I still don't like Game Theory.

To give Mat a bit of credit, 2013 was before he started shouting every word of his videos like we were hard of hearing, so at least this video was a lot easier on the ears than the last one I did.

That said, the research has dipped to such inconceivable lows that it skirts the boundaries of Poe's Law. There are going to be those who argue that this video is a joke, due to the ending segment; others will maintain that Mat is actually being straight due to the fact that he makes an honest attempt to back up some of his claims. I lean toward the latter camp, but I honestly can't decide. The sheer batshit insanity of the "predictions" Mat draws in this video, combined with his failure to research the actual dates that many of these games take place in, makes it a very difficult line to draw.

To start off, I can actually get behind the premise of the video: that you can string seemingly unrelated video games together to create a (mostly) cohesive story. In fact, I agree so much that I've been working on one such timeline for upwards of seven years now. If you do your research, pay close attention to dates and plot details, and accept that it's all just fiction in the end, you can actually piece something together that makes sense.

HOWEVER, there is one other essential component that Mat never thought up, and one that I learned very early on. Any timeline incorporating works of fiction will invariably need to branch off at many, many, many points. For a quick example, L.A. Noire is set in a realistic depiction of 1947, in the aftermath of the Allied victory in World War II. Wolfenstein: The New Order, on the other hand, is set in 1960 following an Axis victory in World War II. These two games can not be placed on the same timeline, unless you allow for a branch point during World War II.

For a more futuristic example, Mass Effect takes place between 2183 and 2186, with backstory elements that place humanity's discovery of FTL travel in 2148. Mat called this correctly. What he missed was the fact that he set Fallout (more specifically, Fallout 3) prior to Mass Effect, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

A cursory comb of the Mass Effect timeline will find no references to nuclear war whatsoever. But the Fallout timeline is another story altogether. As readers of my first post will no doubt be aware of, this is far from the only time MatPat has fucked up on Fallout lore, but it's hilarious nonetheless. MatPat predicts that the "apocalyptic period" will last between 2090 and the 2140s, and he prominently cites Fallout, whose apocalyptic period stretches from 2077 to basically forever. Fallout 4 takes place in 2287, still with no end yet in sight.

If Mat thinks that Fallout and Mass Effect share a universe, then that'd set the events of the ME trilogy in the midst of the apocalypse, about 20 years after Fallout 1, and more than 90 years prior to Fallout 3.

Yup. This is what happens when you don't account for branching... and when you actually call it a prediction instead of a story.

He gets plenty of other settings wrong as well. Metro 2033 is set in its namesake year, not after 2090. Halo is set in 2552, not "2525." Metal Gear Solid 4 is set in 2014 (in 2008, that year was futuristic as fuck), not the 2030s. Zombie games are typically set on or near the present day, not in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Killzone 2 is set on the planet Helghan in the 24th century, not on Earth in the 21st.

To be fair, there is a backstory element in the Killzone universe that does incorporate a nuclear war circa 2055, but it is never explicitly mentioned in Killzone 2, and in fact takes place three centuries before that game. It's strictly there for lore junkies, and is not actually the game's setting.

And bear in mind, all of these problems that I have listed thusfar are just with the problems with his timeline as fiction. As actual futuristic predictions... holy fuck...

Admittedly, there are a few coincidences, the most notable being Deus Ex and the World Trade Center, but he uses this to justify super robots in the next decade, nuclear war on the precise year 2077, two separate space ages, separated by the ending to Mass Effect 3, something something Xenosaga, and whatever the shit Boombots is about.

To be fair, though. I think he was at least joking about the last one. I hope.