The Worst Game Endings - Or How to Ruin Good Gameplay with Bad Writing (Spoilers, duh)

[Pissmaster]

It’s not a bad ending on its own, but Final Fantasy IV‘s PSP release has a bonus dungeon where, to unlock all the trials, you have to bring all the extra characters to the final boss and kill him with them in your party.

Not a difficult task, but then you have to sit through both the ending and the very slow credits in their entirety. No way to skip them, no way to speed it up, and most of the ending has text boxes that run automatically, but for seemingly no good reason, a couple wait for you to press X to continue, so you can’t just let the game run for an hour on its own. You need to go through all this, too, because the game doesn’t autosave, and you don’t unlock the trials unless you sit through all of that and then save your clear data manually. So, that’s annoying.

 

[Dom Cruise]

And if you take too long to do that, Stephen Fry gets bored and just caps him with his pistol.

I was so shocked when that happened.

Alien Isolation

Love the game and I hope we see an ACTUAL sequel (not that mobile garbage). But I will admit that the ending feels a tad rushed.

Suddenly a surviving alien appears and you shoot yourself and it out the airlock. You are floating aimless in space for God knows how long until the light of a ship fills your visor for a brief moment.

Thats it. Roll credits.

It all feels rushed and I hoped it would connect more with the events of the movies a bit more. Then again, Amanda Ripley's fate is already established, she pretty much dies of old age while waiting for her mother to arrive but I guess we will never get more of her. (who knows, there could be a twist that Wayland faked her death to Ripley or something and Amanda is still out there in some cryo pod.)

I loved Alien Isolation a lot but yeah, the ending is way too abrupt.

I had hoped Alien Isolation would inspire a slew of movie games as high quality, I'd love to see a Blade Runner game like that (BR is referenced in Alien Isolation) or a Jurassic Park game like that.

 

[The handsome tard]

Never played it for reasons of personal autism.
First, I can't stand the first person perspective in games. Give me third person so I can see where I am relative to the environment.
Next, there's an intriguing series of YouTube videos discussing the AI of the Alien. I can't recall a single reference to making it, well, act like a predator.
No bluff attacks, nothing about how it's just eaten so it's not hunting, nothing about going into berserker mode because the player is too close to the eggs, nada. It's kind of disappointing, honestly.

In the alien's defense, the alien isnt like any sort of regular predator. The drones dont need to eat, sleep or anything. Besides, the eggs dont exactly need protection TOO much, those things are fucking death traps on themselves...but I get what you mean. The alien's behaviors were meant to be...well...alien in nature.

I loved Alien Isolation a lot but yeah, the ending is way too abrupt.

I had hoped Alien Isolation would inspire a slew of movie games as high quality, I'd love to see a Blade Runner game like that (BR is referenced in Alien Isolation) or a Jurassic Park game like that.

Same here. Movie based games CAN work when given the right effort and team (just look at some games from the PS2). Tho since it didnt sell very well (mostly given the bad PR that Colonial Marines left), its unlikely we are going to get more stuff lik A.I anytime soon.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Same here. Movie based games CAN work when given the right effort and team (just look at some games from the PS2). Tho since it didnt sell very well (mostly given the bad PR that Colonial Marines left), its unlikely we are going to get more stuff lik A.I anytime soon.

Never before had a game made me feel like I had truly stepped into the world of a movie, the closest being the Ghostbusters game, but A.I. took it to another level.

Like I said, I would love to see more games take such finely crafted approach to capturing classic movies, but most gamers assumed anything with Alien in the name was going to be shit so soon after Colonial Marines.

Imagine a new game based on The Thing in the vein of A.I. though.

 

[The handsome tard]

Imagine a new game based on The Thing in the vein of A.I. though.

Funny you say that because I always fantasized about a proper The Thing video game. We surprisingly only got ONE from the PS2...

I was split between a Telltale/Until Down type of thing where its more plot driven and you gotta figure out who the thing is and depending on your actions, it may change who it is in a certain playthrough. Tho Im sure people would just say "its like Among Us!"...As if The Thing wasnt a thing since the fucking 80's.

The other is like Alien Isolation where you are exploring an abandoned north pole station and the thing is roaming the halls...The Alien may sound scary but the thing's sound design is literally lovecraftian nightmare fuel so that thing screeching before charging after you would be pants shitting horrifying.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Funny you say that because I always fantasized about a proper The Thing video game. We surprisingly only got ONE from the PS2...

I was split between a Telltale/Until Down type of thing where its more plot driven and you gotta figure out who the thing is and depending on your actions, it may change who it is in a certain playthrough. Tho Im sure people would just say "its like Among Us!"...As if The Thing wasnt a thing since the fucking 80's.

