Skip to main content
GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ The Games, Movies, TV & Comics You Love
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Games
  • TV
  • Movies
  • Hardware
  • Video
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Guides
  • Deals
  • More
    • PS5
    • Xbox Series X
    • Nintendo Switch
    • Nintendo Switch 2
    • PC
    • Platforms
    • Tabletop Gaming
    • Comics
    • Toys & Collectibles
    • Newsarama
    • Retro Gamer
    • Newsletters
    • About us
    • Features
Total Film
Gaming Magazines
Gaming Magazines
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe from just £3
  • Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$12
Subscribe now
Trending
  • Gamescom 2025 schedule
  • Gamescom
  • Battlefield 6
  • New Games for 2025
Don't miss these
Upcoming video game movies - Five Nights at Freddy's
Movies Every upcoming video game movie you need to know about
Bethesda
Action Games Todd Howard apparently "rolled his eyes" at the thought of Troy Baker playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's protagonist, but the game's lead says it "wouldn't have been what it is" without the Last of Us star
SuitNtie models
Simulation Games "My savings had run out": In a few months, a Sonic 3 animator made an N64-style game based on an iconic Animal Crossing mechanic and chucked it onto Steam because "I needed to pay rent," and it worked
Perfect Dark
FPS Games Perfect Dark Joanna Dark actor calls for a Hi-Fi Rush-style revival after Microsoft cancels the reboot, as Starfield and Deus Ex star reveals his scrapped role will cost him "thousands of dollars"
Red Dead Redemption 2
Adventure Games 25 best adventure games to get swept up in right now
Max Payne
Max Payne Max Payne's iconic mug came about because of its creator's university TTRPG club, but he got so "self-conscious" after the game's release that he had to change his hairstyle to remain incognito
Donkey Kong Bananza DK and Pauline looking intrigued
Donkey Kong Donkey Kong Bananza's Pauline sometimes gets confused about fruits: "We love an occasional girlfailure who eventually grows up to be a bonafide girlboss mayor"
Pepsiman runs away from a Pepsi can
RPGs Pepsi asks if it should make a video game, gets inundated with so many reminders of PS1 cult classic Pepsiman that even Hundred Line director Kotaro Uchikoshi is trying to put the company in touch with the original devs
ben starr dressed in harequinn makeup chomping down on a banana
Roguelike Games Fighting his own roguelike monster, Balatro creator says he's "146/150 for completionist++ and getting a taste of my own medicine"
Death Stranding 2
Open World Games I'm enjoying Death Stranding 2, but I wish Hideo Kojima would stop teasing me with cool powers I'll never have
Vin Diesel in the cover art for The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
FPS Games Unreasonably good Xbox FPS featuring Vin Diesel was so under the radar, not even the studio noticed when it got canceled: "They basically forced the publisher to restart the game"
The Last of Us 2
The Last of Us The Last of Us Online lead and Uncharted veteran is opening a new studio in Japan after 10 years at PlayStation's Naughty Dog
A Short Hike
RPGs "I might never finish this game, so I'm releasing the demo": After 9 years, A Short Hike dev soft-cancels Paper Mario-inspired RPG but lets players try a build
The Outer Worlds 2 Earth agent with rifle
RPGs The Outer Worlds 2 devs have already shown the background I'll be using in this RPG: the Roustabout, a talentless loser who is "not quite sure what happened" to get them here
Crash Bandicoot PS1
Crash Bandicoot Long before the Super Mario Bros. movie grossed $1.3 billion, Sega's president tried making a Crash Bandicoot movie but was told "video games is like a toy business"
  1. Games

Nathan Drake: Fruit-seller, and 6 other game heroes who missed their chance

Features
By David Houghton published 16 May 2014

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Cometh the hour, cometh the plumber?

Cometh the hour, cometh the plumber?

Does heroism come as a result of natural aptitude, or do circumstances play a part too? Its the old nature vs. nurture debate that has raged amongst psychologists for decades. Do certain personalities and lives just happen, or are they also shaped by their environments and opportunities?

For instance, would Churchill have stepped up to greatness had World War 2 not happened? Would Batman even exist if Bruce Wayne had had a perfectly happy and pampered childhood with parents who were resolutely not dead? Its an interesting question. So I started applying it to video games. Just how would life be for some of gamings biggest heroes if the seeds of their adventures had never been planted? Let us explore some alternative possibilities, shall we?

