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

[BiggerChungus]

It's not the actual ending, but Marc Laidlaw's plans for HL3 or E3 or whatever you wanna call it, I always thought it was kinda shitty despite all the hype. I think he's a good writer, and I love HL2's story, but whatever he cooked up for the finale just falls flat on its face to me.

If you've not read it, tl;;dr the whole plan of the Resistance wasn't to save Earth by cutting off the Combine's access to our galaxy/universe, but to destroy the Combine homeworld, which they think they can do with the Borealis for some reason, and Gordon and Alyx immediately and suicidally resign themselves to do it, with Alyx casually killing off Judith Mossman in the process and Gordon just being cool with it. The G-Man teleports Alyx away, then Gordon goes on a boatride into the multiverse, sees the Combine homeworld, starts brooding about how hopeless and doomed Earth is, then gets teleported by Vortigaunts to a beach somewhere in the far future, Gordon once again broods on how all his friends are now dead, and how he didn't help the Resistance win, the end. People screeched about how awesome and fulfilling it is, but I think it's a very dumb conclusion that not only doesn't fulfill anything from the previous games, but outright devalues them.

Marc said he had various other ideas for the ending, but most were just minor detail changes to that general draft. Gordon still becomes a wimpy doomer, the story still doesn't make sense, the tone gets weirdly nihilistic and depressing, and it's further fucked up by poorly-implemented time travel shit, which can almost never be done in a way that lets a story retain any meaning, especially when it goes out of its way to say Gordon didn't actually have a meaningful impact on anything. Also, Dr. Breen returns as a literal worm leading some Combine troops, and he captures Gordon so he can ask him to kill him. It's weird.

tl;dr;tl;dr, I think Laidlaw's Epistle 3 is a shitty draft for an ending, and even if Valve never makes an actual HL2 sequel, I'm glad his idea's most likely never going to be made official.

 

[God of Nothing]

It's not the actual ending, but Marc Laidlaw's plans for HL3 or E3 or whatever you wanna call it, I always thought it was kinda shitty despite all the hype. I think he's a good writer, and I love HL2's story, but whatever he cooked up for the finale just falls flat on its face to me.

If you've not read it, tl;;dr the whole plan of the Resistance wasn't to save Earth by cutting off the Combine's access to our galaxy/universe, but to destroy the Combine homeworld, which they think they can do with the Borealis for some reason, and Gordon and Alyx immediately and suicidally resign themselves to do it, with Alyx casually kills off Judith Mossman in the process. Then Gordon goes on a boatride into the multiverse, sees the Combine homeworld, starts brooding about how hopeless and doomed Earth is, then gets teleported by Vortigaunts to a beach somewhere in the far future, Gordon once again broods on how hopeless his fight was, how all his friends are now dead, and how he didn't help the Resistance win, the end. People screeched about how awesome and fulfilling it is, but I think it's a very dumb conclusion.

Marc said he had various other ideas for the ending, but most were just minor detail changes to that general draft. Gordon still becomes a wimpy doomer, the story still doesn't make sense, the ending gets weirdly nihilistic and depressing, and it's further fucked up by poorly-implemented time travel shit, which can almost never be done in a way that lets a story retain any meaning, especially when it goes out of its way to say Gordon didn't actually have a meaningful impact on anything. Also, Dr. Breen returns as a literal worm leading some Combine troops, and he captures Gordon so he can ask him to kill him. It's weird.

tl;dr;tl;dr, I think Laidlaw's Epistle 3 is a shitty draft for an ending, and even if Valve never makes an actual HL2 sequel, I'm glad his idea's most likely never going to be made official.

Ah, I know this phenomena. When the author does what they want rather than what the audience would prefer. Granted, sometimes your audience is stupid and doesn't realize your intention, but you either failed to establish a theme or mood they would understand or accept. Half-Life having a doomer ending makes no sense because you're some literally who scientist who kicks all the ass and doesn't afraid of anything. You are the equivalent of John 117 in that universe. To be thematically and mood appropriate, if the fight was never ending, Gordon should be resolute in his fate. He fought off an infestation all alone once. No shame in going out on a planetary scale.

 

[BiggerChungus]

Ah, I know this phenomena. When the author does what they want rather than what the audience would prefer. Granted, sometimes your audience is stupid and doesn't realize your intention, but you either failed to establish a theme or mood they would understand or accept. Half-Life having a doomer ending makes no sense because you're some literally who scientist who kicks all the ass and doesn't afraid of anything. You are the equivalent of John 117 in that universe. To be thematically and mood appropriate, if the fight was never ending, Gordon should be resolute in his fate. He fought off an infestation all alone once. No shame in going out on a planetary scale.

