The 92 Metacritic RPG With the Best Plot Twist Mechanic in Gaming History (& It’s Not Persona 5)

Both Persona 5 and The Witcher 3 excel at this, but one ultimately does it better. Persona 5 earns constant praise for delivering one of the most stylish, memorable reveals in modern RPGs, and players still cite its late-game twist as a masterclass in how to weaponize perception and narrative structure. However, the RPG with the greatest twist you personally help create is CD Projekt Red’s 92-scored epic, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Persona 5’s Plot Twist: Stylish, Smart, and Built on Player Complicity

Persona 5 has one of the most talked-about twists in the video game industry of the last decade, and for good reason. For most of the game, Joker’s team operates by infiltrating P5‘s dungeon Palaces built from corrupted cognition, which are stylized manifestations of villains’ desires.

When the twist finally arrives, the game reveals it has been playing a second narrative on top of the one you thought you were progressing: Joker’s arrest, the traitor hiding within the Phantom Thieves’ allies, and a carefully orchestrated plan that you unknowingly helped set in motion hours earlier.

How Persona 5 Builds Its Twist

• The Akechi Confidant Link Is a Trap You Willingly Enter: Akechi’s justice confidant/social link is famously optional, but narratively irresistible. He offers insight, sympathy, and camaraderie at a point in the story where the team is most under pressure. The more time you spend with him, the more the eventual twist hits because you invested energy into giving him more information than you should have.
• The Interrogation Framing Device Is Fueled by Your Own Playthrough: Every choice you made leading up to Joker’s arrest becomes part of the timeline the protagonist recounts. The twist works because it is, in some sense, a reflection of your own progress. Persona 5 pulls the rug out from under you by using decisions from the narrative’s foundations.

Persona 5’s plot twist is slick, ambitious, and rewarding, but it’s ultimately a twist that the player experiences, not one they can dramatically alter. Whether you unlock Persona 5‘s good or bad endings is entirely unrelated to this pivot.

The Witcher 3’s Plot Twist Goes Further Than Persona 5’s

The Witcher 3’s biggest twist isn’t a single cinematic or applause-worthy reveal. Instead, it’s a slow realization that the final act has been quietly determined by subtle player choices. Many of which don’t even look like turning points.

The twist: Ciri’s endings, her relationship with Geralt, and her future as either Witcher, Empress, or deceased entirely hinge on a series of personal, often mundane decisions you make while believing the plot is leading you by the hand. The game doesn’t highlight them. It doesn’t warn you. It doesn’t even telegraph their importance. Persona 5 asks you to participate in its twist, while The Witcher 3 asks you to unknowingly author it.

How Players Quietly Influence Ciri’s Fate in The Witcher 3

• Encouraging or Discouraging Ciri Without Realizing the Stakes: Allowing Ciri to attend the Lodge meeting on her own or comforting her after the battle of Kaer Morhen by joining her in a snowball fight: these are all moments where Geralt shapes Ciri’s confidence and relationship. They feel like flavor scenes, but they’re actually the backbone of the game’s ending. Each one determines whether she feels supported, trusted, and strong enough to face her destiny. Yet, the game never tells you this, and you only discover it in the final reveal.
• Meeting (or Rejecting) the Emperor: Geralt’s decision to bring Ciri to Emperor Emhyr is framed as natural story progression, not a crossroads moment. Many players choose it simply because it seems like a logical progression to the main quest. But for Ciri, this meeting is a deeply personal referendum on autonomy and identity. Geralt’s intentions matter less than what the act symbolizes. The Witcher 3 transforms a seemingly ordinary quest step into a major emotional turning point.
• Treating Her as a Witcher Without Knowing You’re Deciding Her Future: The biggest twist is that Ciri’s Witcher ending isn’t handed to players; it’s earned by behaving as though Ciri already is a Witcher: someone capable, self-directed, and part of the family. When you let her make her own choices, when you back her instead of shielding her, you are unknowingly paving the path toward the Witcher life she ends up choosing.

The Witcher 3 Vs. Persona 5 – Why The Former’s Plot Twist is Superior

Persona 5’s plot twist pulls off something incredible: a plot point that feels like a stage play collapsing in on itself, with the player as both participant and audience. However, it’s still a twist that happens to you, even if you engage with the lead-in somewhat. The Witcher 3, on the other hand, performs a narrative magic trick that few games have ever matched. The Witcher 3’s twist is invisible until you realize you created it. Where Persona 5 designs a surprise around the narrative, but The Witcher 3 designs a surprise out of your actions:

• You aren’t told which moments matter.
• You don’t know you’re steering the story.
• You don’t realize what kind of ending you’re creating.
• You aren’t rewarded for “correct” choices, only authentic ones.

Ciri’s fate unfolds not because you followed narrative breadcrumbs, but because you played the game as you believed Geralt should behave. In other words, your version of Geralt determines her future. That’s a twist only video games can deliver, but one that few ever attempt at this scale.

Persona 5’s big reveal is unforgettable, but The Witcher 3’s twist is unparalleled in how deeply, quietly, and personally the player is woven into the outcome. It’s not just a twist you witness, it’s one you unknowingly authored through compassion, trust, and instinct.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

9/10

Released

May 19, 2015

ESRB

M for Mature: Use of Alcohol, Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content