Multiple ending games and "established canon"

[Undead Dragon King]

I've recently finished a "canon" replay of "Knights of the Old Republic" as a preparation for reading the new novel "Revan", which is supposed to detail the time between KOTOR 1 & 2, and some time beyond that. I've also been playing Dawn of War: Dark Crusade again (as Tau) recently. It's gotten me thinking of "canon" for the ending of games with multiple endings made after the game's release. Both of these games have "canon" endings, which may or may not be at odds for how you want the story to play out.

So tell me: what do you think of this conflict? Does it bother you at all that the potential stories that people want to craft in open-ended games can be considered "non-canon" for the overall story? Or is this not a big deal for you? Do you have any other examples of games that are retconned into having an established canon ending afterwards?

 

[Llil]

I like the Daggerfall way of dealing with multiple endings. Have them all be canon.

In the end, Sentinel, Wayrest, Daggerfall, Orsinium, and the Emperor all gained control of this artifact and used it to consolidate their political powers, somehow at the same exact time.

(From the UESP wiki, The Warp in the West)

But most games don't want to confuse the hell out of everyone, I guess.

My only problem with having only one ending be canon is that it's pretty much always the "good" ending. It would be nice to have something like importing a save from the previous game, and depending on what ending you got, get a completely different story. But that's probably too much to ask for.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Well, it's kinda annoying how in skyrim you know next to nothing about your oblivion character. Elder scrolls refuses to tell you anything about your old character and it annoys canon nerds like me.

 

[Something Amyss]

If you want to create a sequel to a game that has multiple endings you are always going to be forced to choose which one you want to follow. This has never bothered me because I have always understood the logic behind it. By always I mean since around the time that warcraft 2 came out which was the first real game that I played with an ongoing story and a sequel.

Yeah, but it totally ruins my immersion.

 

[putowtin]

Cannonly speaking both KotOR games have good endings (nearly all Star Wars games have) most games that give a moral choice (and by extention two endings) are writen with the good ending being canon.

 

[Gatx]

Cannonly speaking both KotOR games have good endings (nearly all Star Wars games have) most games that give a moral choice (and by extention two endings) are writen with the good ending being canon.

Actually doesn't KotOR II let ask you a bunch of questions about the ending of the first game, and following up on the bad ending if you so chose? But yeah, canonically speaking in relation to the EU, the good endings are always canon.

 

[Puddleknock]

I always ignore the 'canon'. I play these games to create my own character with their own canon and as such the official canon can take a hike.

I also dislike the idea of sequels to open ended games that wont let you carry on your story. I didn't play Dragon Age 2 as I couldn't be my warden, in my eyes the Dragon Age games are linked to the Grey Warden(s) i've created. While I lap up Mass Effect which lets me continue with my Shepard(s).

 

[LetalisK]

Cannonly speaking both KotOR games have good endings (nearly all Star Wars games have) most games that give a moral choice (and by extention two endings) are writen with the good ending being canon.

I'm fine with that. With a few exceptions, the writing for "evil" paths and their endings is usually so horrible in dual-morality games I wouldn't want them to be canon.

 

[Undead Dragon King]

Cannonly speaking both KotOR games have good endings (nearly all Star Wars games have) most games that give a moral choice (and by extention two endings) are writen with the good ending being canon.

Actually doesn't KotOR II let ask you a bunch of questions about the ending of the first game, and following up on the bad ending if you so chose? But yeah, canonically speaking in relation to the EU, the good endings are always canon.

I thought that KotOR II's Revan-related dialogue at the start was a great way of continuing the story, even though the "good" ending from KotOR 1 was already the established canon at that point. Not like the Dawn of War games after Winter Assault, which had the canon march on, referencing what happened in earlier games regardless of whom you chose to win it.

 

[Blemontea]

I remember Drakengard 2 had multiple endings, the game never had a sequel till square enix had a holy light come through their windows and they made this

Spoiler

[/spoiler]
and the game is based on the worst ending you can get, and i love this games story! Thank you drakengard 2.

Actually just remeber another game BlazeBlue Continuum Shift, each character has a Good, Bad, and Parody ending. And the "good" ending isn't that good in some cases but its the canonical ending, and I like seeing the Bad and Parody endings. It shows what could happen if the heroes don't win or what has happen in this games case, and the developers have a sense of humor.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The way I see it, the ending we chosen is consider to be "our" canon that we keep it within us. I mean I accept the official canons they made but I still hold onto my Kotor 2 file since my character is male (in the official canon the general is female) since I have fond memory of my time playing that game.

