Superliminal & 9 Other Video Games That Broke Reality & Hurt Our Brains
Video games are capable of a level of subversion that few other narrative mediums can accomplish. By giving the audience agency (or, at least, supposed agency) over the world, video games offer a much more immersive experience that offers plenty of opportunities to mess with people's heads.
And while most shooters or kid-friendly platformers offer players a chance to just shut off their brain, there are a good few games that try to bend the medium to its limits to really test people's imaginations and perception. Either by manipulating the graphics, narrative, the player's sense of choice, or even just the player's sense of what a game is, video games have found plenty of interesting ways to twist and turn reality.
10 Superliminal
One of the most recent and viral examples of video games breaking reality is none other than developer Pillow Castle's breakout hit, Superliminal. In it, the player takes control of a patient for a new and experimental dream-therapy program where participants are put into dreams and are told to solve a variety of surreal puzzles.
Having the game set within a dream realm already offers plenty of opportunities to make the player question what is truly real, but Superliminal's real selling point is its use of forced perspective and optical illusions. In the game, the player has to solve a variety of puzzles that depend on using perspective to manipulate objects' sizes, make initially 2D images interactable, and a whole lot of other surreal artsy stuff that is just really impressive to code.
9 Portal
It's hard to talk about being trapped in mind-bending, science experiments without referencing the one that practically defined them for video games. Set in the same universe as Half-Life, the Portal series focuses on the test subject of a competitor to Black Mesa testing out a new kind of teleportation technology.
With the now-famous portal gun, the player is able to create two connecting portals and must solve a variety of puzzles and, eventually, facilitate their own escape from the testing site with it. From a studio that just knows what fun and innovation look like, the Portal games offered players a litany of spectacular puzzles that always made the player feel extra smart for solving them.
8 Superhot
It's one thing to manipulate space to create a new experience for players. It's another to just mess with their sense of time. Superhot is an indie shooter game whose main gimmick is that the world moves when the player does. By this, it means that every action sequence that Superhot places the player in, will only move or speed up once the player actually touches their mouse or analog stick.
This alone made the action, shooter experience all the more refreshing as players carefully took every move and action into consideration. Superhot only ups the ante from there as its levels and story continuously sought to make the player question what exactly they were playing.
7 The Stanley Parable
Because of technological limitations, narrative limitations, and developers having to do some things besides work on games, no video game can actually offer the player true agency. Agency in video games is inherently restricted and limited to what the developers can or wanted to implement.
The Stanley Parable is fully aware of this and sets up an experience meant to mess with gamers' sense of agency within video games. It all starts with a simple decision between two paths but quickly and assuredly devolves into narrative chaos as The Stanley Parable slowly makes the player question what they're truly in charge of.
6 Doki Doki Literature Club
Doki Doki Literature Club is truly a horror game for the modern, video game community. For those who have yet to play the game and are interested in it, just know that it does feature some pretty graphic material. If that actually tantalizes some gamers out there, then buckle up for a dating simulator that tries to play you.
Without spoiling too much, Doki Doki Literature Club is a horror, dating sim that uses the meta-knowledge of its genre to corrupt what made normal dating sims so loveable as well as distort the game itself to scare gamers. It's a really unnerving game filled to the brim with detail, and it doesn't charge the player a dime.
5 Baba Is You
Every so often, a puzzle game comes out that surprises gamers with its creative mechanics only to slowly frustrate them when those mechanics force them to think outside the box. Many tend to fall under a certain pattern that makes later puzzles easier, but that isn't the case with the near, limitless potential of Baba Is You.
In it, the game blurs the line between gameplay and its rulebook by literally fusing the two together. By having the player actually interact with the rules of the level as if the rules themselves are interactable objects, Baba Is You offers a variety of mind-blowing puzzles that has the player scan nearly every inch of their computer screen.
4 Nier Automata
The Drakengard and Nier franchises already have a cult following with developing original and deeply reflective experiences for video games. The most recent entry to their ranks is none other than Nier Automata, a great follow-up to the already surreal worlds from director Yoko Taro and a game that brings whole new elements to make people question what life truly is.
Much of this is done through the game's stellar narrative as the line between humanity and machine is consistently blurred. However, the point is driven much deeper with some well-considered fourth wall breaks and details that do a whole lot more than just wink at the camera, such as the game letting change and upgrade the player's interface as they're customizing the characters themselves.
3 BioShock Infinite
In terms of the overall franchise, BioShock Infinite is arguably the least involved of the BioShock games. While the director initially had some incredibly ambitious ideas for the game, the end product, while still incredibly fun, turned into something much more limited and linear when compared to even its predecessors.
However, BioShock Infinite still persists to this day as one of the franchises best for being a really fun game and having one of the most memorable and reality-shaking stories in all of gaming. While certain elements of that narrative are divisive, those scores of internet debates are just an extension of the lofty ideals and complex, science fiction that manifested Infinite's many alternate realities.
2 The Witness
It's hard to talk about mind-blowing games with talking about, well, Jonathan Blow. Though Blow doesn't actually have a deep catalog to his career, both of his games have become famous within the gaming community. Braid is famous as a quintessential pillar of indie games; but when it comes to truly make gamers change how they perceive reality, there's no denying The Witness' place in that pantheon.
A puzzle game without any explicit objective, The Witness just lets the player's inherent curiosity guide them across its world; and while there are plenty of obvious, explicit puzzles across the map, The Witness really sells its narrative once the player starts looking deeper into the game to find puzzles outside of the panels.
1 Undertale
Undertale is going to be a lot of people's favorite, fourth-wall-breaking video game. While initially depicted as a fun RPG with plenty of personality, Undertale is a game that only gets more shocking yet rewarding the deeper one's willing to get into the game, especially if new players take seriously the idea that no one has to die in the game.
Clearly made from a deep sense of love and appreciation for classic video games, Undertale's deeper story has the player question the intent of any video game or gaming choice. Things only get stranger once fans get into the Undertale community and discover an entire world of fan fiction, art, and even unofficial games that all try to be as reflecting, quirky, and ambitious as Undertale itself while still somehow connecting to the original game.