Page 1 of 9
Page 1 of 9
Master Chief, disgruntled grunt

Master Chief, disgruntled grunt

John-117 hated Noble Six. He couldn't put one jolly green finger on exactly why, but that guy got right on his Mjolnir-enhanced nerves. Ever since he'd made it onto the Pillar of Autumn with that AI from Reach, the new guy had grated on him. John certainly couldnt criticise the way he'd turned around that last stand. Few soldiers--few Spartans, even--could have survived that attack, let alone made it off-planet afterwards. But damnit, that guy was irritating.

Why did everyone like him so much? John conceded that his own title of Master Chief sounded silly--a little like 'Captain Boss'--but Six? People treated him like Lord fucking Awesome. Because he'd killed a bunch of Covenant? Chief could do that. He had done that. Okay, not as dramatically as Six, but that's only because he hadn't had the opportunity. Same with the AI escort mission. John could easily pull it off, if they gave him a chance. But they never did. Because Noble Six got all the cool jobs. John never got to do anything. Here they were on this amazing, inexplicable, ring-shaped world, and what was he doing while Six and Cortana were gallivanting around the countryside? Guarding the rations locker. For fuck's sake.

Page 2 of 9
Page 2 of 9
Kratos, hen-pecked husband

Kratos, hen-pecked husband

Kratos was fuming. Not unusual, of course. He'd never been the same since that disastrous campaign against the barbarians. That one was too close. In fact he'd nearly died. Battered and laid out on the ground, he'd have been crushed by a warrior king's hammer had that gull not dropped its guano in his opponent's eye at that merciful moment, giving the Spartan General time to act. But it had been slim victory. Kratos had survived, yes, but since that day he had never been entirely sure he was living.

Injured too badly to continue his glorious military career, he'd left the army with a past full of honours, but a future filled with boredom. Spending his days at home, half-crippled and getting fat, what had once been a somewhat aggressive but well-balanced marriage--his wife had long been the only match for his single-minded fury--Kratos' forced passivity now put him on the back foot. 'Kratos do this. Kratos do that. Kratos take the kids to school. Kratos I don't care how bad your back is, I've made dinner every other night this week. (And maybe if you lost a bit of weight your spine wouldn't be under so much strain)' By Ares' name, he could kill her sometimes.

Page 3 of 9
Page 3 of 9
Mario, just some plumber

Mario, just some plumber

Mario gazed sullenly into the toilet. This was not, he had to admit, the life he had imagined. Yes, he had his own business. And yes, Mario Bros. Plumbing was pretty successful. But hed expected the company to be bigger by now. Maybe it would have been, if Luigi hadnt talked him out of that city council sewer job in the early '80s. Cleaning out that wildlife infestation could have made their name. But no, Luigi was worried that they weren't up to it. He was scared that if something went wrong, their lack of zoological qualifications would have left them uninsured. The coward.

Mario had expected the high life by now. He'd thought he'd be driving fast cars, and taking tropical beach holidays, and maybe having the time to take up a hobby, like painting or golf or tennis. But no. Night after night he just found himself staring up at the stars (he always found himself drawn to them in times of weakness), wondering what might have been. Suddenly, Mario realised, once again, that he'd been wistfully gazing into a stranger's toilet bowl for several minutes. 'Snap out of it', he thought. 'Get back to the job, get the money, go home. There's nothing but pipes, shit, and the odd reptile down there. And you're certainly not going to earn any coin that way'.

Page 4 of 9
Page 4 of 9
Nathan Drake, fruit seller

Nathan Drake, fruit seller

Nate sighed under the fierce Columbian sun, as he bent down to pick up the oranges, spilled from their bucket by another rambunctious kid playing in the marketplace. Why were they always messing around near his stall? As he stood, of course, he was fully aware that his irritation was about more than spilled produce. It was more the fact that the kid skipping away into the crowd, so full of energy, reminded him of his former self.

He'd been just like that in his younger days, running around, yelping and getting into scrapes. But eventually he'd had to settle down into a sensible job. That's why he'd offered to take over the fruit stall a few years ago. The way he'd been living, the day-to-day opportunism, didn't have a future. Except maybe in jail, and he certainly wasnt going there. Nate thought back to that day in the museum. That crazy scheme he was cooking up. Good job he never went back. It was a quiet life now, not a bad one. He didnt travel much, but that was okay. He'd always had a weird aversion to public transport--planes and trains just freaked him out for some reason. As he leant back against the wall, a waft of cigar smoke prickled his nostrils from somewhere in the crowd. What was it about that smell that he liked so much?

