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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25361
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25361
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

This sounds like you are describing a literary device known as Deus Ex Machina (The God in the Machine). It is a device use to get an author out of a plot hole for which there is no satisfactory resolution. The term originates from the Greek theatre in which plays would sometimes be resolved by a god lowered to stage on a crane to put all things to rights. (Thus the god in the machine.)

The problem with Deus Ex Machina is that is it a completely unsatisfying ending. Insofar as a video game follows the rules of story (and I have no idea to what extent this is the case), it will be an unsatisfactory ending for a game as well.

One of the most basic lessons of storytelling is that you cannot write your way out of a broken story. If the story does not work, no trick of words is going to make it work. You say "This programmer is corrupt and has secretly controlled said world through war and other misdirections because... no good reason really. He's a maniac." So not only is there a god in the machine, the god is mad and acts for no good reason. That strikes me as a simply untenable story element. There is no way to enact a satisfactory hero's journey and bring it to a satisfactory conclusion in a setup like that. I don't see any way that words can explain it away.

There are examples in literature of heros railing against the injustice, even madness, of the Gods. But they don't usually win. And I have no idea how portray this in a video game where all the player has to work with are actions, and actions are clearly futile if the game is programmed by a mad god with no purpose. In literature you can write a tragedy where the hero is undone by a fatal flaw or simply the malice or indifference of the universe. But I cannot see how the concept of tragedy can apply to a video game. Surely there has to be a way to win.

The malevolent god conceit can also be played for laughs, as in the Daffy Duck cartoon where the artist keeps changing the scenery and Daffy keeps complaining about it until it is finally revealed the the artist is Bugs Bunny. But in this case the fourth wall falls in the first ten seconds and the entire humor of the thing lies in Daffy's protests. This is farce, and again, there is no way to win.

In short, if the concept is untenable, and it sounds like it is, there is no way to explain your way out of it.

Original score: 1