Too many writers think happy endings are inherently a bad thing, and while unhappy endings aren't necessarily bad either, there's nothing wrong with ending on a brighter note. An ending's only as good as the writing behind it. If anything, happier game endings are superior in giving players a sense of agency and the rest of the story meaning. If Gordon goes from kicking alien ass for four games straight then suddenly decides it was all hopeless and he might as well just kill himself, that's such a tonal and narrative shift that it not only makes no sense, but greatly belittles everything the previous games were about. I'd take a generic "happily ever after" ending over a pretentiously bleak one any day, especially if the grim tone comes out of nowhere and jars the whole story.

 

[Ita Mori]

I'm fine with the proposed ending except for two things:

- WHO THE FUCK IS THE G-MAN, MARC!?!?
- Alyx survives for what purpose exactly? If mankind is fighting an unwinnable war against an enemy that is millions of years more advanced and resourceful, what makes Alyx so special that she becomes indispensable even compared to Gordon motherfucking Freeman?

Gordon realizing the futility of it all may not be satisfying, but it does make an inkling of sense. He is not a voluntary badass a la Duke Nukem. If the odds are insurmountable I can see him desisting. He's done so in the past. Gordon's strength comes from his hope in that there's always a way out
- He rose to the surface because he believed the way out is being escorted by the military awaiting above.
- He launched the rocket and made it to the Lambda complex because he was told they had the solution to this incident.
- He went into Xen and killed the Nihilanth because he believed it would close the cascade and eventually BM would use their own teleporting tech to bring him back home.
- He accepted the G-Man's deal because it's his only choice for survival.
- He supports the resistance because their success is the only way to achieve human sovereignty again... and because the Combine will never let him live out the remainder of his life in peace if left alone.

In every situation he has a motive for challenging the odds and shooting/bunny-hopping his way to victory, but I think that if presented with an unwinnable situation, he would rather keep his life than be a momentary zit on the Combine's ass on their home turf.
I could see him try and fight to find the G-Man and rescue Alyx, but I just don't think Gordon's stupid enough to get himself killed so pointlessly.

I'm not saying this was an ideal ending, but remember that Valve really never cared all that much about HL's story as opposed to it's gameplay.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
Ends with the worlds splitting apart because...?
I didn't play the whole game, just watched the cutscenes when my friend was around playing it, but it seemed like the worlds would combine and life would go on from there (like Tales of Symphonia). Instead, the timeline restarts and everybody gets reborn?
Then Noah and Mio and everybody split into their own worlds by force. That was a downer.
The writer was going for the hope vs. despair theme a little too hard there. In the post credits you hear the offseeer flutes playing, young Noah walks towards it and that's all the hint there is. It's certainly no Stein's:Gate ending.

It made my friend like the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 ending more though!

Nigger use spoilers.
How I think the devs intended was that basically no one fucking knows what will happen happen once the worlds combine, with the device the queens built being used as a "in case of catastrophe restore everything" going haywire and basically stopping time to prevent having the result (which could be the worlds unifying, the worlds splitting or both cancelling each other). When the heroes destroy the device they find out that what happens is fuck all and the worlds continue to be separated, meaning nothing would have happened if the queens didn't intervene. So it was all pretty much for nothing (worse than that, everyone who wasn't a soul being recycled has their existence aborted), and we have an obligatory bitter sweet ending for no real reason.

 

[Dr. Pasquale]

I always think of this as the ending of MGSV

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

On Silent Hill you get the shit ending unless you do a specific section of the game you can easily miss.

I hate games that do that, the default ending is garbage because you'd need dumb luck or prior knowledge to get the sequence right for the proper ending. I am not much of a fan of good vs bad endings anyways, most games don't even do alternate endings right.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Nigger use spoilers.
How I think the devs intended was that basically no one fucking knows what will happen happen once the worlds combine, with the device the queens built being used as a "in case of catastrophe restore everything" going haywire and basically stopping time to prevent having the result (which could be the worlds unifying, the worlds splitting or both cancelling each other). When the heroes destroy the device they find out that what happens is fuck all and the worlds continue to be separated, meaning nothing would have happened if the queens didn't intervene. So it was all pretty much for nothing (worse than that, everyone who wasn't a soul being recycled has their existence aborted), and we have an obligatory bitter sweet ending for no real reason.

The machine was meant to reset both worlds after the originals went kaboom, Melina and Poppy just didn't do enough debugging and Z happened. As for the City Residents the choice was basically either take the chance that they get reborn, or rewrite reality for them to exist like Z did which means that the original worlds effectively get erased.

