Since its inception, video games have grown to become a full-fledged storytelling medium. And during the course of experiencing the ones with the more complex or fully-fleshed-out stories, players are sometimes forced to jump forward in time. This is mainly done to show the ramifications of an action the player has taken or the effects on the player's character of a situation they've just been in.
Depending on how it is executed, the jump in time can either feel seamless or jarring. The best games know how to use this particular plot device to great effect, transporting the player to the new time period without disrupting the flow of the overall narrative. But sometimes, it is the intention of the storytellers to create a sudden feeling of shock or disorientation. And on that note, here are just a few memorable games with the most surprising time skips.
Note: There will be spoilers for some of the games featured ahead.
5 Fable
Fable on the original Xbox was a game that launched with a laundry list of promises. And while the final product didn't live up to every single one of them, it still managed to offer a sweeping adventure that traced the coming-of-age story of its protagonist across several years. In the opening portion of the game, players take control of a boy whose village is invaded by bandits. Rescued by a "Hero" named Haze, the boy is recruited into the Heroes' Guild where he undergoes training to become a Hero himself.
The game has not one, but two notable time skips after that. The first shows how the Hero fares when he confronts the bandits that invaded his village, discovering that his sister (who had been abducted by the bandits) was now a seeress among their ranks. And based on the choice he makes at the end of his encounter with the bandit leader, Twinblade, the second time skip (which is where the bulk of the game takes place) follows a much older version of the Hero forging his path in the kingdom of Albion.
4 Nier Replicant
Originally released in 2010, Nier Replicant is an action RPG in which the player is on a quest to find a cure for Yonah, his ailing sister (or daughter in alternative versions of the game). Its events open in the summer of 2053, with both characters taking shelter from a snowstorm in a ravaged city. They are soon attacked by waves of shadowlike creatures, which the player must fend off.
But thereafter it appears that Yonah has finally succumbed to her illness. The game then jumps a whooping 1,412 years into the future, to show both characters living together in a village. Yonah is still terminally ill, but no immediate explanation is given as to why both characters were still alive that many years later, or what had transpired within all that time, making the jump quite jarring indeed.
3 The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
Another game that has players starting off as a young boy is of course The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. From its title alone, it is clear that the flow and passage of time would play a role in the game's narrative. And indeed it does, with the titular Ocarina of Time being a central tool for jumping between the two distinct time periods in which the game is set.
The story itself has Link once again drawn to the aid of a princess named Zelda, as an evil sorcerer (Ganondorf) tries to take over the kingdom of Hyrule by getting his hands on the Triforce, a magical artifact that gives its possessor immense power. After falling to stop him, Link awakens seven years in a post-apocalyptic version of Hyrule called the Sacred Realm. At the time of the game's release, most players had been wowed by this particular development, especially the fact that they could play as an older version of Link.
2 Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar Games took its popular open-world design perfected over the course of several Grand Theft Auto games and applied it to a Western setting in 1911 where fast cars were swapped for horses. The result was Red Dead Redemption, a game in which players play as John Marston, a former outlaw who is forced by corrupt agents of the law to help hunt down the members of his old gang.
The bulk of the game follows John's exploits across the Old West, chasing after the redemption the game's title alludes to. But its time skip doesn't come until the very end of the game when John is betrayed and killed in a showdown against government agents. And rather than end the game there, the story picks up three years later and players are instead placed in the shoes of his son, Jack, who has since come to embrace the life of an outlaw and now seeks to exact revenge on the man that betrayed his father.
1 The Last Of Us
The Last Of Us has hands down one of the most gut-wrenching and emotionally-resonant opening sequences featured in any video game. The game starts with players taking control of a young girl named Sarah, guiding her as she uncovers the frightening events unfolding all around her that particular evening. Apparently, a recent fungal outbreak has started to transform huge swats of the population into zombie-like creatures, and soon she and her father, Joel, are swept up in the ensuing madness.
The night, unfortunately, ends in tragedy as Sarah is shot and Joel watches helplessly as she dies in his arms. The game then jumps forward to show a grizzled Joel 20 years later. It is immediately clear that he is yet to come to terms with the death of his daughter, and neither has the player at that point. The rest of the game has him reluctantly forming a father-daughter relationship with another girl named Ellie, as they journey across the country in the hope of helping to finally end the outbreak.
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