Playing the Player

"Games tend to be very trustworthy--good guys are good, bad guys are bad. What you see and perceive is real. Sometimes characters are betrayed, but the player never is."

- Ken Levine to Gamespot

The above quote from Ken Levine describes the standard relationship between a Video Game and said game's players. Games won't deceive you, Villains Never Lie (or if they do, it is obvious) and you're the one pulling the strings. Characters' expectations will be Subverted but yours will not be.

As such, the common relationship between the player and the game constitutes a trope. Therefore, it can be played with.

Playing the Player is a Video Game plot device that occurs when this common relationship is played with in a manner designed to make the player uncomfortable.

There are quite a few ways to do this. Most involve deliberate deception of the player (not just the player character). But it has to be a significant betrayal of the player's expectations in order to qualify, and this betrayal must be intended to make the player squirm. And this is not the only manner in which a game can do this. By definition, the game has to have a level of understanding about how players relate to it in order to pull this off.

Seinfeld Is Unfunny also applies to this trope. To someone that has played, for instance, Metal Gear Solid 2 or Bio Shock, Final Fantasy VII does not seem to betray the player in a shocking way. Of course, to someone that has spent their time with only the earlier Final Fantasy games and no other games, Final Fantasy VII would come as quite a shock. In short, it depends significantly on a player's initial expectations. Arguably, as the "standard" (i.e. expected) relationship between a player and a game changes, there will be evolution in what a game has to do to qualify for this trope.

This trope is often easy to implement in a First-Person Shooter because players will have a tendency to see their player character as themselves. Needless to say, most First-Person Shooter games do not use this trope. However, it can be implemented in less immersive perspectives by having an Audience Surrogate character.

This trope is frequently seen in deconstructions but in and of itself, it is not necessarily a deconstruction. Additionally, this is not the same as having No Fourth Wall. Also, this trope deals often deals with plot details, so spoilers ahead.

Not to be confused with The Game Plays You. Naturally full of Wham Episodes.

Compare Player Punch and You Bastard.


