The Current Trend of The Anticlimax in Video Games

[StreamerDarkly]

Would you agree, dear author, that the aloofness of single-player gamers has reached a monstrous pinnacle in recent years?

I mean, they used to admit to a lack of dexterity and testicular fortitude required to succeed in multiplayer PvP games. Or at least keep quiet whilst limping off the pitch in shame.

These days they celebrate the non-existent skill demands of most single player games, prattle on about how fucking progressive it all is and sneer at the "dudebros" who dare to enjoy a good game of deathmatch.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Not just sequels, I think it's gotten much worse since DLC became a mandatory thing. How do we get them to buy the DLC? Leave lots of stuff hanging in the main game then make them cough up for some resolution. Anything still left is for the sequels.

And then they wonder why new IPs never sell very well.

 

[EeviStev]

The Current Trend of The Anticlimax in Video Games

or

Why J.J. Abrams Was Literally the Worst Choice for Directing Star Wars

 

[elvor0]

Bethesda games just can't pull that off. I know that I always play those games until I'm bored of them, and then the absolute last thing I do is the story mission. That, at least, gives the game some kind of closure. I actually liked the ending to Fallout 3, just because they had the guts to end the game, and because I though the ending was surprisingly poetic. Then there was a shitstorm, and now I'm a little bit disappointed, because no matter what happens in the future, I know that the protagonist of a Bethesda game is basically guaranteed to survive.

Well really, I think that's because the Protagonist dying makes no sense within universe. For a start, you've got Fawkes and the Ghoul who refuse to go in there because "It's your destiny", well gee, thanks guys and perhaps it is, but they've got no reason to not go in there if you refuse to do so. And also, /why/ is it my destiny to die to save us? Heck, I can send Paladin cross in there and she'll die if she does, but Fawks and Raoul just won't, despite their own preservation being at stake too, and the robot should just go in there because I say so.

Also, I should be able to survive if I stick a rad suit on; Colonel Autumn survived just by popping a load of Rad-X. They could still have the game end there, but they shouldn't provide us with the tools to survive and then just go "nope, sorry none of that stuff that would've worked prior to now works, get in the fucking death tank".

The scary thing is, this isn't just happening with games. Didn't the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy do this as well?

That's not the same as what Yahtzee is talking about.

LoTR was already a trilogy of books before the movie and it was only a trilogy because the original book was deemed too long. Both the book and the movie were retroactively split up as opposed to waiting on a greenlight for a sequel. The book because of what I just said, and they filmed all of the movie before breaking it up and selling it as a trilogy.

LoTR also isn't a very good example, there's no WAY you could sell LoTR as a single movie, it's a fucking massive story.

The Hobbit isn't the same thing either, because like LoTR, they had already filmed everything, /then/ split it up. That doesn't mean The Hobbit trilogy wasn't a massively shameful cashgrab though.

 

[Angry Knees]

"It makes about as much sense as, say, paying the full price for a game before it's even released with not even the slightest conception of its quality and value. Imagine if that became common practice. At that point we might as well all kill ourselves."

The irony of this being said at the same time that the amount of games starting on Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight/Early Access is rapidly expanding.

 

[Squilookle]

See this is why A New Hope remains the best standalone Star Wars film.

It remains the ONLY standalone film. The ONLY ONE that can stand on it's own two legs alone, and tell a fully self-contained story.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

As much as I love THQ's Space Marine, it ended anti climatically. The final boss, who is hyped up to be this all powerful Chaos Warlord, is defeated during a mothereffing quicktime sequence.

 

[chikusho]

I really disagree with the notion that all multiplayer games are anti-climactic.
On the contrary, multiplayer games have the potential for an infinite amount of highly rewarding experiences. Just because the mission you played didn't come with a "The End"-screen and a credits sequence doesn't mean that it didn't deliver something cathartic.

 

[snave]

Hate to say it, because the game was otherwise wonderful and I love it to bits apart from the abrupt ending, but The Banner Saga epitomises this problem. Nothing is resolved, a single battle erupts and at the end its over. A secondary villain is introduced just before said final battle. What makes it worse is that gameplay elements encourage the player to take a far-sighted strategy, going so far as to offer up fancy trinkets at high prices to the player right until the end as well as scenarios that have you weigh up risky instant gratification rewards (well, more to the point, things that might stop you from being completely screwed) against safer options. When the game neither foreshadows its ending, and just throws it out midway through the second act, it falls apart and trivialises these elements.

 

[UrinalDook]

Still doesn't sound as egregious as the game with the worst anticlimax, Halo 2. That game literally ends after a cinematic lead up to the last level, but then instead of of the last level we get credits. It's probably impossible to top that for gaming blue balls.

Never played any installment of Halo so I don't know for sure... but I'd argue it would be tough to top Shenmue I. Not only did you not even finish the story (I mean, at all), you had to buy a different console for the second game - which I just wasn't going to do.

