I’m a casual gamer so perhaps this has been made hundreds of times and I just ignore it.
So let’s say you play your game, things don’t go well so you go back and reload a save. Now, with your current knowledge you can get things right and that’s usually how it goes with games.
Is there any game that takes this into the plot as something necessary by design (say for example, the main character is supposed to be clairvoyant or something)? You play, your character gets things wrong the first time, but now when you reload your character will obviously do everything right, almost as if they were clairvoyant/psychic/etc because that’s exactly what your character is. The only way to beat the game is to explore a variety of outcomes in order to gather information until you get it right, but instead of this being immersion breaking it’s actually supported by the plot itself.
Not sure if I’m making sense here or maybe I ate the wrong kind of cookies, you tell me…
I don’t think I made my point clear enough. I don’t need anything special from the game mechanics, and I’m not talking about forcing some sort of arbitrary failure. It’s normal to reload a save once or twice for a tricky quest or boss. Most people don’t rage quit for doing so.
All I’m asking about is how the plot of the game handles the protagonist’s success. In most games, your character beats the quests or bosses and as far as the NPCs are concerned your character did everything perfectly just once, either because they got lucky or because they are amazingly skilled. But what if it was acknowledged that the real reason is they can see how things will play out if they did things differently, and/or they’ve had enough time in an alternate reality to hone their skills.
TLDR I’m talking about a narrative tool more than some weird gameplay mechanics.
Edit: from other comments I gather some games fit the bill, Undertale, Deathloop, and Dark Souls, maybe No Man’s Sky too.