Page 5 of 9
Page 5 of 9
Leon Kennedy, bored beat-cop

Leon Kennedy, bored beat-cop

Leon had requested a position on the Raccoon City Police Department straight out of the academy. He was young, fresh, maybe a little green, but even at that embryonic stage of his career he had serious and specific ambition. The unsolved killings in the Arklay Mountains had been public knowledge for months, with no visible progress made on the case. And perhaps partly out of naivety, Leon had been sure he could make a difference.

Turns out he couldn't. Turns out that the RCPD doesn't assign fresh-faced rookies to the biggest cases on their books. Turns out that no PD does. The case was quietly dealt with by some spec-ops team the day before Leon arrived, and since then he'd remained a standard beat-cop, unable to shake the label of 'the new guy'. He wasn't sure why. The haircut probably didn't help. No hardened bank robber was going to be intimidated by a SWAT member who looked like Macauley Culkin. It was all very wearying. Maybe it was time for a holiday, Maybe somewhere in Spain. Maybe he'd get a haircut while he was over there, and come back a new man. Yeah, something severe off the top would help

Page 6 of 9
Page 6 of 9
Marcus Fenix, party boy

Marcus Fenix, party boy

Despite being born into privilege, Marcus' life after childhood had not been easy. He'd had scuffles at school. He'd rebelled against his parents' wishes for a university education. Hed butted heads repeatedly with his father over his decision to join the military as a grunt rather than an officer. He'd fought long, hard battles and seen far too many friends die. But with the Pendulum Wars over, and Sera was finally nearing peace, hed realised something about his years of struggle. They were a total bloody waste of time. What the hell had he been doing? He was rich! His dad had been right all along. Screw getting shot at for a living. He was going to get drunk. And probably get a degree along the way. Probably.

Fortunately, not much happened after the Pendulum Wars ended. No new threats, no new conflicts. In fact life on Sera became pretty damn peachy. Freed from a forced pre-occupation with violence, the quietly cultured Marcus could unleash his appreciation of the finer things in life. Sera's bizarrely beautiful, entirely intact architecture. Its eclectic wildlife. Science. Culture. Beaches. Sunsets. He might even go on a cruise. He'd always fancied spending a bit of time at sea. It looked great fun, and what was the worst that could happen? He might even invite Dom. Dom appreciates a good sunset. You know, as buddies.

Page 7 of 9
Page 7 of 9
Earthworm Jim, a worm

Earthworm Jim, a worm

Crawling along, eating the soil, pooing it out again, eating some more. Crawling along, eating the soil, pooing it out again, eating some more. Crawling along, eating the soil, pooing it out again, eating some more. Crawling along, eating the soil, pooing it out again, eating some more. That was what Jim did. He was an earthworm.

One day, a shockwave rattled through the dirt above him. A great impact, as would have been created had, say, an advanced suit of power armour crashed into the ground. But Jim couldnt consider such possibilities, He was just an earthworm. So he hardly noticed, and instead just carried on pooing the soil out. It was what he did.

Page 8 of 9
Page 8 of 9
Domestic miss?

Domestic miss?

So those are the logical (and rather depressing) fates of game heroes who missed their shot at glory. Thoughts? Are you reconsidering the relatively positivity of world-threatening cataclysms and megalomaniac villains? Yeah, sometimes they're for the best, aren't they? And of course, drop any other alternate spins and thoughtful speculations you might have in the comments.

And staying on the subject, why not check out a more visual treatment, in Solid Snake doing mundane, unexciting jobs. And then have a look at What if video game characters were sold in a pet shop?. No real reason, but why the hell not?

