[EDITED]how would you react to a distopian ending to a game

[josemlopes]

The game simply has to go there from the start, Bioshock could have pulled that off well since you were going to fight a pumped up evil mastermind. Just a few tweaks in the story and the ending could be about an impossible attempt of undoing what was already done. Jack (I think that was the players character name) fucked it up bad and that was how it was, only false hopes now.

 

[MoreThanANoob]

If it just ends with the player being squished, it'll feel more like an unconventional Game Over more than anything else.

I'm not sure if someone has said this already but if you're aiming to screw with your audience you could try destroying the player character, then have a cutaway to a completely different character doing whatever it was that the first character was doing at the start of the game. Like going through the opening cutscene, except with some random other guy/gal being called by a different name. It could be used to show what an exercise in futility the "hero"'s journey is, or it could be used to seamlessly re-enter the player into a "New Game Plus" mode.

Just a suggestion.

 

[SD-Fiend]

i don't quite like the sound of that. It'd be annoying and frustrating if he just killed you after putting in all of that effort. I'd be okay with a bitter sweet ending where even if they fail there is still a sliver of hope left or they put a severe dent in the villain and wreck his plans in sacrifice.

The sad end of Live A Live is a rather well made "Bad guy wins" scenario.
http://lparchive.org/Live-a-Live/Update%2067/
http://lparchive.org/Live-a-Live/Update%2068/

 

[Bostur]

You will have a hard time avoiding some dissonance between gameplay and narrative. Reaching the end of the game is a gameplay success condition, this happens because the player is awesome and wins. If your narrative says the opposite then those two aspects will clash.

You will most likely have to include some kind of closure or success, even though it can be mixed. Most games that try a negative ending suffer a lot of backlash from it. Mass Effect 3 and Fallout 3 being the most well known examples.

Another way to go could of course be not to make it a game at all, and take away most gamey mechanics. Then the expectations will be different.

By the way dystopia is probably not the right word to use for this subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia

"A dystopia is a community or society, usually fictional, that is in some important way undesirable or frightening. It is the opposite of a utopia."

A dystopic story can have good endings as well as bad endings.

 

[MoreThanANoob]

A more Dystopian ending would be for you to defeat the Boss only to find out all his evil acts served a greater purpose, say conquering and enslaving neighbouring countries to unite them and make them able to survive some catastrophe that, divided, would destroy them.

And there you stand, realizing by defeating the evil overlord you have doomed yourself and everyone you love to bitter destruction...

An ending like that would IMO be pretty sweet....

Yes. This. All of this.

Captcha: ermahgerd capcher

Okay, it's just making fun of us now isn't it?

 

[ItsNotRudy]

There are already games like this. In Zone of the Enders the final battle is one you cannot win. In Lufia II the main characters have to sacrifice themselves to save their country/child. Still two games with beautiful stories.

 

[Andrew_C]

Another good dystopian ending: You defeat the big bad, only to discover that you've just given the crazed seer who's been manipulating both of you your whole life access to the power she needs to conquer the world (Fable Two).

 

[Techno Squidgy]

It's been said several times already but your using the word dystopia wrong.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind a story where I lost at the end, as long as it was done right. As long as I lose through game play and it's clear that I was supposed to lose then that'd be fine. I want to be able to put up a good fight before I go down though.

 

[spwatkins]

Personally, I found the various endings for Deus Ex to be kind of distopian.

 

[Raikas]

I like a good depressing ending if it's been earned. That said, I think the big problem would be marketing it, since how can you attract the people who would be interested without spoiling the end? People complain about games with no happy ending if they've been lead to believe that there would be a better one, but without the surprise how would it even work?


And as an aside, ending on a losing note is not the same as creating a dystopia.

 

[themilo504]

It?s a awful idea I really hate it when you beat a boss but in the next cut scene he kicks your ass and beside that it invalidates all of your effort and makes the entire story seem pointless.

 

[Reaper195]

depending on how well it was written, I'd love it. I'm fuckin' sick of the good guys winning. I was thrilled to hear that the EC for ME3 would have a fourth option. To walk away. (To make it clear, I liked the ending even before the EC) But when you walk away, you don't get any decent ending for that. Just a shot of Reapers shooting ships, and then fifty thousand years later, someone finds Liara's time box thing she made for Shepard.

But I would love to see a game where you get so attached to the characters and saving the world/city/whatever, only to fail because the antagonist was simply better (Better, not pulls a dues ex machina out of his/her/its arse). Kind of like the ending for Watchmen, where...that dude....initiates his plans to blow up cities around the world half an hour before Night Owl and Rorschach even get to his base.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

If there's a point to doing so, yeah, I would be fine with it, but if it was just a "True Art is Angsty" kind of thing with no meaning behind it, it would be disappointing. Kind of like the Mass Effect 3 ending, from what I hear of it. Regardless of the nature of the ending, it should have a reason for ending the way it does, otherwise it'll feel shallow and leave you feeling like you wasted your time with the game.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

It really does depend on the situation

In your situation, where villain become super villain, it honestly depends on how convincing the thing seems. If it just seems to come out of nowhere then I'll be pissed, in so much as it seems like a cheap shot. If it is however one of those things where it doesn't kill you outright, but it's clear that you aren't going to win, then I'd be more approving of that. If dread is the emotion you want to illicit at the end of a game, then I say that's a fine way to do it (in fact I have my own idea like that kicking around) Bonus points if you manage to give a sense throughout the game that the final boss will have that sense of dread about them.

