History ExcusePlot / VideoGames

** ''Unfinished Business'' is four bonus levels made with the original ''VideoGame/TombRaider'' engine. Since the designer had no resources to make cutscenes or a new artifact for Lara to find, or any means of telling a story in-game, the player just starts, plays the four levels, and then they just... end. Lara achieves nothing. It's still great fun though. The actual plot is AllThereInTheManual (or online, as the case is).
** The later {{Gaiden Game}}s ''Golden Mask'' and ''the Lost Artifact'' also apply, although they do try and integrate their story a little, and Lara is rewarded with the [=titular=] item.

** You must stop the sun and the moon from fighting by... uh... partying? According to ''VideoGame/MarioParty 6'', yes. The original ''VideoGame/MarioParty'' game had all the Mario characters compete with each other to solve major problems in order to determine who is the "Super Star". Again, by partying. It eventually ends with you unlocking a secret board and trying to recover the broken pieces of the Eternal Star, with Bowser trying to stop you at all costs with his minions. Bring out the party.
*** You would be ''amazed'' at the cosmic significance of Super Stardom. In ''Mario Party 3'', the Millennium Star (a superpowerful cosmic being born once every thousand years) arrives in the Mushroom Kingdom to determine just ''who'', exactly, is the best at life-size board games.
*** Spoofed in ''Mario Party 2'', where the premise is that the cast is putting on a stage production. [[GoKartingWithBowser Even Bowser's just acting]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Teppen}}'': Welcome to the Land of Illusion, a realm that offers "truth" to those who journey through it. A lot of fights between Creator/{{Capcom}}'s roster of famous characters ensues as each one looks for their own "truth".

** This piece of information wasn't even present in the original release.

* If you want a truly ridiculous excuse plot, look no further than ''[[http://www.sydlexia.com/quizanddragons.htm Quiz & Dragons]]'', a two-player 1992 Creator/{{Capcom}} QuizGame where you must save the kingdom of Capconia from the BigBad Gordian, obviously a {{Satan}} {{expy}}, who has stolen a mystical seed and used it to enhance his {{mooks}}' wisdom on subjects including, but not limited to, science, geography, and ''television''! The mooks then go around [[ImAHumanitarian eating people]] that get their questions wrong. The sage king has no choice but to send a fighter with a HealingFactor, a wizard who can change quiz categories, an ActionGirl that can take out one or two choice answers, and a [[GratuitousNinja ninja]] that deals twice the amount of damage to take back the Wisdom Seed and save Capconia. And what do you get for saving the kingdom? [[spoiler:Your name on canned soup flavors!]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Synthetik}}'': The year is [[AlternateTechline 1985]], and the Kaida Corp supercomputer [[AIISACrapshoot turns rogue]] and forms a machine army to wipe out humanity. The only way to stop them is to take control of an android prototype and shut down the Armageddon Core deep within its headquarters. Here's a bajillion guns, now kill all these robots.

** VideoGame/Galaga it is made clearer that the name refers to the enemies. One can reasonably assume the same of the earlier game.

* Creator/{{Jaleco}}'s ''City Connection'' had one of the cutest plots ever. You're a tourist who stole a huge load of paint from a hardware store in New York, and the police have just put out an APB on you. The only way to shake them is to paint every inch of the Big Apple's single-lane, three-level highway system. Along the way you have to either avoid the cop cars or shoot cans of oil at them and ram them, as well as not hit any of the enormous cats or roadblocks that show up out of nowhere. Once you're done with New York, it's on to various other cities around the world with increasingly screwy single-lane three-level highway systems.

* While the main story of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' is definitely ''not'' an Excuse Plot, most of the DLC episodes can be summed up as "[[RuleOfCool Wouldn't it be cool if]] [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Ike]] fought [[VideoGame/FireEmblemElibe Roy]]? Or [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAkaneia Marth]] fought [[VideoGame/FireEmblemJugdral Sigurd]]?" Then there's the [[BribingYourWayToVictory Golden Pack]], which was made solely for easy grinding and features absurd plots like a group of zombies threatening vegetables or somehow stealing all of your units personal funds. [[OnlySaneMan Only Chrom seems to realize how ridiculous these situations are]].

