Good Video-Game Endings

[Specter Von Baren]

Something I see a lot when discussing completed games is that they often have meh or bad endings. Even in the cases where people don't feel the ending pulled the game down in their eyes, the ending is more of an afterthought in their mind.

So what are some games that you feel had good endings?

As my start, Majora's Mask. The final boss can be difficult and an insane abomination to fight or a cake walk against a monster child throwing a tantrum.

The moon being this thing you've known about and seen thought the whole game makes it really feel impactful to go up into it to finish the game and even more satisfying to see it disappear as you've solved the issue that has been a constant preccense for the whole game.

And the credit sequence is perfect, giving you little snap shots of the people you helped along the way so long as you collected their mask makes it so you really feel like you accomplished something.

I definitely think the ending of Majora's Mask enhances the overall game.

 

[BrawlMan]

• Sonic Adventure 2
• Crysis 3 - While the series has had some writing troubles and killing of characters off screen, I genuinely, 100%, enjoyed the ending of this game. It ties most things together from the first and second game, and finishes it off well.
• Evil Within 2 - One of the best endings of 8th generation gaming. Sebastian story and character arc are expanded, given better context and development, and sets him and his daughter off into the sunset.
• Code of Princess - Mainly the destroy all magic ending. That is definitely the true ending of that game. The other ending is not satisfying, and it makes zero sense for the characters to do so.
• Nier Automata
• Bayonetta 2
• DMC 3 & 5
• Ikaruga
• Mad World

 

[Casual Shinji]

- The Last of Us has a really good ending, in that it's really quite horrifying. Though the fact that some people interpret it as an actual good ending is horrifying on its own.
- Shadow of the Colossus' ending is fantastic, even pulling a fake-out death twice and succeeding both times. Leaves you with a wonderfully inspiring bittersweetness. Both Ico and The Last Guardian have a very nice ending, too.

I'd say most game endings I've experienced are atleast decent, with only a handful standing out as truly bad. The default for making a good ending to a game is really just knowing when to stop - a lot of less than stellar endings were the result of a game just incessantly continuing on.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

I assume we can skip any spoiler warnings because it's a thread about endings. Just in case:
SPOILERS for The Witcher 3 and Sekiro.

Well I'm gonna say the games I keep on praising. I guess they're among my favorites because to me they just do everything right.

The Witcher 3
Granted the last third of the game gets justifiably criticized for its plotting and pacing. After finding Ciri it's a mad dash through main quests you can't skip (in a game that until this point explicitly encourages you to wander about doing whatever), and by necessity of the plot and setup it demystifies the threat and mystery of the main villains that was carefully setup through decades of books and games. And the resolution of the major side quest line with Radovid has the sour ending with Djikstra that everybody dunks on.
But specifically, the ending to me means the last main mission, so focusing on that, I define "the ending" as when you sail to Undvuk with everyone, call in the WIld Hunt and finally defeat them, followed by one of three epilogues you're given to play through based on 4 or 5 dialogue choices you make earlier in the game.
And I think that whole sequence is great. After a gorgeous cut scene you are playing as Ciri and it's cathartic because while her earlier missions can be frustrating (especially on Death March difficulty), now she is at full power and you slice through the Wild Hunt like butter. That cinematic between Caranthir and Eskel btw is pure awesomeness btw.

Then it's a double boss fight with Caranthir- one I think is hella fun where you have to use the environment to get around monsters to get to the boss- and another with Eredin which is ok, not great. Some hate it but I think a lot of it is sweaty gamers who want the last boss fight to be epically difficult but that ain't me.

To wrap up the main story the game tries to bait you into a twist double twist ending thing with Avalach but it's kinda bullshit- that's fine, as the real joy here is the visuals and rush of riding through an apocolypse with Yennefer and it's so damn cool. All ends up with the appropriate emotional beats between Geralt and Cirit.
Finally the epilogues are all really great and worth playing through or at least watching the two you miss on youtube or something.

Sekiro
Except for Elden Ring I actually think FromSoftware handles endings well because the last boss fights aren't just harder for the sake of being harder, they "feel" final. Whether it's the plink plink music of the Gwyn fight or Gherman getting up from his wheelchair, these last fights feel like celebrations of the experience, which is perfect.
The Sekiro ending I'm thinking about of course is the Ishin Sword Swaint boss fight, which happens in 3 of the 4 possible endings. This fight is often references as one of the hardest FromSoftware boss fights and, yeah, it's hard because Ishin has 3 rounds but before that you gotta fight Genichiro again (which I kinda hate, tbh).
But, man, what an exhilarating fight and perfect capstone to the game. The fight is hard but it is hard because it's long, it doesn't do anything crazy new. Best part is that it's in this huge open space so in the last two rounds when he whips out a spear and gun, you can run around like a maniac baiting him and working the space. This fight does what it's supposed to do- basically summarizes the entire game.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Nier Automata

Which one?

