Games with the best multiple endings system (or choices overall)

[josemlopes]

Not exactly just the endings but the overall way the player affects the story with his actions.

For me its Spec Ops The Line and Call of Duty Black Ops 2 (yeah, I know), Call of Duty more then Spec Ops though since in Spec Ops only the choices in the end trully matter.

The most important aspect for me is for them to be subtle, making it seem that the story is adapting to the player instead of the player knowing that its either path A or B. For me Mass Effect 3 had that problem (there are more, we all know by now, but that was my main one).


Black Ops 2 did it really well, most of the choices werent even choices, they were just "Do this!" and depending on how you did it the game would have a storyline ready for it.

I was liking the story of Far Cry 3 untill the end, it felt like it needed more to it, some kind of epilogue for each choice where you could still choose to do something different about it (something similar to Spec Ops).


I never played Silent Hill 2 but from my understanding its something similar, right? (with the dog and all)

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

Alpha Protocol. It was a game designed with player choice being one of the most important aspects. The developers actually had a panel before the game came out on choice in video games that they turned into a drinking game where you take a drink every time the person speaking says the word choice.

It's an hour long but if you want to hear about choice in Video Games I recommend watching it. It's called But Thou Must.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm gonna have to go with Silent Hill 2.

It's never really thought of as a multiple ending/choice game, and that's because it never shoves it in your face. You simply get an ending depended on how you behaved. Did you spend a lot of time with Maria and kept her safe, did you take care of your health and/or checked out that knife one too many times. Some of the triggers might seem a bit obtuse and impossible to figure out unless you looked them up though. Seriously, I can't imagine anyone in Silent Hill being able save Cybil without a guide.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Deus Ex. But you kids have probably never heard of it innit

Jeez man, why you bringing ancient shit like Deus Ex into this? Take off those rose-tinted nostalgia glasses and start living in the 21st century.

Anyway, I've always quite liked the endings of Chrono Trigger. Not because of how you unlock them, which is the same for every ending save one: defeat Lavos. Instead, the ending you get is more dependent on when in the story you defeat it, which I think is nicely in keeping with the the whole time thing the game has going.

 

[thetoddo]

Deus Ex. But you kids have probably never heard of it innit

*SNIP* Take off those rose-tinted nostalgia glasses and start living in the 21st century.

Anyway, I've always quite liked the endings of Chrono Trigger. *SNIP*

I see what ya did there.

On topic, Dragon Age: Origins. So many endings, every one of the big choices you made (and a lot of the little ones) being resolved. Honestly not knowing on my first playthrough if I was going to get a "good guy" ending.

 

[Evonisia]

Black Ops II was really cool with the choices, but I was ninja'd in the original post (I lol'd).

But yeah I will say either Silent Hill 2 or Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (yeah that's right, son). Silent Hill 2 is more subtle because it's about reaching the ending, but Shattered Memories actually changes the world a bit as well as the character's personalities and appearance. Plus Shattered Memories puts more focus on the multiple choices because most of them come from the framing device of talking to the therapist, my personal favourite change being that you colour in a picture and then you go back to Harry and all the scenery (house, people's clothes, car, roof etc.) are whatever colours you shaded them as. Also having beer cans suddenly become coke cans in your second play through is whimsical. Just a shame the Wii mote is still as awful as it always is, I would have spent ages colouring in.

Silent Hill 2 has no shame about what you do, though. There's an item which will guarantee that you will get a "bad" ending and it is not even a "Are you sure you want to turn on "X" " item. I won't spoil it because said item is SPOILERS but still. Looking at items several times was also an incredibly creative way of judging the psychology of the player in relation to James.

 

[Dalisclock]

Radiant Historia actually had an interesting system where not only did various things you do throughout the game change the ending, but there are lots of little "Dead" endings depending on choices you make during the game which are interesting to watch(and pretty much make you want to find them). One of them invovles the main character and the main female character deciding "Screw saving the world. Let's run off together", and shows how they do end up being happy together, tempered with the sadness that the world is doomed and they are waiting for the end they can no longer prevent.

What's interesting is that in quite a few places, which seems like the correct choice is actually the wrong one and will lead to a "dead" ending. Good thing you can immediately rewind time to prevent it.

 

[Don Incognito]

Alpha Protocol. It was a game designed with player choice being one of the most important aspects. The developers actually had a panel before the game came out on choice in video games that they turned into a drinking game where you take a drink every time the person speaking says the word choice.

It's an hour long but if you want to hear about choice in Video Games I recommend watching it. It's called But Thou Must.

EXCELLENT choice. Truly excellent.

For those who haven't played it, I strongly suggest giving Alpha Protocol a try. It is the sequel Deus Ex never had (until Human Revolution, anyway).

 

[RedDeadFred]

The Withcher 2. It doesn't have to do with any morality system or preparedness system, it just takes into account the choices you made in the game.