That also may not have been a long term option because remember Z's reality was somewhat unstable given the antihalation events randomly just eating parts of the world, any Fusion world that Ouroboros made could have had the same issue.

So the REAL lesson of Xenoblade 3 is to always fucking double check your code.

And really, if you hade XB3's ending the WiiU one's was even worse.

Player : "So we are robots controlled by the minds of our real bodies?"
Elma : "Yep"
Player : "And this Lifehold, which has our real bodies ran out of power like months ago so we are all dead?"
Elma : "Yep."
Player : "So...how are we still alive?"
Elma : "The Planet is a weird place okay, Its a game with Xeno in the title, I am just the big tidded Mysterious Waifu, don't expect me to know anything beyond that I am getting Bikini outfits the the DLC.

 

[AnOminous]

Half-Life having a doomer ending makes no sense because you're some literally who scientist who kicks all the ass and doesn't afraid of anything.

If you wanted a downer ending he should go down fighting. Maybe with the possibility that things went differently in some other timeline. Or maybe have that and a "good ending" but make the good ending nearly impossible.

- WHO THE FUCK IS THE G-MAN, MARC!?!?
- Alyx survives for what purpose exactly? If mankind is fighting an unwinnable war against an enemy that is millions of years more advanced and resourceful, what makes Alyx so special that she becomes indispensable even compared to Gordon motherfucking Freeman?

Makes sense to me. She's iconic partly just for being an NPC in one of the few games of the time that were actually useful. Most NPCs were like babysitting some retard who continually tried to commit suicide.

I'm not saying this was an ideal ending, but remember that Valve really never cared all that much about HL's story as opposed to it's gameplay.

Which is funny because it had generally good narrative and the gameplay was often janky especially in the first HL2. The story was also well-told through the visuals instead of (too many) annoying cutscenes.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The machine was meant to reset both worlds after the originals went kaboom, Melina and Poppy just didn't do enough debugging and Z happened. As for the City Residents the choice was basically either take the chance that they get reborn, or rewrite reality for them to exist like Z did which means that the original worlds effectively get erased.

That also may not have been a long term option because remember Z's reality was somewhat unstable given the antihalation events randomly just eating parts of the world, any Fusion world that Ouroboros made could have had the same issue.

So the REAL lesson of Xenoblade 3 is to always fucking double check your code.

And really, if you hade XB3's ending the WiiU one's was even worse.

Player : "So we are robots controlled by the minds of our real bodies?"
Elma : "Yep"
Player : "And this Lifehold, which has our real bodies ran out of power like months ago so we are all dead?"
Elma : "Yep."
Player : "So...how are we still alive?"
Elma : "The Planet is a weird place okay, Its a game with Xeno in the title, I am just the big tidded Mysterious Waifu, don't expect me to know anything beyond that I am getting Bikini outfits the the DLC.

It's less of a bug and more the result of putting the entirety of humanity's soul into a box results in the box getting sentience and deciding it likes the status quo. Though I'm pretty sure no one knew what the result of the convergence considering the whole point hinges on not knowing what the future brings.

Xenoblade X was more of a cool cliff hanger that will hopefully get resolved in a sequel/remake. I kinda really liked the world of X, especially when I realized I can literally swim to the other biomes rather than have the game tell me it's okay.

 

[Apis mellifera]

Horizon Zero Dawn
I wanted to love this game, I really did. I loved the weapon mechanics and playing the game on Ultrahard was the most fun I'd had in awhile, with how unforgiving the game could be it really encouraged innovation in taking down the enemies, and having a good sense of timing with dodging and firing weapons. The movement system was also delightful, in which any action could be interrupted before a certain point, making everything feel very fluid and responsive. The game never really seemed to favor one playstyle over another, one could play stealth and wait for opportune moments to take down enemies, or snipe from a distance, or just run in lobbing elemental grenades to disable attacks and take them out quickly.

It was all very good fun, the mechanics were all solid, the environments were beautiful, the enemy designs were 'metal' (pun intended) as fuck, but the ending of the game was somehow both forgettable and frustrating.
I'm sure most people have already played HZD, it's been out for a few years. Basically, it's post-post apocalyptic and the AI responsible for restoring the Earth gets corrupted and the machines it made to care for the environment start attacking humans and slowly developing ever-more dangerous weapons to use against them. The main goal of the PC is to solve this, and it's finally completed at the end of the game by killing some incarnation of malware that I didn't care about. What was most frustrating is I didn't even get to see the result of an entire game's worth of battling and progress, you just get sent back to the time before the final battle. I understand it mechanically, so the player can continue to kill robot dinosaurs, but somehow it just felt like such a colossal let-down. It really left a rather sour taste in my mouth, I still enjoy the game for what it is, but the ending was so disappointing.