The crap this game (1886) pulls at the end (no spoilers) is the epitome of what not to do. Don't open your story with an alarm, don't pull the it-was-all-a-dream move as examples - unless the purpose is to turn the cliché on its head and do something clever/unexpected. Nothing clever happens here though...

This is the ending of halo 2, watch and be annoyed.

Ehhhhh, in fairness to Halo 2 that's because it was literally unfinished. This wasn't some intentional weak sequel hook ending, Bungie failed to get the game finished before their deadline and were forced to cut a good third of the game's content. Supposedly, they did not initially plan for Halo 3, the whole business with the Ark (originally envisioned to be on Earth) and the end of the Covenant was meant to happen in 2.

Now that doesn't stop Halo 2 as the product we got from suffering a giant case of, as you said, gaming blue balls. But I can extend Bungie some sympathy for it, given the circumstances.

 

[nyysjan]

It's NOT mid-way budget cuts. In the last five years, games makers have been deliberately cutting back on the "big ending". Why? Both consoles and PCs now collect player telemetry. Mass Effect 2 was the first big one I saw on this, but everyone's doing it.

What did they find? Only 50% of the players finished the game. Why bother spending your budget on a big finish that only half your players will see?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/09/06/crazy-mass-effect-2-stats-and-what-theyre-used-for

Think back. 2010 was the turning point where the ending parts started getting less and less emphasis to the point where DA:I, for instance, didn't even bother with an ending dungeon, you just go and fight the boss and that's it. It's why Mass Effect 3's designers didn't give a shit about the ending. And it's not just Bioware, every other publisher is looking at the same stats. Heck, even DX:HR had a shitty ending sequence in what was otherwise a great game.

Do games not get good endings people don't play them through, or do people not play them through because the damn game endings suck?

I used to play every game i bought through, often several times if the game was good.
But these days it's harder to find a good game that makes me want to follow it to the end, instead of me getting bored with the whole thing halfway through.

Because while the game mechanics might be fun, the story does not grab me (Shadow of Mordor, Just Cause 2), or even if the story was interesting, the mechanics are just too tedious to keep me going (DA2).

Ofcourse, there's also the simple overflow of games, and people simply not having the time to play them all, so lot of us just get distracted by a new shiny thing before finishing the one was playing.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Well stated. You have also given me a new way to picture the Tarkin doctrine even after reading the 'official' one:

Tarkin: This is my Tarkin doctrine. Basically, I'm gonna make all these rebellious planets go 'splode with a big laser.
Palpatine: GENIUS! Give this man full funding! You will begin immediately!

Xenogears was another game afflicted with budget cuts, so much that the entire second disc had to be pared down to bare narration and boss battles until the final dungeon... but at least they actually finished the game (in fact there's quite the story for that too but I'm rambling here). And that game, despite this massive hole in its content, went on to become a cult favourite for many and later create its own series (that again was cut short but still managed to tie everything up in the end... seems to be the theme for the Xeno series). Would it have accomplished all this if there WAS no 2nd disc at all, and it just cut out to wait for the sequel that no one could be sure would come?

You don't need hanging threads to create sequel potential. It's a big world. Even if bad guy number one's entire army went kaput in the first game, there can always be others over the horizon waiting for their chance, most likely led by bad guy number one's boss, who is even worse. Haven't played, but the vampire thing sounds like the revelation of HYDRA- the good guys should take out or capture the current leader because he's the one giving them all the grief and we demand resolution, but the organization lives on to appear in TV shows and future movies under new avatars.

 

[Worgen]

Still doesn't sound as egregious as the game with the worst anticlimax, Halo 2. That game literally ends after a cinematic lead up to the last level, but then instead of of the last level we get credits. It's probably impossible to top that for gaming blue balls.

Never played any installment of Halo so I don't know for sure... but I'd argue it would be tough to top Shenmue I. Not only did you not even finish the story (I mean, at all), you had to buy a different console for the second game - which I just wasn't going to do.

The crap this game (1886) pulls at the end (no spoilers) is the epitome of what not to do. Don't open your story with an alarm, don't pull the it-was-all-a-dream move as examples - unless the purpose is to turn the cliché on its head and do something clever/unexpected. Nothing clever happens here though...

This is the ending of halo 2, watch and be annoyed.

Ehhhhh, in fairness to Halo 2 that's because it was literally unfinished. This wasn't some intentional weak sequel hook ending, Bungie failed to get the game finished before their deadline and were forced to cut a good third of the game's content. Supposedly, they did not initially plan for Halo 3, the whole business with the Ark (originally envisioned to be on Earth) and the end of the Covenant was meant to happen in 2.

Now that doesn't stop Halo 2 as the product we got from suffering a giant case of, as you said, gaming blue balls. But I can extend Bungie some sympathy for it, given the circumstances.

That doesn't really help, I mean even in halo 3 we never got the final level from halo 2. We just see the chief suddenly appear with the ship above earth then get shot out of it and then found by everyone who was at the ring world and somehow beat him to earth.