 * Final Fantasy VII is one of the earliest examples. While it doesn't take place in first person, the player is represented by Cloud Strife, initially presented as an Escapist Character. As the game continues, it turns out that Not only that, but Cloud is constantly deceived and manipulated by the villains during the course of the game.
 * Final Fantasy X, too. The Hero Tidus washes up on a beach, meets the White Magician Girl who is the next chosen person to defeat Sin, and agrees to help her on her pilgrimage, fighting off the Corrupt Church and their pet Nietzsche Wannabe. Standard RPG plot. Wanna know the ending?
 * Stray Souls Dollhouse Story: The protagonist is the wife of a Distressed Dude, and she drives after him. She crashes in a weird town full of dolls plagued by a serial killer... the killer's gonna have a doll theme, and the protagonist will have an epic showdown with The Starscream, right?
 * Tales Series has the first few hours as a Cliché Storm, before providing a Wham Episode.
 * In Ghost Trick,
 * System Shock 2 is infamous for doing this. The game begins with you waking up from cryo-sleep with cybernetic implants stuffed into your head and throws you into a spaceship overrun with aliens. Sounds relatively standard so far. Until you discover that
 * A particularly disturbing part of this is Combined with the dominatrix overtones of her characterization, you get a situation where the game is metaphorically raping the player. The advertising of the game even has a picture of her with the caption "she doesn't need to use her body to get what she wants... she's got yours."
 * Metal Gear Solid 2. The plot of the game is a Deconstruction of how some people played its prequel as a power fantasy. Oh, so you wish you were just like Solid Snake huh?
 * It gets better than that.
 * Bio Shock does this brutally, as part of a Genre Deconstruction of the Shooter-Role Playing Game hybrids such as System Shock, System Shock 2 and Deus Ex; all of which claimed to offer unprecedented player freedom. You actually have very little at all and this game makes it quite clear. . Considering that the game was marketed as offerring unprecedented levels of player choice, this was a pretty mean thing to do to the player.
 * Doubly clever, since the player mindlessly under the assumption that they're the only way to progress in the game, as one does in nearly every video game. However, the game takes a usual video game Acceptable Break From Reality and then repapers the fourth wall to explain in-game why Jack is
 * Silent Hill Shattered Memories has you playing as a man named Harry Mason as he searches for his lost daughter Cheryl. In a major plot twist, it's revealed to both Harry and the player that
 * It's also worth noting that the game markets "playing the player" as one of its features, "reading" the player's psyche through their actions in the game (as well as in a number of flat-out therapy sessions with an in-game character), and aspects of the game change according to the player's behavior. In actuality, though, it's really more of a subtle "choose your own adventure" system, where different types of behavior lead to different versions of the game's events, including the Multiple Endings.
 * Silent Hill in general is a Mind Screw, what with all the horror and Paranoia Fuel.
 * Silent Hill 2 plays this trope straight, while the other games in the series (aside from Shattered Memories) do not.
 * The Alternate Reality Game Majestic was marketed as "the game that plays you". As an Alternate Reality Game, it presented itself as part of Real Life and many of the people that played the game reported being rendered completely paranoid during the time they played it. Indeed, "messing with the guy that plays Majestic" became an office hobby during the time the game was operating. The game began with the player receiving news that the developers had been killed, and it only got worse from there. Since the game focused on Conspiracy Theory material, the player being constantly lied to makes sense.
 * OUR NEW OFFICE PASSTIME IS MESSIN' WITH THE GUY WHO PLAYS MAJESTIC
 * Heavy Rain does this to the player regarding the identity of the killer.
 * Nie R is arguably an example, at least on subsequent playthroughs. First time one plays through, its a typical Eastern RPG. Fight the monstrous Shades, save your daughter, defeat The Shadowlord and Happy Ending ensues. But then, you start your second playthrough
 * Haze attempted to play this trope straight. The game has you as a trooper for the Mantel Corporation, jacked up on a performance-enhancing supplement called "Nectar" and fighting a guerrila-terrorist army led by a madman that wears human skin. Of course, Nectar is really an hallucinogenic mind-control Psycho Serum that blinds you to the fact that you're really a mass-murderer drug-junkie treating war as if it were a game of Halo. This might have been a shocking twist and a highly effective deception of the player...if it weren't revealed on the back of the box and in all the game's publicity for months before release, and if the supposed good guys weren't basically carrying around giant signs saying "hey, I'm a totally evil bastard, me" in flashing neon. Not a bad idea, but the execution was lacking, and it didn't help that the gameplay doesn't hold up terribly well.
 * Many feel that the depth of Shadow of the Colossus deals with this trope. Players are used to being the good guy out to destroy the evil monsters. This seems to be the case at the start of the game, but as time goes on, the hero's appearance begins changing, becoming ragged and dark, and some of the monsters you defeat seem benign or even peaceful. One won't even attack you. The player must confront his or her own feelings of the morality of continuing to play the game.
 * The big turning point probably comes after killing Phalanx (#13), a truly majestic creature that never once tries to attack the player. As this is also around the time the plot kicks in, it counts as somewhat of a Wham Episode.
 * Braid: The player is lead to believe that Tim is trying to Save the Princess, but the ending heavily implies that she's actually running away from him or is a metaphor for something else.
