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

[shadow skill]

See Magna Carta 2 on the 360.

Spoiler

Basically you doom the world to back breaking labor because one of the main characters refuses to stabilize a machine that gives people magic powers and makes crops grow effortlessly. The writers try to put a nice spin on it, but it was such bullshit that I just ended up being disgusted, especially since the last half or so of the game is just an annoying grind.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I probably wouldn't take kindly to a crushing out of the blue. I would be ammenable to a game where as soon as your party set out, they are subject to disease and death and fatigue so that when you get to the final boss you realise how hopeless everything is and the fight is more out of honouring your comrades than actually intending to defeat it. Or, a game where the people who send you to fight the boss have manipulated you, and it turns out you were intended to die, releasing some agent they had you carry that would kill the boss. Or have a subsequent playthrough where the protagonist is aware of the bosses' power from the last playthrough and does things differently, getting better over a number of playthroughs until they defeat the boss. But everything should be defeatable within gameplay, I think.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

I would call the ending shit and urge everyone not to buy it. Like with AC3, if the ending is completely out of synch with the game and nullifies all of your work then it's a shitty ending.

 

[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.

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.

Spoiler

With the Broken Steel DLC, Fawkes will not refuse and survive the nuke chamber, extending the main quest now that you have lived.

 

[snappydog]

As has been mentioned, I'm not sure dystopian is the right word for what's being talked about but let's roll with it. I like the idea, if it was well-implemented. If the major themes of the game fit with it, if it was a narrative about how you couldn't fight fate or something, it would be shocking and new and I'd like it. Don't wanna see it everywhere though, it would take away the achievement after a couple of goes.

 

[Something Amyss]

So i am trying to write a story to a game, and i came up with an ending to the game where you fight the final boss and you are kicking his ass, and just as you deal the finishing blow, he transforms into something big and crushes you and your party like a bunch of flies.

You now, I'm fine with a downer ending, where the heroes lose, but that's pretty bad. It seems like a combination of bad storytelling and a downer ending solely for the sake of a downer ending.

I say "seems" because I lack details, but I doubt anything will save it.

 

[Autumnflame]

So basically the starchild from ME3.

Did what no one else could. united the galaxy. made peace between synthetics and organics

well sorry to say. (insert logical fallacies here) MIDDLE FINGER, YOU LOSE!

( and yes i believe this is a good portrayal of how to do it badly.)


One for the good maybe considered of you sided with prince lacroix. is vampire bloodlines.
Just as you think you have won you lose

 

[pspman45]

I think what you'd have to do is literally spend the entire game emphasizing that you and your party are not likely going to make it out alive, you know, what EVERY RPG does!
also have a lot of dialogue about accepting fate and whatever

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Context is everything here. The events that lead up to this ending as well as exactly what happens in the ending and how much tension / atmosphere is built up are what will make or break the storyline. Without knowing any of those things, it's impossible to say how I or anyone else will react to this.

 

[Ranorak]

I could get into that.

If he big bad was constantly hyped up to be a deadly, deadly creature, and it turns out to be...true!
If done properly, I like a sad ending.

 

[kailus13]

It really depends on how it's done. If the big bad turns out to be nuclear powered and you kiling him has irradiated the country your trying to save, then that could work. You'd have to foreshadow it a lot though.

 

[Squilookle]

From a story point of view, there's nothing wrong with a dystopian ending.

The way you describe it though, with success switched to defeat on the very verge of victory. with no warning whatsoever, is just cheap and nasty. You have to at least foreshadow it. Let us know early on that our chance of success is slim, that it is likely we won't return etc. People are so used to hearing that in successful adventures they wont think much of it at the time, but when you DO fail, it's harder to justify being angry at the game when it TOLD you near the start of the adventure how unlikely it would be that you'd pull it off.

And like others have said, if you lose, but cheat death and get to see the ruined world after the end of the story, then there's more sense of causality to it. Not to mention if the game has stated you were essentially going on a suicide mission, you can console yourself that while you lost your adventure, at least you survived despite titanic odds against you.

 

[hazabaza1]

If it's just "durr-de-durr instant kill everything you did was worth shit" then seriously fuck you.

If it's like, your party or whatever is the first line of assault and enable a victory at the cost of your lives? If it's done well I could dig it.

 

[Mick Beard]

well it happened in AC3 and everyone bitched and whined about it

That's because spoiler warning here (Desmond had no reason to die and he just does and releases a bitter goddess with intentions to enslave humanity into the world.)The whole thing was contrived and that's why people were pissed because Ubisoft needed some excuse to get Desmond out of the picture.

how do we really know he is dead?