 

[Trasken]

Pretty sure lucian was NOT a vampire but rather a werewolf. As to why he was working with the vampires im guessing they're different types of the same thing: Half-breeds

 

[Lightknight]

I have to wonder if The Order was meant to be twice as long as it was but they couldn't finish it and decided to cut it back to a point they thought was OK.

 

[Yozozo]

Hrmm. Not every open ended sandbox game ends anti-climatically.

I just finished Saints Row IV, and part of the end was a super ethical reality climax.

/rimshot



I'm so sorry. I'll go now.

 

[Sampler]

Didn't the same happen with Jumper and I Am Number 4 - if movies haven't learnt this yet what hope is it for video game companies that seemingly do not look outside their own medium.

 

[Therumancer]

Spoilers (of a sort) Below:

I think the problem was kind of summarized with "Mass Effect 3" where Bioware revealed via a paid "behind the scenes" app which got a lot of attention, that despite promises they had no intention of answering all the questions, because to do so would hamper their ability to produce sequels given the desire for a franchise as opposed to keeping it to a trilogy as originally planned. It seems that increasingly a lot of the "writing" is dictated by marketers that want to keep as much open as possible rather than people who are actual writers, and the managers do not understand the distinction being talked about here between a self contained story that allows for a sequel, and resolving as little as possible, or being as ambigious or unsatisfying as possible when something IS resolved so as to keep people guessing.

I also think JJ Abrams and the old "Blair Witch Project" sort of poisoned the well, by showing that unanswered questions can propel interest, of course this tends to only work when there are answers to those questions as opposed to simply throwing out weirdness after weirdness. "Lost" tried to wrap itself up, but ultimately ignored a lot of what had been established even in it's finale because simply put, whether they admit it or not, it was pretty obvious they were making up a lot of stuff as it went along. "Blair Witch" became a franchise for a while, not just in terms of a movie sequel, but in video games and tie in novels, but it all ultimately suffered from the same basic problem that there was never intended to be any answers and there is only so long you can stretch out an increasing enigma before people catch on and cease to care.

To be honest I think "The Evil Within" did answer it's various questions, but did so by shooting itself in the foot by having an ending that used the laziest and least satisfying set of answers possible. Those who wanted a cool, supernatural, adventure game setting out to be the next "Silent Hill" were instead treated to a techno-horror finale right out of "The Cell" (which was not unique then), by which "it was all a VR construct" becomes an excuse to not have to justify anything, and the bad guy gets to escape through brain transfer technology and threaten us with a sequel nobody probably cared about at that point.

Of course at the same time it seems nobody wants to just flat out write a decent ending, everyone has to try and be artsy as well, and I think that ruins things as well, the idea being that if the heroes eventually win and everyone lives happily ever after, no matter how dark things might have been up until that point, it's not a "worthy" ending from writers who decide they want to try and be deep or profound, and delve into the darkness of the human psyche or whatever. In the end they tend to wind up producing a lot of pretentious garbage, and I think a lot of these hanging threads tend to be connected to that. On some levels "Mass Effect 3" epitomizes it, we had a pretty straightforward space opera about a hero who wins no matter how long the odds are, a series that should have been among the easiest thing in the world to end, instead they decided to give it a trippy hallucinogenic ending that rambles about artificial and organic intelligences and their inherent conflict, totally overlooking that this was never more than a side plot, and one which players of the entire series probably already resolved peacefully, making the entire "message" of the ending kind of irrelevant since flesh and metal got over it.

 

[balladbird]

See, this is one way japanese devs have always had a superior approach compared to western devs. Western developed games have always favored having their sequels directly connected, since the dawn of story in gaming, but these days it's something even stronger, like they seem to be trying to emulate movies. In particular, things like the book series adaptions and marvel cinematic universe, where every entry is interconnected and filled with teasers of what's to come.

Scoff at JRPGs all you like, lord knows it's been popular for a decade now, but if there's one thing they do right, it's making each individual game in a series stand alone. Overarching lore, easter eggs, and a recognizable aesthetic/game design link the series' titles together, but no prior knowledge is needed to enter a later game, and each game's story reaches as close to a satisfactory conclusion as the people telling it are capable of providing.

It just seems to me that this method is the best way to handle video game franchises, especially now, when games are so expensive to develop that underwhelming sales can murder a franchise before it begins, leaving a story forever unfinished if you sequel bait.

 

[aragond]

Though not wanting to be guilty of undermining your point, which I agree suggests a lack of good writing sought vidya makers, Yahtzee, I have for you just four short words: The Empire Strikes Back.

No neat conclusion, just the rebels escaping by the skin of their teeth. Indeed, regarded the best of the six Star Wars films by a substantial minority. (If not a majority. At least until JJ saves the day in December.)

Despite being left largely open for a sequel, TESB made for a gripping story, nevertheless. Is this what those vidya-makers had in mind? (I agree that it is doubtful, but in what way did they fail to achieve that same gripping conclusion?)