 

[BrawlMan]

Which one?

You know the one. The final true ending.

 

[Dalisclock]

Both Red Dead Redemption games:

-RDR John goes through the game dealing with the fruits of his past, notably in how he's regarded as a killer and murderer by pretty much everyone he meets and his path to redemption is being forced (with his family held hostage by the government) to kill a lot more people, including some of the last remaining members of his old gang. Eventually, with the death of Dutch Van Der Linde, he's free and "Redeemed".

Except he's really not, because having proven he's so good at killing at the behest of the government, he's also too dangerous to be left alive and he's now the LAST member of the Van Der Linde gang(Abigail doesn't count in their eyes). So John finally has the wages of his sins catch up to him in a very bittersweet way and realizes he can no longer escape fate so he sacrifices himself for his family to get away. Not that it makes much difference as per the post-game, since Jack basically becomes his dad. Even if you go kill Ross as Jack, it makes no difference at this point because the man is retired, you've prevented nothing and it doesn't even bring catharsis. Jack is still a gunslinging drifter without a family regardless if Ross dies now or a decade from now.

-RDR2 has a similar arc, where the whole game is the slow motion death spiral of the Van Der Linde gang and Arthur trying to come to a reckoning of just what is there for him. There's a death sentence hanging over all their heads due the Blackwater Ferry job(Thanks, Dutch) and while the game kinda plays with the idea of "everything is gonna be fine" for a couple chapters, after a while it's clear that no, things are not gonna be fine and they're all gonna die or scatter to the winds by the end. Arthur can see where this all leads and can't do anything to stop it, partially because he's been conned by Dutch(along with the rest of them) into believing Dutch really knows what the fuck he's doing and he has a "plan".

By the end, Arthur knows he's gonna die, if not from bullets, then from wasting away from his TB infection and makes it his mission to get John the fuck out of the gang with his family. In the end he does succeed, though John ends up getting the attention of the authorities through his actions and setting himself up for his arc in RDR. Where John ends up sacrificing himself for his family, Arthur Sacrificed himself for John before the weight of his sins came crashing down on him at the end. Watching the credits of RDR2 makes it clear that while the loose ends are tied up and John has his ranch and his family now, Agent Ross knows where he lives and will come knocking in a few short years and John is living on borrowed time. John doesn't know this but the player very well does.

 

[Kyrian007]

One of my early favorites, Megaman 2. That was a good one at a time when "congraturations" was the reward you got for some games.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I mentioned this in the FF thread but FF7 is a standout. Hell, any of the PS1 FF games are for me.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Little Nightmares 2 had pretty terrific ending too, and I'm not talking about the 'little boy is actually tall, TV man' ending, that one is just okay in my opinion. I'm talking about what happens before when Six deliberately drops you to your doom. It makes a lot of sense in hindsight, and is a nice subversion of the usual 'two characters bond throughout the game' trend. When you think back on it Six never asked you to help her out of that room at the start, and seemed content to spend what short time she had with her little music box as the only comfort in this horrible world. You're the one who disrupts this, and while the intent was freedom it only results in her getting exposed to more twisted danger. Near the end when you destroy the music box to free her from her warped form it painfully reminds her of the path you dragged her onto and how much she actually hates you for it.

 

[Bedinsis]

If I say that I think the final timeline-map you get to see in a Civilization session is a nifty feature since it shows all the things you did during the game I would be accurately answering the question but I suspect not spiritually. I assume the meaning is that the ending is meant to be directed by the game designer primarily to fit.

I liked the golden ending of Steins; Gate. In a game with a plot about sending messages to the past to see what happens where you as a player interact with the game by sending messages(SMS) in the present to see what happens you get an ending where the protagonist gets a message from the future of what to do. And the future character only does that due to the player's actions. And it is a happy ending.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'll throw in nearly every Resident Evil game as well. Not for any narrative reason, but for that oh so satifying deflation of tension after having defeated the final Boss (usually on a timer) and escaping whatever self-destruct explosion. It's fucking cliched, but Resi always pulls it off.

