In this article I’ll be discussing why the ending to Infamous 1 wasn’t that well written. Before we continue any further, it should be obvious but I want to mention that this will contain heavy spoilers including the ending of Infamous 1 video game. Now keep this very important thing in mind, I really enjoyed this game. Despite this game releasing in 2009 it’s a darn good game that you must play if you haven’t already. In fact, if you haven’t played this game, stop reading this article, play and beat the game and then come back to this article. You can find more details in my review with no spoilers found here. To play this game it can be done on a PS3 or over the PlayStation Now streaming service. I review and explain the PS Now service in another article.
Let’s continue. From here on out there are spoilers everywhere. I know a lot of people say the ending was incredible and in some ways it was, especially finding out why Cole was targeted for the Ray Sphere explosion but other parts just left me wondering why the ending wasn’t done better. I’ll recap the story, explain problems with the ending and finally how the ending could have gone more logically (in my opinion).
Let’s recap the story very fast for gamers that might not have played Infamous in years and are interested in what I have to say. The game starts with Cole MacGrath, a simple bike messenger on his way to deliver a package, then BAM the package explodes. The explosion levels several blocks of Empire City and kills thousands. At the core of the blast Cole somehow survives and powers awaken within him. He has super fast healing and he can control electricity. The aftermath of the explosion also let loose a plague infecting the city. To ensure the disease doesn’t spread throughout the rest of the country, the government puts up a blockade trapping everyone in Empire City. Due to the entrapment people can’t easily access food, more gangs start appearing and people are dying from the plague.
Cole’s best friend Zeke decides to take advantage of Cole’s powers to escape the city. That plan flops, an FBI agent named Moya tells Cole she’ll let him leave the city if he finds the device that caused the explosion along with her husband who is also an agent, John White. The device in question is called the “Ray Sphere”. Cole spends most of his time trying to track John and eventually does. John tells Cole that Moya is lying and they’re not married. Cole stops listening to Moya and decides to help John, for now. During this time two bosses with powers appear, Cole defeats them but the main boss Kessler is left for the final fight. Depending on what you decide to do in the game, Kessler even kills Cole’s girlfriend, Trish before the final showdown.
Cole defeats Kessler and in the ending cutscene, Kessler lunges at Cole, grabs his head and shows him a vision. It turns out Kessler is Cole from the future. In the future there’s someone with terrible powers called “The Beast” destroying everything and everyone. Kessler could have defeated The Beast but decides to flee and take his family to safety. This backfires as The Beast becomes stronger, and everyone Kessler loves dies. Kessler obtains a new power that will allow him to travel back in time only once and trap him there. He does this, he takes over the syndicate group called the First Sons, has them accelerate building the Ray Sphere, targets his present day self (Cole) which causes the explosion and his powers to awaken. He has Cole go through everything that happens in the Infamous video game to become cunning and strong enough to take on and kill The Beast. After the vision completes, Kessler dies.
Okay now that we’re caught up, let’s review the ending and this has always bugged me. If Kessler came back in the past to mentally and physically challenge Cole to become stronger and kill the beast, why go through all that nonsense? Why didn’t Kessler just come back in time and warn Cole immediately and team up with him to kill The Beast? Could you imagine future Cole training present day Cole to kill The Beast? They would have been unstoppable. Discussing time travel in video games and movies is risking shooting the story in the foot. Sometimes it can be well done and even explained and simplified for the audience like Back to the Future 2, but other times like Avengers End Game just do it terribly.
Having Kessler come back in time at nearly full strength and not team up with present day Cole for both of them to fight The Beast made no sense. What if during the Infamous story, Cole tripped over a dog in a gun battle and was shot to death. What if during the explosion at the beginning of the game a building falls apart and half of the building falls on him. We know Cole doesn’t have super strength to survive that. What if Cole tripped over a log at the river and feel into the water and died. Water is his weakness and falling in water always nearly kills him. What if Trish comes to love Cole even more after nearly losing him in the explosion. Sure she’s upset her sister died but maybe she realized she could have lost another loved one, she tells Cole she wants to start a family then Cole uses his powers to flea the city. Then Cole ends up in the exact same situation as Kessler.