Now, as for dystopian endings go, there are a few that have various results. An ending where it turns out bad for everyone and it's clear it was your fault I can find good if there is that hindsight where it's clear everything up to that point has fucked everything up, and you've just been complacent throughout it all (Nier is a good example of this) An ending however where it is dystopian in reality but the developers intend for it be seen as a utopia I generally don't agree with, but that's more personal opinion than anything else (DmC is an example of this) An ending where a dystopia is inevitable is all relative to the actions of the player/protagonist: that is, if the player/protagonist does everything in their power to stop it but can't (like your situation) then that I'm fine with, but if it's a matter of the player/protagonist existing somewhere outside of all of this, then I have to question the importance of following that protagonist being followed in the first place. I don't mean something where the backdrop is that of an eventual dystopia and the protagonist deals with it only tangentially as a background, but rather a situation where the protagonist has events outside of the relation to this backdrop, and where the dystopia just comes out of nowhere. It can work if you got me invested enough in the protagonist, but it's sort of like with Dear John: it was something that was completely unnecessary and was meant to target an emotional heart string without actually doing any work.

 

[Robetid]

I think a good way to do it would to make different difficulty settings, and if you beat it on the hardest mode (out of the three) a fourth mode opens up called, say, "Hero" then if you beat that you get a better ending where you win, I always like that concept ever since "x-men" on the sega genesis where if you didnt play the hardest mode you could only go so far in the game before magneto comes and tells you you arent worthy to proceed. Maybe on the hero playthrough there can be small changes to the story or something where your old characters are referenced (if maybe you can customize your character(s) at the beginning) thus adding to the replay value of the game.

 

[XMark]

There's a couple of classic situations which may call for an apocalyptic downer ending.

If the story is that of a tragedy, where the main character has some major flaw that is constantly tested throughout the story, and no matter what happens he continually fails at addressing that flaw. If that flaw is directly the cause of the downer ending, then it's dramatically appropriate.

They other type is when, no matter how well-intentioned, the heroes are trying to fight against the forces of fate itself, in which the downer ending reinforces that destiny can not be altered. Sometimes in the form of a time travel story, where you're trying to stop some major apocalytic event from happening, and in the end you find out that you're somehow the cause of the apocalyptic event in the first place.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Didn't "Half Life" do this successfully? And didn't everyone love it?

Compare that, to, say, the ending of "Fallout 3", which is as outside of the player's control as the rest of the main quest. Who wasn't p---ed off at the "choice" the player is presented with then? Especially if they have Fawkes with them, whose very presence should make the whole decision moot.

I guess what I'm saying is that an ending, good or bad, should be "earned".

 

[ItsNotRudy]

Compare that, to, say, the ending of "Fallout 3", which is as outside of the player's control as the rest of the main quest. Who wasn't p---ed off at the "choice" the player is presented with then? Especially if they have Fawkes with them, whose very presence should make the whole decision moot.

I guess what I'm saying is that an ending, good or bad, should be "earned".

I don't quite understand what you mean? You either die, kill the Brotherhood girl or if you found Fawkes you come out with a win-win.

 

[Bad Jim]

Hostile Waters, one of my favourite games, has bit of a downer ending.

Spoiler

Your original enemy, a cabal of megalomaniacs, creates a warrior species to fight for them. Natuarally, the species takes over and you spend the latter part of the game fighting them.

In the last mission, the species attempt to save their race by firing culture stones into space (culture stones can rebuild their species from scratch). You attempt to foil this plan by using your cruiser as a kamikazi, destroying their launcher.

But the end sequence shows two culture stones flying off into space, indicating that you were not entirely successful. Additionally, you've just used up humanitys' last remaining military asset without much evidence that you had exterminated them on Earth.

But I love it anyway. That said, I play for gameplay more than story, so I'd probably enjoy it regardless of how it ended.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Compare that, to, say, the ending of "Fallout 3", which is as outside of the player's control as the rest of the main quest. Who wasn't p---ed off at the "choice" the player is presented with then? Especially if they have Fawkes with them, whose very presence should make the whole decision moot.

I guess what I'm saying is that an ending, good or bad, should be "earned".

I don't quite understand what you mean? You either die, kill the Brotherhood girl or if you found Fawkes you come out with a win-win.

Now, I didn't play the game when it was first released so I may be wrong here, but I believe that, originally, Fawkes refused to take your place and you just had to die.

OT: Your example just sounds like a spiteful "rock falls everyone dies" ending. Now, this could kind of work if your story is hopelessly nihilistic throughout. You're just running with a theme, then. It still doesn't seem like it'd entirely work, to me but, with good enough writing and direction, you can make nigh-on anything work.

Kinda reminds me of the ending to Apocalypse on the PS1, in some ways.

I like a good downer ending, but it takes some writing chops to make a good one. Generally the whole story needs to have been a downward spiral, with this being the inevitable conclusion. Very few stories seem to pull off a "sudden downer ending" very well.