Page 9 of 9
Page 9 of 9
David Houghton
David Houghton
Long-time GR+ writer Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.
See more Games Features
Read more
Upcoming video game movies - Five Nights at Freddy's
Every upcoming video game movie you need to know about
Bethesda
Todd Howard apparently "rolled his eyes" at the thought of Troy Baker playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's protagonist, but the game's lead says it "wouldn't have been what it is" without the Last of Us star
SuitNtie models
"My savings had run out": In a few months, a Sonic 3 animator made an N64-style game based on an iconic Animal Crossing mechanic and chucked it onto Steam because "I needed to pay rent," and it worked
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark Joanna Dark actor calls for a Hi-Fi Rush-style revival after Microsoft cancels the reboot, as Starfield and Deus Ex star reveals his scrapped role will cost him "thousands of dollars"
Red Dead Redemption 2
25 best adventure games to get swept up in right now
Max Payne
Max Payne's iconic mug came about because of its creator's university TTRPG club, but he got so "self-conscious" after the game's release that he had to change his hairstyle to remain incognito
Latest in Games
A black dragon roaring with a manor house behind it and lighting in the sky during Skyrim.
Skyrim player marries a literal dragon with the help of a mod, giving "Dragonborn" a whole new meaning as he breaks the RPG and makes it run as "buggy as Oblivion"
Borderlands 4
Borderlands 4 can't even win in its own ads, as WWE has cosplaying wrestlers take the L in their own championship match
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty screenshots
CD Projekt Red is teasing something Cyberpunk 2077-shaped with a mysterious new message, and fans are desperately trying to work out if it could be sequel news, DLC, or something else entirely
Borderlands 4 screenshot shows someone holding a weapon forward towards the camera.
"We tend to commit to the bit": Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford talks Borderlands 4, the evolution of looter-shooters, and $80 game discourse
Infinity Nikki
Infinity Nikki devs "sincerely apologize" yet again – this time for "frustration and confusion" caused by furniture pricing, but at least we're getting freebies in return
Hideo Kojima in a screenshot from the Xbox and Bethesda 2022 showcase.
Hideo Kojima will give a "glimpse into future projects" at his "Beyond The Strand" anniversary event for Kojima Productions' 10th birthday this month
Latest in Features
Metal Gear Solid 5 showing Snake and Ocelot looking to the horizon in front of more soldiers
10 years later, Metal Gear Solid 5 remains a masterpiece that was never going to live up to its own hype
Dogtooth
The new Yorgos Lanthimos movie is getting rave first reactions out of Venice Film Festival, but I think it's worth revisiting his breakout feature Dogtooth before Bugonia hits theaters this fall
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Legacy of the Forge DLC showing Henry and two allies standing looking down
I built a home and ran a business in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's next DLC, and the added role-playing guarantees I'll spend another 70 hours in my current game of the year
D&D Player's Handbook laid out on a wooden surface
Will romantasy be the next great crossover for Dungeons & Dragons? Fourth Wing could be the perfect D&D setting, if you ask me
Jurassic Park: Survival
Jurassic Park: Survival has quietly been 35 years in the making, and it's taking us back to where it all began
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era artwork showing a beautiful fantasy city
Playing Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era has turned me into a Dungeon devotee, and I can't help but feel like I'm already seeing a strategy classic in the making
  1. Kaser clad in black and Victor in white clash swords in Lost Soul Aside
    1
    Lost Soul Aside review: "We (don't) have Final Fantasy Versus 13 at home"
  2. 2
    Hell is Us review: "The lack of waypoints and explicit objectives is a double-edged magical sword that pulls me deep into its harsh world"
  3. 3
    Shuten Order review: "The Danganronpa creator's new multi-genre mystery feels like a forgotten DS cult classic I would have been obsessed with"
  4. 4
    The Rogue Prince of Persia review: "I roguelike but don't roguelove this freerunner – there's just not enough to stand out"
  5. 5
    Shinobi: Art of Vengeance review: "So close to being to a pitch-perfect revival of a classic series, but just can't quite line up the killing blow"
  1. Jacob Elordi as the monster in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein
    1
    Frankenstein review: "A classy, if somewhat safe, adaptation"
  2. 2
    Weapons review: "A twisted fairytale that bests Barbarian"
  3. 3
    The Fantastic Four: First Steps review: "An occasionally thrilling heroic adventure that sits safely within a B-tier MCU range"
  4. 4
    Superman review: "A triumphant reinvention and a promising start for the DCU"
  5. 5
    Jurassic World Rebirth Review: "An unscary sequel that needed a little more time in amber"
  1. John Cena as Peacemaker holds a gun to the head of a different John Cena as Peacemaker in Peacemaker season 2.
    1
    Peacemaker season 2 review: "Darker and sadder than the first year, but there's still a lot of fun to be had with the 11th Street Kids."
  2. 2
    Wednesday season 2 part 1 review: "Complex and exciting but weighed down by too many subplots"
  3. 3
    Alien: Earth review: "Arguably the franchise's strongest outing since James Cameron's Aliens"
  4. 4
    King of the Hill season 14 review: "Hank Hill himself has evolved into a much more open and accepting person"
  5. 5
    Eyes of Wakanda review: "A creative premise shortchanged by the runtime and Marvel bloat"

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...