 * Tower Defense game Gemcraft: Chapter Zero is a fairly mild version. The Player should be wary of the premise of the game (a sorcerer seeking the ultimate MacGuffin) since it's a prequel, and the boss-fights are named, but overall the player identifies with the main character, wanting to beat all of the levels. Then you get to the very last stage and have to free the MacGuffin from a seal. Destroying the seal  !
 * Jade Empire does this masterfully. Mind Screw Royale, dudes.
 * Baten Kaitos is an example where you don't play as the main character, Kalas, but as a Spirit Guardian who guides and empowers him. Kalas often has conversations with you, and your responses affect the level of power you grant him in battle..
 * Baten Kaitos Origins does something similar. As before, you don't control Sagi, but his Guardian Spirit instead.
 * Ever 17:
 * Remember 11:
 * Designer Suda 51 is fond of screwing with the player.
 * Eversion doesn't so much play the player as it sends the player into gibbering madness.
 * Portal 2 has fun with this by setting up the player's expectations and then messing with them. Storywise, by pulling the rug out from under the characterization halfway through, turning the game from a straightforward "defeat the villain" plot into a case of Evil Versus Evil. Gameplay-wise, by forcing you into a Violation of Common Sense to get several achievements and correspondingly mocking you for doing whatever you're told, no matter how likely it is to be a trap. This despite the fact that the game is purely linear and you have no choice but to do these things.
 * The original Portal pulled this off masterfully. The first people to play it assumed, given the short length and gimicky premise, that this was a straightforward Puzzle Game with the amusing, slightly-glitchy computerised Mission Control serving as nothing more than an excuse for a Justified Tutorial of sorts. Then she tries to Kill Them With Fire, and suddenly everyone realises she's the Big Bad.
 * Last Scenario lies to the player in the opening Info Dump, so as to make The Reveal all the more shocking.
 * Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance reveals rather early on that there is a mole in the player's party, but who they are is ambiguous. Potential candidates include Volke and Nasir, based on the timing of the reveal, but when Soren confronts the latter over the possibility during a mid-game conversation, Nasir basically shrugs him off and implies that Soren is hiding something. It turns out to, but the game does a really good job of making it ambiguous as to who the real one is: to the extent that you may not be using either of the playable units under suspicion until it all clears up for fear of them backstabbing you mid-chapter.
 * It doesn't help that FE8 had exactly that happen, so people who played that game knew that the developers weren't above such trickery.
 * Arguably the campaign of Call of Duty Black Ops could also count as an example. While the main protagonist, Mason, isn't silent or faceless, the player is still encouraged to identify with him, as almost all the missions take place from his POV. Throughout the game, you constantly see and interact with Reznov, one of the main characters from World At War, as he encourages Mason to take out the three main villains at any cost. The player, who can only see what Mason observes, unless they are playing as Hudson, simply take Reznov's word for it, like Mason. However, there are subtle hints throughout the game that not all is as it appears, as no one else, minus the interrogater,  even acknowledge Reznov's appearance. One even asks what is wrong with you. As it turns out in the big reveal,   It's quite a Mind Screw.
 * Being of the mystery genre, it's no wonder the Ace Attorney series pulls this from time to time. The most shining example is the final case of the second game: apart from your assistant being kidnapped, its set up like a petty formulaic case, all the evidence points to your client, but they really don't look the type to commit murder. Meanwhile you have a witness who seems to know a lot more than she's letting on. There's a dark secret hidden behind everything, which could form a plausable motive for her. Pretty typical, you'd probably be thinking.
 * Several other cases do this to a minor degree:
 * Turnabout Samurai (Ace Attorney):
 * Turnabout Big Top (Justice For All): The killer was
 * The Stolen Turnabout (Trials and Tribulations): Congratulations! You've managed to prove your client was somewhere else when the theft occured, and implicated someone else.
 * The Imprisoned Turnabout (Investigations 2): The whole case seems like a total mess, until Edgeworth finally discovers a clear trail leading to a certain someone. You confont him, and...  Later on you find out   Your suspicions have now fallen on , but both Edgeworth, and likely the player, are having trouble figuring out their motive.   It's a little... unsettling to the player. And it gets worse, in the games final case, you find out there's more to this incident than meets the eye.
 * While Unreliable Narrator is in full effect for what we are told and what we can read in The Elder Scrolls games, the experiences of the player characters are assumed to be as reliable as they can be when told through the medium of a game - your character might have been misled by illusions or lies, but you can be sure those illusions or lies were there (and if time breaks, you can be sure that your character did what he or she seemed to do, just alongside mutually contradictory things). Except for the  storyline in , where late in the story we are told by a reliable source that the player character misremembers a lot of incidents in the storyline - and even potentially some outside it -   outright told you who he was, several times, but the curse of the   meant that you forgot it as soon as a little time had passed.
 * The final scene of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood does this to the player. After having used the Apple of Eden successfully as Ezio Auditore in the Animus memory sequence, both the player and the protagonist (Desmond) expect that he will be able to use it in the present day. Not so. On picking it up, he is promptly dominated by Juno, told that he must learn more if he is to be of use to her, and then forced to Worse, the game pauses before the fatal moment and tells you to "press any button". So not only did Desmond, so did you.