The other is like Alien Isolation where you are exploring an abandoned north pole station and the thing is roaming the halls...The Alien may sound scary but the thing's sound design is literally lovecraftian nightmare fuel so that thing screeching before charging after you would be pants shitting horrifying.

I played that PS2 The Thing game when it was new but I think it glitched out on me and I didn't finish it, later I tried revisiting it in 2016 only to find it didn't hold up.

I picture a modern game as being first person like Alien Isolation, but with encounters with NPCs who may or may not be things themselves, much like the 2002 game.

 

[Edgeworth]

Does Okami count? It has a great first ending but then keeps going. The game keeps recounting the story of the ancient hero who slew the dragon Orochi and is not even subtle about how you are retracing his steps. This culminates with a fight against Orochi, he dies, and then.... no credits scene, it turns out there's another half of the game to go because parts of Japan which weren't even mentioned up until now are still corrupted.

The second half has some great moments but the narrative connecting them really struggles and the generic final boss/ending does not help. It's like the developers and artists went "we're having fun, let's keep going!" without realizing that the storywriters were out of ideas and had gone home.

Okami's length caught me off-guard too because I was younger when it came out and I had zero concept of the three-act structure. I was satisfied with beating Orochi but I remember being surprised when the game kept going. Ryoshima Coast and the City is Act 2 and Kamui/the North is Act 3 so it made a lot of sense to me, at least narratively speaking (aside from the "Oh and then the evil from this big boss floated into the air and ran off to another part of Nippon"). I'm glad they showed all the gods though; I remember getting to Orochi and I was like "aw man, I wanted to see the (insert animal we hadn't seen yet)".

The final boss was a chore, though. There's no buildup, the fight has way too many stages and the boss design is definitely not up there with some mechanical owls or an eight-headed mass of serpents. It wasn't enough to ruin the rest of the game which I thoroughly enjoyed and the music was fantastic (but I'm a big sucker for Okami's OST) but it was kind of a letdown.

 

[Dr. Pasquale]

Okami's length caught me off-guard too because I was younger when it came out and I had zero concept of the three-act structure.

People like to joke around saying Okami is a trilogy done in one game. To me it only feels like that when you're first done with Orochi. Theres this real build up to him, you help the Village, you get Susano to be a hero and you defeat the big bad... but then thats not the end and you find out your job is only 1/3 done.

It doesn't help that they recycle so many bosses. Orochi is probably the worst boss fight in that game considering how long it takes and you fight him 3 times. Im not that bothered by Yami being an evil fish inside a ball, but I do agree his design is far from inspired.

People mentioned Borderlands 3 and how fucked that game's story was, but I dont think anyone talked about the ending of 1 and how nothing it was, it's like they ran out of game of something. Granted, the plot was never amazing to begin with. There arent many memorable side characters outside of the ones that return in future games and as a villain Steele is super bland. You just sorta follow her around, trying to stop her from opening some ancient alien technology only to fail and discover that the Vault she was trying to open was actually a prison for a giant pussy monster.

She gets killed off in about 5 seconds and then you duke it out with it, kill it, get some loot, thats it. Game plays a 10 seconds cutscene that is basically the equivalent of "Conglarutations", then a DLC teaser, and youre pooped out into the open world again, thats all you get as the ending of a 25 hour campaign.

 

[Vault Boy]

People mentioned Borderlands 3 and how fucked that game's story was, but I dont think anyone talked about the ending of 1 and how nothing it was, it's like they ran out of game of something. Granted, the plot was never amazing to begin with. There arent many memorable side characters outside of the ones that return in future games and as a villain Steele is super bland. You just sorta follow her around, trying to stop her from opening some ancient alien technology only to fail and discover that the Vault she was trying to open was actually a prison for a giant pussy monster.
She gets killed off in about 5 seconds and then you duke it out with it, kill it, get some loot, thats it. Game plays a 10 seconds cutscene that is basically the equivalent of "Conglarutations", then a DLC teaser, and youre pooped out into the open world again, thats all you get as the ending of a 25 hour campaign.

It says something about the game when 2's intro summarized everything that happened in two lines.

Granted, I've been enjoying the game more that I expected to, but BL1 is so oddly irrelevant to the series.

 

[Dr. Pasquale]

Granted, I've been enjoying the game more that I expected to, but BL1 is so oddly irrelevant to the series.

That's true, 2 is the big one in that sense. I'm sure theyll never run out of ways to bring Jack back. Still, its kinda cool whenever they reference 1 in little ways, like fighting the Eye of the Destroyer in the Pre-Sequel or even Claptastic Voyage.