I liked the worldbuilding and the speculative anthropology, but I didn't care about the human side-villains much either. The writing really just wasn't engaging, which was a shame.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Xenoblade X was more of a cool cliff hanger that will hopefully get resolved in a sequel/remake.

I disagree on that one, even back before I hated Mystery Boxes the plot of that game annoyed the ever-loving shit out of me.

Horizon Zero Dawn

The Sequel makes everything about that plot worse btw.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I disagree on that one, even back before I hated Mystery Boxes the plot of that game annoyed the ever-loving shit out of me.

I don't really think it counts as a mystery box, it's pretty clear at all times what you are after. It's more the revelation the box was empty.

I didn't even get to see the result of an entire game's worth of battling and progress, you just get sent back to the time before the final battle

That's true for basically every open world game. It's part of a bigger issue that those games never allow for content to be missed (to not upset the autistic completionists) which means that doomed characters will never have their own side quests, and if they do then they will never appear in the main story after their introduction.

 

[BiggerChungus]

In every situation he has a motive for challenging the odds and shooting/bunny-hopping his way to victory, but I think that if presented with an unwinnable situation, he would rather keep his life than be a momentary zit on the Combine's ass on their home turf.
I could see him try and fight to find the G-Man and rescue Alyx, but I just don't think Gordon's stupid enough to get himself killed so pointlessly.

Well yeah, I agree there, but that's part of what confuses me about the ending. As strong as he is, it just wouldn't just make sense for Gordon to singlehandedly land on the Combine homeworld and kill everything there. He and the Resistance in general aren't as strong in raw military might as the Combine, they're just very clever and very tenacious. The plan shifts from isolating the Combine from our galaxy (or universe, or dimension, etc.) because of their comparatively primitive teleportation tech, trapping their forces on Earth (including several of their Advisors), and after destroying them, pretty much being at peace and rebuilding Earth. The Combine can't, as far as the rebels know, get back to Earth, and they'd have to deal with the internal fallout of losing a bunch of Advisors and Earth's resources, especially water. That all makes sense, whether it would actually happen or was just the Resistance's plan. It doesn't make sense that they decide the Borealis can wipe out the Combine homeworld, or that they want to even try to wipe out the Combine homeworld in a straightforward assault. Yeah, it'd be hopeless to try to outmuscle a universal alien empire with a teleporting boat, so why do it in the first place?

What I could see happening - also not an ideal ending, but still - is the remaining Advisors come together and start massing their forces to find the Borealis to get another portal open for reinforcements, Gordon and Alyx find them, fuck up their operation and most of the Advisors die, maybe the boss is a "hatched" Advisor that the Vortigaunts mention, and after its death Alyx gets taken by the G-Man because Gordon went too far or something and "fires" him. Gordon takes the Borealis, chases the G-Man, rescues Alyx, and they try to get back home. Maybe the G-Man's presence was contributing to all the portal fuckery and instability that followed the Resonance Cascade, and Gordon defeating him (or at least forcing him out of our world) returns everything to a mostly normal state. Again, not ideal, but I'd prefer something like that over Marc's draft. At least cut out the retarded homeworld assault, sudden nihilistic and hopeless narrative tone, doomer Gordon, and the time travel ending. Keep Judith alive too, or give the option to. Been a while since I played E2, but I thought she and Alyx were on good terms again given that she ended up saving them from the Citadel.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

Dead Risings Overtime Mode ending kind of sucks balls tbqh

 

[Apis mellifera]

That's true for basically every open world game. It's part of a bigger issue that those games never allow for content to be missed (to not upset the autistic completionists) which means that doomed characters will never have their own side quests, and if they do then they will never appear in the main story after their introduction.

Got it, thank you for explaining. Before this, the story-driven games I'd played had rather linear progression (ex. Portal, Half-Life, Doom) and actual endings. Real shame that a rewind is an expected game design element of open-world games.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Got it, thank you for explaining. Before this, the story-driven games I'd played had rather linear progression (ex. Portal, Half-Life, Doom) and actual endings. Real shame that a rewind is an expected game design element of open-world games.

The other cases are games where ending the story doesn't actually changes the underlying issues in the world (I think primarily about Far Cry 4 doing it, but in there it's pretty apt).

