Inspired by @fuckingshit's post, I'd like to know your opinions on games with really bad or disappointing endings. Sometimes games do great for almost all of it, only to totally ruin it at the end.

I'll agree with Mass Effect 3.

spoiler

I don't think it needs a happy or sad ending, but what we got was utterly disconnected from the previous choices. When they had the sidequest for Tali and you entered the Geth cyberspace, I thought it would be connected to the ending of dealing with the Reapers. It would've been satisfying and thematic to nonstandard ways of solving problems. It also lets the Quarians have a victory that shows that engineering and creating wasn't wrong. Hell, the Geth could've worked with them and patched their history. It would reward players who maintained good relationships with their crew and make the victory a shared one, fitting with the ideal of the Citadel.

Instead, it was a one-off quest that said nothing of the the game as a whole and there were no other big choices that affected the ending.

Anyway, what games had awful endings, and if you want, how would you have changed it?

In the spirit of preventing unwanted spoilers, could we tag them in this post?

  • blobjim [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Metal Gear Solid 5 obviously, because the game was unfinished because it went over budget or something.

    Also any game that has multiple endings. This trope is so common it's completely pointless.

    I played through Witcher 3 and inadvertently got the "bad" ending, and it just made me depressed lol. What's the point of that?

    Who's gonna replay an entire game to get another 5 minute cut-scene or whatever?

    Dishonored games are kinda different because each decision fills in part of the ending, which is cool. But it does still water down the game's ending.

    Almost every game that has a single ending has a more powerful one than if it is has multiple, because the story can be focused on a lot more.

    • Alex_Jones [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I'd forgive the multiple ending thing more if they explicitly state when you reach a point of no return. You can even toggle it if you want to be surprised (and devastated). Like in Morrowind when you kill a plot essential character. Or something where the ending let's you reload at a pivotal scene to get the better ending.

      But even then, you're right. It's pretty rare for multiple endings to be worth it. They're usually good, bad and best/secret.

      I liked Divinity: Original Sin 2, but having to plan around for an ending early on felt frustrating. And even then, the best ending in my opinion was really frustrating.

      spoiler

      You can take the power of divinity for yourself and become a godlike being, you can refuse to take it and let the villain get that power because you let your guard down, or the one I liked - you divvy up the godly power for everyone in the world. In this ending, they did the neoliberal thing of saying equality is bad but not explaining why. And it's like great - I get a collectivist option and I get lectured for giving too much power to people. But I still got to keep my husband so fuck 'em. I've got headcanon.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        You should have waited for the Bill Gates call to know what to do with all that Source. :so-true:

        • Alex_Jones [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Brb, gonna patent the source so that it integrates into the economy without disrupting it.

    • ssjmarx [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Metal Gear Solid 5 obviously, because the game was unfinished because it went over budget or something.

      Hard disagree. MGSV's ending was a little rushed, but it hit all of the notes it meant to. There was a planned DLC called Lord of the Flies that went unfinished where you would deal with Liquid and the other war orphans after they steal Sahelanthropus, but that was never meant to be the end of the game. The only thing really missing from the ending is the ultimate fate of Liquid Snake and the Diamond Dogs, but that is the plot of original Metal Gear - MGSV focuses on how a bunch of guys with guns on an island grow increasingly paranoid and jingoistic, mirroring Japanese nationalism.

      • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
        ·
        3 years ago

        i think it said most of what it wanted to, but the enormous dangling thread of the stolen metal gear, plus the resolution just coming out of nowhere after an arbitrary objective completion meter is filled, plus the general pacing issues a massive open world game trying to tell a directed, cinematic story almost inevitably will have, really made it feel like something was missing (yea yea i know Never Be Game Over, it's the Phantom Pain, i get it, sure, but to me that's :cope:)