** ''Angry Birds Space'' has the same plot as the first one, but [[RecycledINSPACE IN SPACE]]!

* The various sub-games in ''VideoGame/HalfMinuteHero'' all boil down to one of the following: "You have 30 seconds to save the world/defeat all the enemies before sunrise/get back home before the gate closes/guard the sage casting the kill-everything magic".

* The UsefulNotes/ZXSpectrum game ''Arcturus'' has 22 in-game pages of plot involving the development and destruction of at least three intergalactic civilizations, with Earth set to be the fourth. It's quite a phenomenal backdrop and story to justify the fact that, underneath it all, the game is actually just [=4x4x4=] tic-tac-toe.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} ShootEmUp ''Banshee'' has a very tongue in cheek take on the clichéd scenario of Earth facing an AlienInvasion in the year 1999. The introductory text explains that this Earth belongs to an AlternateUniverse without color television, and that the Styx [[YouKilledMyFather killed our hero's father]] "for refusing to invent the microwave oven."

** Battlefield 3's attempt at a serious plot is so generic and cliched that one wonders if the game is better served without a campaign at all. To elaborate: the villain is given no backstory or even a general motivation for why he wants World War III. The CIA believe that the Russians are going to nuke America for no reason other than they're Russian. Three Russians have full knowledge of a terrorist attack on French soil and yet tell nobody and mow down wave after wave of innocent French policemen to stop the terrorist attack. [[spoiler: They fail anyway.]] The sequel reveals that [[spoiler: war happened anyway, therefore making the whole game a ShaggyDogStory. This might have been a fairly unique twist- how many video games end on a full-on DownerEnding with no MultipleEndings?- if anybody actually dwelled on this, as none of the characters from the third game turn up in the fourth bar three, all of whom [[BackForTheDead die in the same level they're introduced]] in and never mention previous events.]] Oh, and there's something about a coup in Iran but it's never explained beyond one line.
*** Similarly, neither of the games in the ''Bad Company'' subseries offers even the slightest explanation for why the United States is at war with the Russian Federation (yes, ''[[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia Russian Federation]]'', not Soviet Union, so communism can be ruled out), much less why the latter is projecting forces all over the Western Hemisphere in the second game.

* ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'': Every single bit of plot is just an excuse to let you go and mow through enemies with your gun. [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in ''Contra: Rebirth''.

* [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] in the erotic WebGame ''Corruption of Champions''. The sexy encounters are, of course, the main draw of the game, and the main plot thread is just slight enough to qualify for this trope - HornyDevils from another dimension have opened a portal near your home town, and a champion must be sent through it each year to keep them in check on their home turf; are you a bad enough dude(ette) to end the threat once and for all? However, the background plot is very engaging, and the gameplay mechanics make it easy enough to ignore the juicy bits if you're not really in the mood for them.

* ''VideoGame/{{Descent}}'': You are a [[FeaturelessProtagonist space mercenary]] who is hired by an unscrupulous space mining corporation. Apparently the AI controlling their [[RecycledINSPACE space]] [[UndergroundLevel mines]] has [[AIIsACrapshoot gone rogue]] and you need to travel to each mine, destroy the robots, destroy the reactor, and [[CollapsingLair get out safely]]. Made even more ridiculous because the [[SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids supposed "mining robots"]] include a [[DemonicSpiders "drilling" bot]] with an under-mounted chain gun and robots that dig with homing missiles. As the game progresses the makers lose all pretense of designing "mining" robots and explain the [[SpikesOfVillainy spike covered]] [[ChargedAttack fusion shooting]] monstrosities as a "top secret military test."

* Creator/{{Tecmo}}'s ''Gemini Wing'' had a ridiculous plot in the manual of the Western computer versions, in which all the civilized alien races decide to invade Earth because of some journalist wrote the headline "DIE MUTANT ALIEN SCUM."
* ''VideoGame/GensouSkydrift'' has a rather confusing plot involving spiritual energy being stolen as part of the BigBad's plan to [[spoiler:escape to TheOutsideWorld]], but it's really just an excuse for the girls of ''Franchise/{{Touhou}}'' to indulge in some WackyRacing using each other as {{Body Sled}}s.

