One of the hardest things to do, it seems, is figuring out how to end a video game. A game can have one of the best stories out there, even compared to movies, but if it goes bad in the final act, it can alienate fans. Some of the following games have divisive endings that may have done just that, but no one can deny how shocked they were when they originally finished these games.
10 Games That Best Represented “The End”
Trends have come and gone in the gaming world, and these titles were the last to turn off the light.
Some examples include something recent, like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33something a little older, like Spec Ops: The Line. These games and more will be ranked based on shock value and how they ultimately fit into the story.
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10
Double dragon
Brother Drama
Double dragon is one of the most classic arcade and NES games of the 80s. There are differences between the two versions beyond just the graphics and gameplay, but for this post, it's the ending that's the most shocking.
In the arcade version, players can play co-op as brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee, but in the NES version, it's single-player with Jimmy hiding in the background while Billy is the lone protagonist. That is, until the end, when it's revealed that Jimmy was behind it all, which significantly changed the entire game, which was later changed in the story going forward. At the time, this was a huge shock, especially to players who committed to both versions.
9
Resident Evil Village
The love of a father
Resident Evil Village starts off on a wild level with protagonist Ethan Winters getting raided by Chris Redfield's team. They shoot his wife Mia dead and then kidnap his daughter Rose. Somehow Chris loses her, leading the villains to dissect Rose and put her in jars, which is the main mission of the game: collect and reassemble Rose.
In the final battle, the main antagonist, Mother Miranda, steals Ethan's heart, but because he is part of the mold network, the Megamyceten, he is able to hold on long enough to save Rose. Ethan dies, and then things flash forward to Rose as an adult, with the timeline still a bit unclear, but either way, the main character dying in a game is always shocking.
8
BioShock Infinite
The circle CAN be broken
BioShock Infinite is about a detective, Booker DeWitt, who is hired by a mysterious protector to retrieve his daughter from a floating utopia called Columbia. When he meets her, Elizabeth, the two go on quite an adventure, which eventually leads to the big twist.
The villain and head of Columbia, Zachary Hale Comstock, is actually an alternate version of Booker and Elizabeth, who is actually another version of Booker's daughter that he lost to time. To stop the many versions of Elizabeth from dealing with pain time and time again, and to prevent Comstock from being born, Booker must drown himself, and that's a pretty melancholic way to end a video game.
7
The Legend of Zelda: Tears Of the Kingdom
Zelda is more than a damsel in distress
In most of them Zelda game, the titular Zelda is a damsel in distress. If there's a game where she does anything, it's usually minimal compared to what Link accomplishes, hence the ending The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is so shocking. Throughout the game, players can see a white dragon flying around in the sky. Eventually, they will learn that the Master Sword has been sealed inside this dragon, but that's not all.
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This dragon is Zelda. Through magic, Zelda goes back in time, and the only way she sees fit to help Link in the future is by guarding the Master Sword, and the only way that can happen is to turn into a dragon, which then leads to an epic boss battle between players riding Zelda as a dragon and fighting Ganondorf's dragon form. That's how the finale actually goes down, and thankfully Zelda is restored after Link saves her post-transformation. It might just be the wildest thing ever to happen in one Zelda game, and it really is the weirdest thing ever done to Zelda as a character.
6
Shadow Of The Colossus (2018)
The mark of sacrifice
Apt players could probably see some kind of twist coming in Shadow of the Colossus a mile away. The hero, Wander, is told by disembodied voices to kill the Colossi, and every time he does, he passes out after absorbing dark energy. After the last colossus is killed, Wander begins to transform into a god-like being, Dormin, which is thankfully stopped in an emergency.
After the spell is broken and Dormin is resealed, Wander appears to have been reborn as a baby that his supposed partner, Mono, must now care for. Whatever their relationship is doesn't matter because the very idea of turning the hero into a child is probably more upsetting than a noble death.
5
The last of us part 2
All that and for what?
The last of us part 2 begins with a shocker: Joel dies at the hands of a new character named Abby. Abby later becomes a playable character as time goes back to see the parallel journey to Ellie. After Ellie and Abby reunite to fight, the game resumes with Ellie, who has one more mission.
Here she finds Abby gutted by harsh weather conditions and torture, and yet after rescuing her the two fight again anyway. In this fight, Ellie loses fingers so she can no longer play the guitar, she loses Dina and their baby going home, and she doesn't even get revenge on Abby, leading to just an emotional bombshell at the end, leaving players asking, “What the hell was the point?”
4
Spec Ops: The Line
Hearing voices
Spec Ops: The Line is thankfully a short team-based shooter because it's one of those games that needs to be played twice to fully appreciate it. That's because the hero, Captain Walker, is an unreliable narrator. All the while, players assume he is hearing the voice of the antagonist, Colonel Konrad, who is driving his squad to try and stop him.
In reality, it was all in Walker's head, and the atrocities that players see in the campaign were due to his reckless actions, such as the area of white phosphors. After years of war, Walker finally cracked and created an alternate reality to cope, and in retrospect, the things his team tells him make more sense.
3
Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Whispers Of The Fandom
Final Fantasy 7 Remake reimagines many events from the original Final Fantasy 7like adding ghost-like entities called Whispers, so overall it's a surprising game. In the original game, the Midgar section ends with Cloud and company fleeing the city in a daring motorcycle chase scene, fighting a robot boss, and then the game continues. IN Final Fantasy 7 Remakeafter being beaten on the highway, the party comes to a crossroads where Whispers herds them toward another interdimensional gateway.
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It is here that the party must encounter manifestations of Sephiroth, although it doesn't happen until much later in the original game, but not even in this way. Even more curious is the fact that some of these forms resemble later characters from the film's sequels, Final Fantasy 7: Advent Childrenespecially Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo. This begins the thought that Final Fantasy 7 Remake is within the magnificent Final Fantasy 7 universe, and it's not part one of a remake. Instead, it is part one of a sequel trilogy.
False identity
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is ultimately about Venom Snake, the supposed new code name for Big Boss, hunting down an organization that wants to blow up the world via their leader, Skull Face. After the day is saved, Venom Snake has the ultimate bomb released via a recording given to him. He's not the big boss after all. He's a random soldier that the real Bog Boss helped brainwash into having a dual body and soul.
This is connected with Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, as there is a decoy Big Boss in the first game as well. Had Hideo Kojima not left Konami, it is easy to see a reality where he would have continued the series by remaking Metal Gear to fit in better Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.
1
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
A perfectly beautiful painting and nothing more
IN Clair Obscur: Expedition 33the titular expedition is on the hunt for an evil witch who wants to kill the entire population, one age group at a time, and the party soon learns that their world is just a make-believe. A painted dream that one of the party members, Maelle, is a part of because she is actually from the real world in Paris.
Flash forward a bit, the true villain of the game is eventually captured, Maelle's father, and players must decide if they want to side with Maelle and let the painted world live, or if the painted world can be destroyed with Verso. While there is no canonical ending, siding with Maelle is a bit of a bad thing, so joining Verso will see all the characters that players had come to love during the game disappear forever, making the journey almost pointless, but it's also a quiet way to go.
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