10 Video Game Cutscenes You CAN ACTUALLY BREAK

Some game stories and moments can be changed in surprising ways. Here are some of our favorite deep-cut examples.

0:00 Intro
0:13 Number 10
1:08 Number 9
2:16 Number 8
3:34 Number 7
4:54 Number 6
6:19 Number 5
7:23 Number 4
8:26 Number 3
9:41 Number 2
10:42 Number 1

[MikeS]

Shoutout to the time stamp person! Sometimes you gotta skip the spoiler sections for stuff you haven't played!

[MetalCheeseDeathAttack]

Also with Takemura, if you have the double jump you don’t need to find the secret passageway. My first playthrough, I decided To try to jump back up through the hole I fell from, and managed to save him (since I didn’t know any other way to get back there).

[rinayasi]

Skyrim has lots of moments like this
The one that always sticks out in my mind is when you first enter markoth a girl gets stabbed in the middle of the market. If you kill the attacker before they get to her she lives and you can talk to her and get a bit more information in her room in the inn

[wx]

Breakdown:

10: An intended alternative scene, not broken.

9: An intended alternative scene, not broken.

8: A weird quirk where you can disobey a quest objective. Possibly broken.

7: Designed way to change the normal flow of the game. An intentionally designed route and secret mission.

6: An intentional alternative scene, not broken.

5: Hidden choice / skill check. Doing so doesn't break the game or a scene.

4: Intentional alternative scene, not broken.

3: Intentional alternative continuity, not broken.

2: Intentional dialogue choice and consequence, not broken.

1: Definitely broken, but you need to cheat to make it happen.

It's really manipulative and misleading to title a video "cutscenes you can break" when many of the scenes aren't cutscenes, but rather gameplay and all but one are definitively broken, with all of the others either being weird quirks that could arise in normal or skilled gameplay.

This video is essentially saying "if it differs from what a normal player would typically see, it's broken" regardless of the fact that 7/10 are alternative scenes where conditions must be met for them to be seen, 1/20 is a skill check, with only 2/10 being possible glitches, of which you need to cheat to see 1.

[AndrewsYoutube]

The team behind 'Skyrim' did an amazing job coming up with all kind of different scenarios and dialogues in response.

- If you learn the first word of 'Whirlwind Sprint' before meeting the Greybeards (where they normally teach you the first word), Arngeir will comment on that, and teach you the second word.

- You can acquire the Dragonstone from 'Bleak Falls Barrow' before getting the quest from Farengar. If you do that, when you are scripted to get the quest, you can turn it over and get unique dialogue from Farengar. I believe that even skips Delphine's appearance in Dragonsreach, which is always a plus. 👍

[XhodanXeus]

Usually what I do when i play open-world action/fps when i am inside something and a cut scene ends and tells me go here/do this/or whatever - i will turn around just to see if the back is blocked or if there are rooms. if the path or whatever is blocked i will continue, if not i will go and explore. I think the same thing happend with me and Takemura in Cyberpunk. I was able to save him and thru "mistake" found him.

[MrXMysteriousX]

The BOTW one happened to me on my first playthrough.I'd gone around the outer perimeter having missed the intended route from how I'd initially approached.

Noticing that the rain was preventing me climbing I kept circling around where I found a huge waterfall.

In a stroke of genius I realised I could use the cryo power to create stepping stones to the top.

It took awhile but I reached the top and was (I think) around the Lionel who fires lightning area.

From there I dropped in on the Zora Palace.
I only knew about the standard route due to watching my son play it lol

[augury]

If you choose the Corpo ending after saving Takemura he appears instead of Hellman. I guess it gives you a bit of hope since at least one guy is honarable enough to actually bring you back out of Mikoshi. But it is really minor

[daggers]

In Kingdom Come: Deliverance, if you take too long to do the main story line one of the suspects you're supposed to find and interrogate will be found in a cave stabbed and nearly dead. Instead if you start the main quest right away it's possible to get to that cave before the enemies and prepare an ambush for them

[psudodrake]

For FO3... if you go through the Power of the Atom and nuke megaton, Moira Brown - that plucky NPC who gives you the Wastelanders Survival Guide quest - Turns into a Ghoul. If you go back to Megaton, SHE COMES OUT OF THE CRATER! One of the funniest things I've seen in a game. All so that you can continue doing the Wastelander's Survival Guide

[majormoron]

Getting an alternate cutscene or outcome can hardly be called breaking a cutscene

[miceforever]

i really like you put it like number 1, 2, 3 etc, so you dont spoil what is next :) THANK YOU gameranx!

[BellevueGhostbuster]

Also in Arkham Knight, if you wait to capture the Gothams Most Wanted till after you have captured Scarecrow and everyone knows Bruce Wayne is Batman, the villains will talk to Batman in the batmobile knowing his identity and the dialogue is different than if you did it before the end of the game. It was so cool to do that.

[nnurk]

Shout out to Halo: Combat Evolved: in the mission Assault of the Control Room, at the end, as you open the final door to the control room, if you had stolen a banshee and flown it to the door, you have enough time to press the button to open the door, then get in the banshee and fly up and forward towards the door before the cutscene triggers and Master Chief starts following the scripted movements for the cutscene. If done right, the banshee crushes and kills the master chief, who remains in the static dead pose for the cut scene, bit sometimes leaning in odd angles as his corpse reads his lines. It was a fun thing to discover by accident so many years ago, and I make it a point to do it every time now.

[aditya]

Talking about the Mass Effect squadmate recruitment, you can also ignore recruiting both Wrex and Garrus. If u ignore Wrex, he wont appear in the future games and Wreav will take his place. If you ignore Garrus, during his recruitment in ME2, both will recognize each other but itll be like they dont know each other much. The fact that they knew players have the option to ignore them and then carry on without recruiting them and chose to make dialogue for those is insane. I'm not so sure if Garrus' statuss carries on to me3 tho. He comments on how he saved the citadel with shepard if u recruited him. I wonder if its different if you didnt.

[evergaolbird]

Skyrim do have a lot of those from the Golden Claw/Dragonstone, but what blew my mind away is the fact in Outer Worlds' tutorial mission - you can do an outcome you literary thought was not possible due to how it usually works on other mainstream games (usually choose a side and that's it).

Outer Worlds put it onto the next level and I've never played FNV but I finally understood why Obsidian had a lot of huge praises.

[ShadowDemon_]

The Batman Arkham Knight one was something I found out on my own.
When I heard the dialogue from the guards I questioned if not shooting affected it. When I replayed the game I intentionally didn't shoot and noticed their reactions were different. It was such a nice detail.

[tylercady]

I remember in Borderlands 2, one of my friends threw his Axton turret during the Sir Hammerlock intro, and it actually replaced Hammerlock with the turret in the graphic, so for the rest of that play through we referred to his turret as Hammerlock. Not exactly breaking the game, but still funny.

[Rontastik]

Also in Mass Effect 2 where you can bring Legion aboard Tali's flotilla. That cracks me up every time! lol

[TheFrostyCrane]

Ill never forget finding out about Splinter Cell Chaos Theorys alt scene when facing shetland. You are supposed to shoot him when you get prompted but if you press the button to put away your weapon you get a much cooler scene of sam ducking his retaliation shot and winning the knife to gunfight debate and putting his closing line of “Id never shoot an old friend” in an entirely different context