*** In general, GTA V plays with the trope almost every possible way before the end, with subversions, lampshades, straight examples, etc. The characters' motivations vary widely depending on the mission, from the comically thin (e.g. the aforementioned Rampages) to ones that are not excuses at all (e.g. a corrupt government agent forces you to do his dirty work).

* ''Hoard''. You're a dragon! Burn kingdoms! Steal treasure! Kidnap and ransom princesses! Dodge the evil knights trying to kill you!

* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'': The usual template for the stories are that there is a village. The village is under constant attack from a singular powerful monster that could threaten to end it forever. Since you are a newbie hunter yourself, you have to start with the small monsters causing minor problems for the populace. Here's your weapon of choice, go slay some beasts. The most notable users of this plotline are ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter2Dos'', ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterFreedom2''/''Freedom Unite'' and ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter3Tri''[=/=]''3 Ultimate''; though the latter games employ some more plot twists to keep the story less repetitive and more engaging to a degree.

* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'':

* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'': The usual template for the stories are that there is a village. The village is under constant attack from a singular powerful monster that could threaten to end it forever. Since you are a newbie hunter yourself, you have to start with the small monsters causing minor problems for the populace. Here's your weapon of choice, go slay some beasts. The most notable users of this plotline are ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter2Dos'', ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterFreedom2''/''Freedom Unite'' and ''3 (Tri)''/''3 Ultimate''; though the latter games employ sme more plot twists to keep the story less repetitive.
** Interestingly, while ''VideoGameMonsterHunterWorld'' has a fairly intricate storyline featuring colonization, environmentalism, and quite a bit of CharacterDevelopment, ''every'' conflict in said storyline is still resolved by you going out and killing assorted monsters -- it's all just a justification to get the actual monster hunting right to the forefront.

* While the original ''VideoGame/SpyroTheDragon'' trilogy did feature a cast of memorable, unique characters, the plots generally boiled down to "Hey, look, there's a bad guy doing a bunch of bad guy things! Now go kill everything in your path while collecting gems and X type of collectible!" Averted with ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro'' reboot, which is much more story-driven.

* The NES ''VideoGame/{{Mega Man|Classic}}'' games. Eventually, it became clear that Capcom was having difficulty coming up with new excuses for their latest MissionPackSequel. To elaborate more, starting with ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'' the plot would almost always be [[spoiler:a new villain trying to TakeOverTheWorld would show up, until it would just turn about to be Dr. Wily again.]] ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan5 5]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan6 6]]'' both did the same exact plot, although ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan7 7]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan8 8]]'' changed it up. ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan9 9]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan10 10]]'' went straight back to the old [[spoiler:"it's something else, but then it turns out to be Wily again"]] formula, where it seemed to openly embrace the idea and played the "twist" [[PlayedForLaughs for laughs.]] Fan games followed suit by either doing likewise, changing it up a little, reversing it outright or not having Wily present at all.

* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'': There is a village. The village is under [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever Attack of the 50 Foot Monster]]. Since you are a newbie hunter yourself, you have to start with the small ones. Here's your {{BFS}}. Interestingly, while ''Monster Hunter: World'' has a fairly intricate storyline featuring colonization, environmentalism, and quite a bit of CharacterDevelopment, ''every'' conflict in said storyline is still resolved by you going out and killing assorted monsters -- it's all just a justification to get the actual monster hunting right to the forefront.

* ''VideoGame/TheAngryVideoGameNerdAdventures'', intentionally styled after an 8-bit NES game, has an equally flimsy plot - the Nerd and company are sucked into a shitty game.

* ''VideoGame/{{Inscryption}}'': InUniverse, when P03 takes control in Act 3 his disdain for anything except deckbuilding and card synergies becomes clear. The plot is "You want to trigger the Great Transcendence, because it's cool. Botopia used to be cool but now it sucks because the other Scrybes sucked."

Expect a lot of {{Excuse Plot}}s in video games.