 

[putowtin]

Cannonly speaking both KotOR games have good endings (nearly all Star Wars games have) most games that give a moral choice (and by extention two endings) are writen with the good ending being canon.

I'm fine with that. With a few exceptions, the writing for "evil" paths and their endings is usually so horrible in dual-morality games I wouldn't want them to be canon.

true, oh wise one, very true!

 

[KingHodor]

Well, it's kinda annoying how in skyrim you know next to nothing about your oblivion character. Elder scrolls refuses to tell you anything about your old character and it annoys canon nerds like me.

Skyrim is set 201 years after the Oblivion Crisis. Most of the stuff your character did kind of pales next to the whole "saving Cyrodiil and possibly all of the empire from an invasion of extradimensional Daedra". And chances are most of the credit went to Martin Septim anyway.

On a sidenote, random NPCs in Oblivion will talk about how the Nerevarine went on an expedition to the continent of Akavir and hasn't been heard from since.

Anyway, back to the topic: Deus Ex: Invisible War is another example of the developer simply merging the multiple endings of its predecessor into one canon scenario:

Spoiler

JC Denton merges with the AI Helios (ending A), but his mind can't handle it and he goes catatonic, shutting down most of the world's telecommunication systems (preventing the Illuminati from using them for their world domination scheme) and effectively causing modern globalist society to collapse and regress into small city-states(ending B). In the end, however, society is rebuilt under the guiding hand of the Illuminati (ending C).

 

[Vault101]

its annoying because i makes everything you do in the first game meningless

persoanlly I think it should be avoided..as Mass effect has shown us you dont have to do that

and as far as Im concerned its not cannon unless you have no other choice...so NO canon gender for shepard

 

[WFox]

I refuse to acknowledge the events of the novel as what actually happened. Not only because the novel is a catastrophuck of bad writing decisions, but because the characters in the novel are completely and totally removed from my experiences of the game.

In KOTOR 1, I played Revan as an unrepentent bad guy who delighted in being evil, and took back his title of Sith Lord from Malak. In KOTOR 2, I played the Exile as a significantly more light-sided male named Rail Hanaka.

I have no relation to 'Meetra Surik' (h God, how I hate that name). She's a character who is completely divorced from my experiences of KOTOR II, and I simply cannot project my character and his motivations onto her. Rail Hanaka was a cynical old soldier who had a serious thing for the Handmaiden, and a Jedi who fought for the greater good as a Jedi without becoming hopelessly naive about the Light Side/Dark Side of the Force. The character in the novel has absolutely nothing in common with that, so I simply cannot see the novel as being an explanation of what happened to my character.

...yes Lucasart, take that as a not-so-subtle hint that I'm still waiting for a proper KOTOR 3

[/spoiler]

I didn't mind the Revan book (until the end). To me it was like, ok this is the author's Revan, but the character I played will always be the Revan I think of. Especially after the bullshit ending. Thanks Bioware, Lucasarts, and Drew Karpyshan for sacrificing our beloved characters on the altar of your Old Republic MMO. So yeah, in my mind it's the "official" Revan and Exile that are some odd alternate universe version of the characters.

 

[Lionsfan]

Well, it's kinda annoying how in skyrim you know next to nothing about your oblivion character. Elder scrolls refuses to tell you anything about your old character and it annoys canon nerds like me.

That pisses me off to no end, everyone's talking about Martin and how heroic he was and everything. And here I am just like "***** I DID EVERYTHING! Martin sat on his ass all day reading while I closed all the Oblivion Gates, I saved Bruma, I went into every damn dungeon BY MYSELF, I went into Cameron's Paradise and I stole back the Amulet of Kings, and I did bloody well everything! If not for me then Mehrunes Dagon would have destroyed the world, but because that bloody prick Martin smashed the amulet that I brought him he gets all the glory."

 

[Undead Dragon King]

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I just finished the novel today and..

Spoiler

I agree. Revan (and the Exile) deserved a much better ending than that. It's actually had an opposite effect on me on wanting to get The Old Republic, even though it's only thirteen days 'til launch. My Revan and Exile's stories will remain my own "canon", and I'll just try to forget everything in that book. I've often viewed Drew Karpyshyn as one of the best sci-fi writers around today, and his writing style was still solid; the book had amazing pacing. The ending was just... no...