Now that was a good DLC.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

You know what? Fallout 4.
3 Endings with minimal differences and the other one is just unique of how the game presented that faction as "evil" but in the end objectively is the better (with the help of the Minutemen in the surface though). Brotherhood & Railroad is just "Wonkey, wonkey, time to fuse a nuclear bomb". I can understand the Brotherhood's instance but the Railroad is just ridiculous; not using the same technology to help other synths? Nah, destroy all the shit.
Even the unique cutscene in Skyrim is better (that one you got after going to Sovngarde and Paathurnax is alive), and oh god, even Fallout 3 was mediocre-to-good (without the DLC and the DLC).

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I just remembered what might mean the worst ending I've seen: Fragile Dreams for the Wii.
The game is in a post apocalyspe world and you are a boy that explores it looking for other remnants of humanity while surviving against the lingering ghosts of the dead. At the end of the game you meet the girl you've been tracking throughout the entire playtime and it seems like there will be some optimism in the ending, only to cut to a text saying "THE GIRL DIED SHORTLY AFTER AND YOU SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE ALONE".
What the fuck?

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

How many times was Bioshock Infinite mention in here?
How the fuck do retard autists call its ending deep high IQ tier narativerino when the ending's basically a clusterfuck of mass shovel thrusting for the last 5 minutes of the game where nothing matters in the end, you are the bad guy no matter what you do, kill yourself.

 

[Dom Cruise]

You know what? Fallout 4.
3 Endings with minimal differences and the other one is just unique of how the game presented that faction as "evil" but in the end objectively is the better (with the help of the Minutemen in the surface though). Brotherhood & Railroad is just "Wonkey, wonkey, time to fuse a nuclear bomb". I can understand the Brotherhood's instance but the Railroad is just ridiculous; not using the same technology to help other synths? Nah, destroy all the shit.
Even the unique cutscene in Skyrim is better (that one you got after going to Sovngarde and Paathurnax is alive), and oh god, even Fallout 3 was mediocre-to-good (without the DLC and the DLC).

I hated the way Fallout 4 made you kill former allies with no way to compromise between the groups or at least not have to murder characters you may have grown to like.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

I hated the way Fallout 4 made you kill former allies with no way to compromise between the groups or at least not have to murder characters you may have grown to like.

Well, at least the possibility with keeping 3 factions except the Institute is possible. But even New Vegas had better ways to handle that type of roleplay.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

I hated the way Fallout 4 made you kill former allies with no way to compromise between the groups or at least not have to murder characters you may have grown to like.

Personally I liked that because it basically put yourself in a situation where if you didn't remove those factions, they'd disrupt the future of the commonwealth. It was cold and evil, but it had to be done.

People want difficult choices in RPGs and then when they're given one it's not fair.

I'd take that over every single 'compromise where both parties win' cop out choice you can get in games (I'm looking at you The Outer Worlds)

 

[MuuMuu Bunnylips]

It’s not a bad ending on its own, but Final Fantasy IV‘s PSP release has a bonus dungeon where, to unlock all the trials, you have to bring all the extra characters to the final boss and kill him with them in your party.

Not a difficult task, but then you have to sit through both the ending and the very slow credits in their entirety. No way to skip them, no way to speed it up, and most of the ending has text boxes that run automatically, but for seemingly no good reason, a couple wait for you to press X to continue, so you can’t just let the game run for an hour on its own. You need to go through all this, too, because the game doesn’t autosave, and you don’t unlock the trials unless you sit through all of that and then save your clear data manually. So, that’s annoying.

PPSSPP has a fast-forward feature.

Just sayin'.

 

[TV's Adam West]

Drawn to life is a fun little children's game until the ending where it fucking isn't.

I shit you not, in the last cutscene you find out your whole family was in a car accident, your mom and dad are dead and finally the whole game is a coma dream.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

Probably not the worst worst, but I'd like to nominate Death Stranding's 4 hour finale that's just get to cutscene after get to cutscene with the story taking such a massive nosedive that I've no desire to pick it up ever again.

There's a point where you essentially have to wait around on a beach for 30 minutes until the next part kicks in.

It's actually kinda funny because when I was playing the game I was actually genuinely surprised the gameplay was taking a forefront to the story and a minimalistic story to add flavour to the gameplay was actually pretty neat for a Kojima game... until it became another Kojima game.

 

[The handsome tard]

I played that PS2 The Thing game when it was new but I think it glitched out on me and I didn't finish it, later I tried revisiting it in 2016 only to find it didn't hold up.

I picture a modern game as being first person like Alien Isolation, but with encounters with NPCs who may or may not be things themselves, much like the 2002 game.

The PS2 The Thing game had good ideas but I think it lacked the tech and vision to properly pull it off. Nowadays would be perfect to replicate the atmosphere and body horror of the movie. I recall Until Dawn had this hallucination sequence with body horror and it felt perfect for The Thing. Again, its a perfect idea thats ripe for the taking.