When Endings Go Bad
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
I guess people just like to enjoy seeing the happy ending come from the fruits of their effort. Then you have games like Left 4 Dead where they don't really tell you if the rescue took, based on the first three campaigns it's safe to say it didn't. I've never really played a game that had a really bad ending so it's hard to judge.
Well, it would kind of piss gamers off after all the hard work, i mean, what if Dead Space ended in Isaac being killed by the giant monster?
Yea, i know that it's supposed to seem like a downer what with his girlfriend attacking him as a necromorph and all that, but the developer said he didn't die, so i count it as a happy ending
I love both bad and happy endings, they just need to be done properly. Games where you get killed as an ending don't really do it for me. I mean, games like Silent Hill 2 did the endings well, if the ending is bad, I want to see the protaganist emotionally crushed and broken.
If it's happy, I want there to be a none-cheese happiness. Let me think...
Me no know...
KH's ending was a weird one, it made me cry, but not because I was sad or happy, I'm not sure what it was...oh man...
If it's happy, I want there to be a none-cheese happiness. Let me think...
Me no know...
KH's ending was a weird one, it made me cry, but not because I was sad or happy, I'm not sure what it was...oh man...
"Kairi! I'll come back for you...I promise!"
"I know you will!"
*Hands separate, cue ending music. Tears appear*
"I know you will!"
*Hands separate, cue ending music. Tears appear*
I dont know I guess working at something for 10 hours to finally destroy the evil demon and rescue your princess only to have a small rock that fell off the castle hit you in the head make you lose your balance and then hurtle 100 feet into fiery molten lava might be a downer.
In the since of something not being a hilarious joke I really wouldnt mind if something ended badly. Hell I have played plenty of games with unhappy endings. Not necessarily "unhappy" in the sense that you didnt win but the sense that your screwed. Sure the giant monster thing is dead and all the peoples are happy but what if he said something or did something that changed you or your character forever. MGS2 did that for me the ending was such a downer I mean sure we "won" but really no one truly succeeded. No one is happy they didnt go out and have a beer and dance on their enemies corpses. They woke up the next morning and continued their hellish struggle.
So really it all depends on the context that you look at. Fable one had an equally bad ending everyone is dead except you. Congratulations you survived I hope you can look at your digital wife the same way. I guess if you were evil then that wouldnt matter. But even if you were evil your still alone there really arent any more heroes out there that could relate to you. I guess you could go home to your wife who you ignored since you married her early on and has left you. So you are alone sitting in an empty house with nobody at all. The end you won the fight but did you really get anything out of it except for the ability to kill people?
So to finish what started out as something short and stupid and turned into a wall of text most games have a feel good ending but there are a lot of games with a "good" ending but if you sit down and really try to get into your characters mind is there really a good ending for them or just all the people you fought for?
In the since of something not being a hilarious joke I really wouldnt mind if something ended badly. Hell I have played plenty of games with unhappy endings. Not necessarily "unhappy" in the sense that you didnt win but the sense that your screwed. Sure the giant monster thing is dead and all the peoples are happy but what if he said something or did something that changed you or your character forever. MGS2 did that for me the ending was such a downer I mean sure we "won" but really no one truly succeeded. No one is happy they didnt go out and have a beer and dance on their enemies corpses. They woke up the next morning and continued their hellish struggle.
So really it all depends on the context that you look at. Fable one had an equally bad ending everyone is dead except you. Congratulations you survived I hope you can look at your digital wife the same way. I guess if you were evil then that wouldnt matter. But even if you were evil your still alone there really arent any more heroes out there that could relate to you. I guess you could go home to your wife who you ignored since you married her early on and has left you. So you are alone sitting in an empty house with nobody at all. The end you won the fight but did you really get anything out of it except for the ability to kill people?
So to finish what started out as something short and stupid and turned into a wall of text most games have a feel good ending but there are a lot of games with a "good" ending but if you sit down and really try to get into your characters mind is there really a good ending for them or just all the people you fought for?
Wing Commander,
The one where you valiantly stay behind as the rear guard to defeat all the enemy fighters. The mission ends with you all by yourself, alone, abandoned, because you don't have hyper, only the carrier did, and you fought the fighters to give it time to escape...
Silent Hill 2 has several classic soul crushing endings, in fact I don't think there's a single ending that isn't a bit of a downer... okay... except for the "Dog" ending I guess.
Similarly Shadow Hearts 1/2 and 3 all have Downer Endings that are quite satisfying.
Similarly Shadow Hearts 1/2 and 3 all have Downer Endings that are quite satisfying.
That's interesting, I would've thought it'd be the other way around. Where the small indie guys have to follow the status quo as nobody would buy their stuff otherwise, but the big guys could make what ever they wanted and people would buy it just 'cause they've put their name on it. Kinda like if you slapped a Calvin Klein logo on a bag of shit people would still probably buy it.
I'd love to see more Tragedy's in gaming but I shudder to think of the massive fail a large developer would bring to any really good tragic story. I think the bottom line is that large companies are designed around mass market and not the long tail. Tragedies are very very long tail these days.
The heroic ending of Freespace 2 springs to mind here so does the real downer ending of Divinity 2: Ego Draconis (Spoiler).
Long story turned short, the whole time you believe you're doing the right thing. Only to find out you're an idiot and helping the enemy. Oh and there is no choice. You can't choose not to do the "right" thing
I'm sure people wouldn't care about the ending of games from the Call Of Duty series. They can end them however they want.
I liked the ending to the Witcher because it managed to be both happy and sad. You beat the end 'boss' hurray! But then you wonder not only if you backed the right side, but also if maybe in the long run you lost.