 

[Snekposter]

Been a while since I played E2, but I thought she and Alyx were on good terms again given that she ended up saving them from the Citadel.

From my understanding Judith sold out Eli just so she could get everyone, including Gordon, in the same room with him so she could backstab Breen right in the middle of his whole evil villain monologue schtick. Cunning plan and yeah, I think Alyx would eventually forgive her considering the Resistance has started to push back against the Combine, especially with the end of the suppression field so everyone can start making babies again.

 

[AbyssStarer]

Nigger use spoilers.

This is a thread about game endings, tread lightly and read the title of the game in the first sentence then skip around the post if you see something you don't want to get spoiled. Otherwise every post in this thread may as well be in a spoiler, and that would be a major pain to navigate.

 

[Juan But Not Forgotten]

Okay, I didn't play it myself, but Infamous 2. Not only the ending itself, but absolutely retarded premise for both of them. The entirety of the game is based around fighting The Beast - some incredibly powerful metahuman, so powerful in fact, that the entirety of the part one was you from the future preparing past you to battle him, since he will basically wipe everyone from the Earth.

But whatever, it begins with you fighting him, losing, but slowing him down, however, you lose all your powers in the process. Now you have some time to train and prepare to fight him again in another town. The story as whole doesn't matter much, it's pretty dull and cliched, compared to the part one and the other villain sucks ass. Not to mention that morality system went to shit - in the part one it was "I need to save everyone, even if it means I am going to suffer, because only I can save those people" vs "I need to take as much from everyone as possible, since I am the only one who can fight the future threat, if I die - they all die", which actually was pretty good, altruism vs pragmatism. What do we have in part two? "I can save everyone with some minor setbacks" vs "OOOH, LET'S FUCKING BLOW SOMETHING UP AND BURN WHAT'S LEFT BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY WHERE GAMERS RISE UP".

Ok, that went longer than I expected, so let's move to the point. In a game you have two paths presented by two women (yeah, if you had any doubts the sequel is dumber) - one has fiery powers, dresses like a bum who robbed a cosplay shop, has more tattoos than actual skin and always proposes the dumbest and the most violent way of dealing with your tasks possible, basically female Joker on meth. The other one is CIA nigger asian chick who gets powers to control ice from some experiment in midgame and for the rest of it goes "hurr-durr, I've never asked for this", but otherwise is much more calm, humane and reasonable. One can say that she is more... CHILL.

So let's get to the point - after some non-existent plot events of the game, you finally confront The Beast and he tells you that the experiment that caused the creation of metahumans in the first game has some really shitty consequences i.e. it generates radiation which causes people to develop deadly coof, including the potential metahumans, so he proposes to blow up the mcguffin and create the world, filled with metahumans, where regular people die off from coof. However, you can use it the other way and create an explosion that will kill all metahumans, including the potential ones, but will cure all regular people. In the end, he lets you decide. So you come to the party and ask them what to do, while noticing that your friend from the part one is coughing all the time. What do you expect, that chill chick will say "I've never wanted those powers to begin with, so I choose to die to save people" and the other one will scream "FUCK SOCIETY, ANARCHY REIGNS"? Nope, the icy chick starts lamenting "idonwannadie, fuck those normies, REEEE" and the fiery chick goes like "no, I don't want people to die". And guess what karma you should farm for one and the other respectively?(keep in mind, that this choice happens right before the end of the game, you can't just go and refarm you entire karma into complete opposite) Yep, if you spent your time helping people in need and putting your head on a chopping block, in the end you will genocide the entire world, INCLUDING YOUR BEST FUCKING FRIEND, but if you were a psycho who blows things up just for fun and doesn't care for people, somehow you will end up dying for the cause. You are not hero or villain, you are either bipolar psycho or a retard, who accidentally saved everyone!

But the actual endings are even worse. If you side with metahumans, you will end up killing that crazy chick, which to be fair is not a big deal, she was as interesting as a regular anime fan, but what's way worse, you have to kill a lot of innocent people on your way to mcguffin and your best friends, who is a mere human and can barely fight because of coof. And all of this because you decided to do complete 180 for some pussy. Also, after that the protagonist goes on a rampage across US with other metahumans and gets called, you guessed it, The Beast. How the fuck did he travel from the future, where The Beast killed his family, in part one, if he was the Beast the whole time? No idea. If you choose to save regular humans, it's better, but still retarded - you end up sacrificing yourself and people call you a saint, even though you committed countless crimes before to get to that point. And all this just so you would play the game again as the opposite character, which you would probably do anyway, just to see the other ways to complete the mission and the other ending. Absolutely retarded.