.

* In ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'', the cutscene "The Strange Gets Stranger" has a Precursor statue opening, revealing that the Precursors are ottsels. The characters present [[BigOMG react accordingly.]]

* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona'':

** After the FramingDevice of ''VideoGame/Persona5'', Sae Nijima leaves the interrogation room and meets with one of the player character's allies, Goro Akechi. After she dismisses him and leaves, Goro's dialogue box portrait pops up...and it's a TraitorShot where he's showing a sinister PsychoticSmirk while demeaning Nijima, revealing his true colors as TheMole that sold out the heroes.
** Later in ''VideoGame/Persona5'', the protagonist initially appears to fail to summon his Ultimate Persona. Then we get a shot of ''something'' lowering itself from the heavens. The wham comes when we see the whole thing, and realise that the combined support of an entire metropolis is enough to create a Persona that's ''bigger than a skyscraper''.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'':
*** You defeat the Divine Powers at Tsukiji Konganji, and when you go to sleep, the cutscene of the current moon phase still shows up.
*** So everyone's celebrating now that the Divine Powers, Merkabah, and Lucifer are gone, surely only good things can happen from here on out right? Dagda informs you that "the show's about to start," and when he disappears from your view, the people who were celebrating moments ago are all ''collapsed on the floor''.

* ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'': The shot of Lugo hanging from a noose surrounded by the lynch mob in Chapter 13 and the real Konrad's dead body in Chapter 15.
* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'': In the game's adventure mode "World of Light", the BigBad [[PhysicalGod Ga]][[LightIsNotGood leem]] has been defeated by the fighters and is writhing after taking hefty damage from the battle.[[spoiler: Then out of nowhere a literal crack in the sky forms and from the new hole of darkness peers an ominously lit eye belonging to '''[[DarkIsEvil Dhar]][[ChaosIsEvil kon]]''', Galeem's mortal enemy who promptly snatches all the fighters and spirits Galeem had left [[KnowWhenToFoldEm as the latter bails]], finally sucking in the fighters into his twisted [[EldritchLocation Dark Realm]]]].
* The end of Stage 1 of ''[[VideoGame/TimeCrisis Time Crisis 4]]'' shows the dog tag of the defeated Marcus Black, who is revealed to be a ''U.S. military officer''...and so are the rest of the terrorists that Rush, Giorgio, and Evan have been fighting. Needless to say, [[PatrioticFervor Rush]] is ''[[BerserkButton pissed off]]''.

* In Chapter 5 of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'', [[HelloInsertNameHere Cross]] [[TakingTheBullet pushes Tatsu out of the way of a massive energy blast]] and is sent flying. After they land, they try to clutch their left arm in pain but realise that it's been blown clean off. Instead of what they expected to see, they find [[RoboticReveal a sparking, mechanical stump]].
* Combines with TheStinger in ''VideoGame/BloodstainedCurseOfTheMoon'': After trying to save Zangetsu, the three other heroes are unfortunately forced to kill him. But after the credits, Zangetsu awakens in the afterlife...which is apparently some kind of cyberpunk world far removed from the world he came from.
* At the end of Stage 2-0[[note]]or Stage 0 of any even-numbered loop[[/note]] of ''VideoGame/ChoRenSha68K'', the boss you just defeated goes out in an explosion. It's the exact same explosion that you see when you start Stage 1-1[[note]]or Stage 1 of any odd-numbered loop[[/note]]. Coupling with WhamLine, "STAGE 1" then appears as the explosion goes off.

----

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', Chrom is attacked by an assassin, but the mysterious warrior going as [[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Marth]] leaps in and blocks the blow... while calling Chrom [[LukeYouAreMyFather "father."]] "Marth" loses [[SamusIsAGirl her]] mask in the process, and finally reveals her identity to Chrom by showing the [[BirthmarkOfDestiny Brand of the Exalt]] in her left eye, [[KidFromTheFuture the exact same location as Chrom's baby daughter, Lucina.]]

** The appearance of the Prydwen in ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' is accompanied with fanfare and a good OhCrap from your companion, if you have one. Rightly so, considering that this is the strongest the Brotherhood of Steel has been in any Fallout game: the west coast Brotherhood has been declining ever since their first appearance in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout|1}}'', and while the east coast Brotherhood was powerful in ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', having custody of many suits of power armor, the Pentagon, and a giant death robot, this is a further expansion of their power. It also marks the beginning of the War for the Commonwealth, as the Sole Survivor's attention turns away from hunting down their spouse's killer (having killed him just moments before) and begins to focus on the rising conflict between the Institute, Brotherhood, and Railroad.
* At the end of the first [[Videogame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon FEAR]] game, the camera pans down from the image of Alma's second birth to show her medical file, which lists her name as "Alma Wade." That one shot changes the context of 90% of the previous game.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', Chrom is attacked by an assassin, but the mysterious woman identifying herself as [[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Marth]] leaps in and blocks the blow. This isn't the Wham Shot, though. It comes just after she calls Chrom "father." She offers to reveal her identity to him, and we see the [[BirthmarkOfDestiny Brand of the Exalt]] in her left eye. The exact same location as Chrom's baby daughter, Lucina.