 

[thebobmaster]

Little Nightmares 2 had pretty terrific ending too, and I'm not talking about the 'little boy is actually tall, TV man' ending, that one is just okay in my opinion. I'm talking about what happens before when Six deliberately drops you to your doom. It makes a lot of sense in hindsight, and is a nice subversion of the usual 'two characters bond throughout the game' trend. When you think back on it Six never asked you to help her out of that room at the start, and seemed content to spend what short time she had with her little music box as the only comfort in this horrible world. You're the one who disrupts this, and while the intent was freedom it only results in her getting exposed to more twisted danger. Near the end when you destroy the music box to free her from her warped form it painfully reminds her of the path you dragged her onto and how much she actually hates you for it.

Along those same lines, the original Little Nightmares ending was really good as well. After all that time spent basically powerless and running for her life, Six finally gets the ability to turn the tables on the others and make her escape. It should be awesome, and satisfying, but instead it becomes utterly terrifying with how casually Six just walks down the dining room, draining the life from every single person around her as she calmly makes her way out. Just the way it's animated, the music, everything takes what could easily have been a basic triumphant ending into one that makes it feel like "I won...and why does that feel like it's somehow a bad thing?"

 

[Agema]

I liked Planescape: Torment.

Spoiler: Plot giveaways

Your character wakes up as amnesiac, and has to piece together his life. You find that someone is deliberately keeping him in an amnesiac state by killing him, and that he'd undergone a ritual of immortality to separate him from his mortality (sort of like a part of his soul). Except - slight hitch - he lost memories when he "died". Later, you'll find out why he did this to himself: he was an exceptionally evil person, who eventually developed a guilty conscience. However, to get enough time to atone for his sins he needed to live longer, thus seeking semi-immortality. Unfortuntely, of course, due to the memory loss upon dying, he forgot he needed to do good, and eventually ended up just trying to remember who he even was.

Turns out the evil mastermind is the other part of your soul, which doesn't want to die either and would do so if you ever merged back with it. So eventually you confront it and force it to merge back into you.

At which point you die... and go to hell. End of game.

This is one heck of a downer, obviously. But I sort of like the messages of justice ultimately being done, taking responsibility for oneself and one's actions, and that putting off the inevitable is not going to help you in the long run.

 

[meiam]

I generally don't really like ending because they try to simultaneously build everything up to sound like the odd are impossible just to immediately follow it up with a perfectly happy ending that often feel pulled out of nowhere.

The only one I can really think of are shadow of the colossus and RDR1, which have both been mentioned. The first drakengard has a bunch of cool "WTF" ending, but that's not quite the same.

Otherwise the only ending that really stick with me are the atrociously bad one (ME3, FF13).

 

[Dalisclock]

Along those same lines, the original Little Nightmares ending was really good as well. After all that time spent basically powerless and running for her life, Six finally gets the ability to turn the tables on the others and make her escape. It should be awesome, and satisfying, but instead it becomes utterly terrifying with how casually Six just walks down the dining room, draining the life from every single person around her as she calmly makes her way out. Just the way it's animated, the music, everything takes what could easily have been a basic triumphant ending into one that makes it feel like "I won...and why does that feel like it's somehow a bad thing?"

Yeah, I was gonna mention this. It goes from "Outta my way, I'm blowing this joint" to "Am I the baddie?" in seconds. I mean, almost everyone on the floating city...thing....is pretty fucking awful, so I wouldn't say I have sympathy for them(especially since a bunch of them were literally crawling all over each other to EAT Six minutes before) but I know exactly what you mean.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Bioshock: Infinite

I don't really remember the details, I just remember there is a whole weird Matrix-y thing with the girl or whatever, and it was really cool.
It's also the only Bioshock game I completed so I can't compare with the other two. I just remember feeling really intrigued and satisfied with the ending and if you can remember how something made you feel that says something.

 

[Agema]

Also, I guess I loved the ending of an old game on The Amiga, called "Nuclear War".

It's a humorous cartoon game with a touch of Dr. Strangelove, where you need to... win a nuclear war. At the end of the game, the only leader (you can play a range of thinly veiled versions of real world leaders) with any of their population left alive jumps up and down gleefully shouting "I won" whilst wearing a hazmat suit in an utterly ruined wasteland amid nuclear winter.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I personally loved the ending of INSIDE. The cerebral experience that was the entire game ended without any answers and kept the game in my mind for months and garnered a lot of discussion for just as long. Then its secret ending generates even more questions with even fewer answers. I just like that the game engaged my imagination, and didn't feel the need to close the "WTF" loop. Very different, and much appreciated. I really cannot wait for Playdead's next outing.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

> I personally loved the ending of INSIDE

Excellent. I am planning to play this one very soon since it just was added to GamePass. I did play Limbo just never got around to this one.