AC4 is set within the same blood line (conners gramps) so my guess is that Desmond isnt dead or is brought back and now the fight is to stop Juno... if Juno can come back there is nothign stopping desmond from coming back

 

[krazykidd]

Well what you are talking about there is having all their work go to waste... how would you feel it that happened?
I for one would be mighty pissed.

If you can come up with some reason that makes the journey not be in vain then you could possibly sell it, but it is walking a very fine line.

But it's a story , that's how the story ends it shouldn't matter . I though stories were about the journey and not the destinstion .

OT: iv'e wanted this kinda of ending to be cannon in a rpg for years . Not all stories need a happy ending . Bittersweet is good , but we need more endings where the hero fails . Now i wouldn't have the " boss fight" be a suppose to lose thing . I rather you best the final boss and have a little extra suppose to lose battle kinda like in FF7 where Cloud Ominislashes Sephiroth , except the roles are changed . Also the ending sequence better be really good , because of not THAT will piss people off more in my opinion.

Provided its done well, I would welcome such an ending purely because its something rather fresh and different. I suppose it would be rather difficult though to pull it off without making your audience feel ripped off or unsatisfied but I think it could work well in careful hands. I'm certainly not going to do something as silly as demand my money back even if I witness the absolute worst ending possible.

This basically.

 

[Jfswift]

My initial gut reaction would be to feel pretty annoyed. I think I'd get over it though if the story was *really* good and made sense or if this was a cliffhanger to a sequel.

 

[thejackyl]

About the only way I could see this working is if your objective was to do something that caused the dystopian future to happen, probably not know what that mugguffin would actually do.

Though I did like the ending of Red Dead Redemption. And it was quite a bit of a downer.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Well what you are talking about there is having all their work go to waste... how would you feel it that happened?
I for one would be mighty pissed.

If you can come up with some reason that makes the journey not be in vain then you could possibly sell it, but it is walking a very fine line.

Yes this. That's why Shadow of the Collosus was a huge downer for me. I will admit that SotC's ending was more thought out, and in the context of ICO's story, it makes sense.

Your game would have to be a sequel or prequel.
Otherwize, it's kind of juvinille to have a story where you're winning and then loose at the last second.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I don't know dude how did people react to Mass Effect 3...

If it's a heroes sacrifice then you might get away with it, If it's just LOL YOU LOSE then no...people will hate it.

 

[II2]

So i am trying to write a story to a game, and i came up with an ending to the game where you fight the final boss and you are kicking his ass, and just as you deal the finishing blow, he transforms into something big and crushes you and your party like a bunch of flies.

My question is how would you react to this kind of distopian ending to a game: would you demand your money back, or would you feel that this was a good ending to a game or something else.

please comment as much as possible on this, as it would be interesting to hear from every gamer. Also it would nice to hear how people take distopian endings in general.

captcha: happy rlappy

god damn that thing is sentient, or something

First off, it's spelled "dystopian", same root prefix as dys●functional. Second, a dystopia is a society, typically characterized by a prevalence of sadness, misery, oppression, dysfunction and or similar atributes.

Unless your boss battle causes a plot thread leading to the formation of such a society (e.g: the bad guy wins and then takes control of the poor people with a tyrannical iron fist), is not dystopian. Disappointing, ironic, dissonant, frustrating, philosophical, cynical, abrupt, confusing, neutralizing, all possible, but not dystopian, as long as we're using our words with care.

---

Rhetoric aside, I think the context is more important the the mechanics of having the player character and friends getting smacked down. One of the foundations of gaming is the possibility to lose, but with the exception of certain long-run rouge-likes and other oddities, rarely an inevitability. People can accept fucking up, but they naturally own it as long as they were participating and the challenge seems plausible. I've never met too many people who really liked 'supposed to lose' fights or 'death in a cutscene' scripted bits in games they play. People weren't big on Aeris dying in FF7 (if anyone calls spoilers on a that I'mma sock 'em) and people did not, generally, like the limited and 'hands off' nature of the ending in Mass Effect 3, for examples.

If you write your players into a 'fuck you' boss battle where they lose, there had better be a good reason for it. If you do so just because it seemed like an interesting way to mess with peoples expectations, they'll pick up on that.

My suggestion would be to do the Ozymandias thing and let you players beat the boss in play, but have that be insufficient to stop what they've set into motion or been doing, if you're married to the idea. Not everyone will love it, but you'll have more people thinking, 'hmm, yeah, I guess some good acts can't undo evil ones' than 'fuck this game and it's stupid on rails ending.'