 

[Scars Unseen]

The Way of the Samurai series might as well be called "Multiple Endings: The Game." You can usually finish a playthrough in a couple of hours, but there are just so many things you can do, and your equipment and skills carry over after each game. The endings in each game number as follows:

WotS: 7
WotS2: 14
WotS3: 28
WotS4: 10

Oh, and WotS4 is coming to Steam this month. Worth playing.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

I know it was a cheap Deus: Ex-style A, B, C-style ending, but I thought Battlefield 4's ending choice was very effectively done.

The two Metro games have a reasonably well done "morality" system which controls the ending.

And of course, Black Ops 2, which has already been mentioned.

I think the Epic Mickey games deserve some credit for actions and consequences. Warren Spector was trying very hard to surpass his work on Deus Ex with those games.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I guess this isn't a choice ending but the way Persona 4 handles its Bad, Good and True endings is great. Bad ending is found by failing a critical dialogue challenge with a SUPER Bad ending if you decide to do something utterly stupid to top it off. The Good ending is just beating the final boss but the True ending is masterful. You have to notice yourself that the case isn't as closed as it appears and figure out what to do about it. The game itself actually hides the ending and tries to make you stop thinking.

Also BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend has a good ending system. You have multiple character routes with different endings and stuff. Of course they all basically end with Hazama ruining your shit in one way or another until the True ending but hey. The joke endings are awesome too, genuinely funny from start to finish.

Fuck Makoto's bad ending though... Fuck you Relius, nobody likes you. You're just Easy Mode Carl, a good Carl player would rek you every time.

[sub][sub]There are no good Carl players, he's technical as fuck[/sub][/sub]

 

[The Madman]

Alpha Prototype and Witcher 1/2 stand as great examples of multiple choice endings in the rpg genre. Although in both series you would ultimately visit most of the same places and fight many of the same foes, your reasoning behind it can be entirely different from one playthrough to the next. Why you're there, who you're fighting with, what you're hoping to achieve? Malleable, as was much of the journey getting there.

And although a lot of people disliked it because they felt it was 'punishing', I liked Dishonored's multiple endings as well. The fact that if you play a chaotic murderous bastard the game reacts as if a chaotic murderous bastard is on the loose is something far too few games do. All too often I'm given a ten minute cinematic of how empathic a character is and how much they hate violence only to ten seconds later be mowing down baddies by the dozen with the sort of gleeful sadism that would put most dictators to shame.

Kotor 2 did an amazing job of exploiting the game mechanics for story effect in that way as well, with NPC totally calling you out on your murderous ways and openly debating things that might otherwise be waved away as mere game mechanics, same with story and consequences. Pity I can't exactly nominate that game as having had a great ending as even with the fantastic TSLRC mod the ending isn't great, but everything leading up to it? Fantastic stuff.

 

[Kingjackl]

Spec Ops: The Line did it pretty well; they were pretty open to interpretation, but you could argue that there were two good endings and two bad endings, with any of them that could be considered fitting.

Bioshock 2 managed to do Bioshock 1's awful multiple ending system in a way that actually made sense. Rather than a character who harvested a couple of little sisters to get through a difficult level being rendered a psychotic Hitler-clone, instead it's your daughter basing her decisions off yours and learning the wrong lessons.

Persona 4 had a pretty good matrix of endings, based on how you did during the whodunnit. A bad ending where you accuse the wrong guy, a slightly less bad ending where you simply don't catch the culprit, a good ending where you get the culprit, a 'true' ending where you figure out the mastermind, and (in Golden) an ultra good ending where everything is sunshine and lollipops, and an ultra bad ending where you fuck everybody over and throw your lot in with the killer. The only problem with this one is a lot of the choices you have to make are a kind of counter-logical. For example:

Spoiler: True ending spoilers:

You might realise that there are still some loose ends by the time you get to the final day, but it's a hell of a leap to figure out that the way to act on these loose ends is to go to the food court once you've spoken to everybody else, with no outside prompting, and the game actively giving you a choice to go home and end the day.

Given how linear most of the game had been up to that point, you could be forgiven for assuming there was going to be a cutscene where the characters would figure it out without any meaningful input on your part. As a result, I'm all but certain the vast majority of people who got that ending where either using a guide, or were spoiled about it.

Not even getting started on how little the accomplice ending makes sense.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Apart from the ones above already listed, i would add Fallout NV to it. I think the games that have a great multiple ending system are those that keep it simple.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Daggerfall is a notable entry, not so much for the endings themselves (they're essentially copy-paste cutscenes with a boring narrator) but how they fit into the Elder Scrolls lore. There are six possible endings, all of which depict radically different outcomes.

Most devs would select one of the endings as the "true" one, but Bethesda went with a different approach. They threw up their hands and said "fuck it, they're ALL canon!" Thus the strange temporal phenomenon known as "The Warp in the West" was coined. Later Elder Scrolls games expanded on this idea by alluding to "Dragon Breaks," events in history where time unravels and parallel realities collide before eventually returning to a linear state.