The point I’m making is that you can use time travel but it has to be done very carefully otherwise too many “what if” scenarios come up. Did Kessler really have to throw Alden out on the streets as a kid? That’s terrible, he could have at least kept him under his wing or something. Did he really need to blow up Empire City which probably killed hundreds of children? He also spread a disease by activating the Ray Sphere and probably killed countless more. For a guy that had kids in the future, he sure hates children. In this sense it makes Kessler seem like an idiot.
Which leads to the next bizarre thing said in the ending cut scene after Kessler arrives in the past, “… decades spent plotting the blast, organizing the quarantine, finding me…”. Wait, Kessler arrived decades before the events of the game. This is confirmed because in another cut scene we see him kicking Alden out of the first sons as a child, in the Infamous game Alden is an old man. This means Kessler arrived so far in the past that any small action he takes could have a ripple effect on the entire timeline which means Cole might never have been born. Let’s assume someone from the First Sons went home to their family that night but on the way went grocery shopping and interacted with someone, and that person had a new interaction with another person and so on. This would have had an effect on Cole’s parents, heck they might not have even met. Once Kessler arrived in the past, he changed all of known reality, he cannot know what to expect in this timeline.
What would have made more sense is Kessler coming back in time just like in Infamous 1 but with a limited amount of power because time travel would have weakened him (except he travels back in time closer to after Cole is born). In his weakened state he goes directly to Cole and shows him the vision of the Beast. In the vision Kessler wanted to obtain more power to fight super villains so he tried to activate a Ray Sphere on himself but didn’t realize that blast would kill thousands and he mistakenly killed Trish and Zeke. Shortly after The Beast appears and starts killing millions. Kessler helps Cole unlock his powers by imprisoning sacrifices underground or something (no children included). Cole activates the Ray Sphere, not knowing people underground are about to be killed for Cole to obtain powers (remember people killed by the Ray Sphere have their energy sent to survivors to unlock their powers). Having sacrifices underground might also prevent the Ray Sphere disease from spreading. Then Cole prepares for the battle against The Beast. During his training other super villains appear and Kessler tells him in order to defeat the Beast he must be able to defeat these other villains, thus setting the premise for the game. An ending twist could have been that Cole finds out Kessler sacrificed many people during the Ray Sphere activation for Cole to obtain powers. This causes Cole to snap on Kessler and tell him he won’t help him anymore. Kessler gets fed up, grabs a Ray Sphere and tries to absorb Cole’s powers. The altercation ends up overcharging the Ray Sphere, Zeke jumps in trying to save Cole. An explosion occurs killing Kessler and blasting Zeke across town and Zeke is turned into The Beast. That’s the twist. Kessler’s Ray Sphere in the future doesn’t kill Zeke, it transforms Zeke into The Beast, a being with no logic, no reason, just a monstrous being with destructive power.
With Kessler dead, Cole won’t learn how to time travel and prevent this from all happening again. At this point Cole realizes that Zeke becoming the The Beast was always unavoidable and has no choice but to confront him. The explosion also causes Cole to lose a significant amount of power thus setting up the stage for Infamous 2. In my version of Infamous 2 the karma system could be Cole being evil and killing The Beast (aka Zeke) without any remorse because he wants to be the most powerful being on the planet or good karma is to find a way to turn Zeke back to normal.
You might think my alternate story and ending is terrible which is completely fine but it tries to address the time travel issue. The fact remains that Kessler is an idiot and this kind of left the Infamous ending a little lacking. Regardless of your opinion I hope you enjoyed this insight into the Infamous ending as it’s still a rock solid game and definitely deserves a remaster. If you haven’t already, I also suggest you play Infamous 2 as that is a great game.
