10 Video Games That Gut Punch You In Act One

Act one of a story is typically seen as the "safe" portion of the narrative. It's where things are set up, the characters and their dynamics are introduced and the world is explained in basic terms so you know what's going on, where it's going on and why.

It's usually then act two and three where the gut punches come in, seeing as how now that everything is set up and the characters are established, the writers can play around freely.

But some writers have a touch more confidence than that, quickly establishing the rules and then immediately breaking them just as you're starting to really internalize them. And some of those moments can really, well, gut-punch you. These are moments that appear in or cap off act one, either in the opening moments, or setting up the following two acts.

Sometimes it really is just better to start off with your all is lost moment. Makes things more expedient that way.

Hard to punch both the characters and audience in the gut harder than literally blowing up the planet.

Saints Row IV starts off by having the boss of the Saints turned president of the United States being abducted by an alien warlord and subjected to a virtual hellscape. But if it were that easy to keep the avatar of chaos and carnage known only as "the boss" down, we wouldn't have a franchise.

So of course the boss breaks free and tries to get back to Earth... and then the alien warlord blows the planet to hell, taking a huge chunk of the cast from Saints Row The Third with it.

This scene loses points for it mainly being played for laughs, but it's still the entire planet being blown up in the first act of the story. That's still a ballsy way to cap off the first segment of the story.