One of the toughest things to do, seemingly, is figuring out how to end a video game. A game can have one of the best stories around, even compared to movies, but if things go badly 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 upon originally finishing up these games.
10 Games That Best Represented “The End”
Trends have come and gone in the world of gaming, and these titles were the last ones to shut the lights.
Some examples include something recent, like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, something a bit older, like Spec Ops: The Line. Those games and more will be ranked based on shock value and how they ultimately fit into the narrative.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
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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 besides just the graphics and gameplay, but for the purposes of this entry, it’s the ending that is most shocking.
In the arcade version, players can play co-op as brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee, but in the NES version, it is single-player with Jimmy hiding out in the background while Billy is the lone protagonist. That is, until the end, when it is revealed that Jimmy was behind the whole thing, significantly retconning the whole game, which was later changed in the lore going forward. At the time, this was a huge shocker, especially for players who engaged with both versions.
9
Resident Evil Village
The Love Of A Father
Resident Evil Village starts 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 to the villains dissecting Rose and putting her in jars, which is the main quest in the game: collecting and reassembling Rose.
In the final battle, the main antagonist, Mother Miranda, steals Ethan’s heart, but because he is part of the mold network, the Megamycete, he can keep going long enough to save Rose. Ethan dies, and then things flash forward to Rose as an adult, with the timeline still being 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 patron to get his daughter back from a floating utopia called Columbia. When he meets her, Elizabeth, the two go on quite the adventure, eventually leading 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 he lost to time. To stop Elizabeth’s many versions from dealing with pain time and time again and to stop Comstock from being born, Booker has to drown himself, and it’s quite a melancholy 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 Zelda games, the titular Zelda is a damsel in distress. If there is a game where she does something, it is usually minimal compared to what Link accomplishes, which is why the ending of 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 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 fight 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 to ever happen in a Zelda game, and it’s certainly the weirdest thing ever done to Zelda as a character.
6
Shadow Of The Colossus (2018)
The Sacrificial Mark
Apt players could probably see some sort of twist coming in Shadow of the Colossus a mile away. The hero, Wander, is told by disembodied voices to kill Colossi, and each time he does, he passes out after absorbing dark energy. After the last Colossus is killed, Wander starts to turn into a godlike entity, Dormin, which is thankfully stopped in the nick of time.
After the spell is broken and Dormin is resealed, Wander appears to have been reborn as a baby that his presumed parter, Mono, must now take care of. Whatever their relation is doesn’t matter as the very idea of reverting 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 starts with a shocker: Joel dying at the hands of a new character named Abby. Abby later becomes a playable character once time rewinds to see the parallel journey to Ellie. After Ellie and Abby reunite to fight it out, the game continues once again with Ellie, who has one more mission.
Here, she finds Abby eviscerated by harsh weather conditions and torture, and yet after rescuing her, the two fight once again anyway. In this fight, Ellie loses fingers so she can no longer play guitar, she loses Dina and their baby once she goes home, and she doesn’t even get revenge on Abby, leading to just an emotional bomb at the end, prompting players to ask, “What the heck was the point?”
4
Spec Ops: The Line
Hearing Voices
Spec Ops: The Line is thankfully a short squad-based shooter because it’s one of those games that needs to be played twice to fully appreciate. That’s because the hero, Captain Walker, is an unreliable narrator. The whole time, players assume he is hearing the voice of the antagonist, Colonel Konrad, which is pushing his squad forward to try and stop him.
In reality, it was all in Walker’s head, and the atrocities that players see in the campaign were because of his unhinged actions, like the white phosphorus area. After years of war, Walker finally snapped and created a different reality to cope, and in retrospect, the things his squad says to him make more sense.
3
Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Whispers Of The Fandom
Final Fantasy 7 Remake reimagines a lot of events from the original Final Fantasy 7, like adding ghost-like entities called Whispers, so overall it is a surprising game. In the original game, the Midgar section ends with Cloud and the party escaping the city in a daring motorcycle chase scene, fighting a robot boss, and then the game continues. In Final Fantasy 7 Remake, after fighting on the highway, the party will come to a crossroads where the Whispers are herding them toward another inter-dimensional gateway.
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It’s here that the party has to face manifestations of Sephiroth, even though that doesn’t happen until much later in the original game, but not even in this way. Even stranger is the fact that some of these forms resemble later characters from the film sequel, Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children, specifically Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo. This begins the idea that Final Fantasy 7 Remake exists within the grander Final Fantasy 7 universe, and it isn’t part one in a remake movement. Instead, it’s part one in a sequel trilogy.
Mistaken Identity
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is ultimately about Venom Snake, the supposed new codename of Big Boss, chasing after an organization that wants to blow up the world via their leader, Skull Face. After the day is saved, Venom Snake gets the ultimate bomb dropped via a recording given to him. He is not the Big Boss after all. He’s a random soldier the real Bog Boss helped brainwash to have a body and mind double.
This does tie in to Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, since there is a decoy Big Boss in the first game, too. Had Hideo Kojima not left Konami, it’s easy to see a reality where he would have continued the series by remaking Metal Gear to better fit into Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.
1
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
A Perfect Pretty Painting And Nothing More
In Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the titular expedition is on a hunt for an evil witch hellbent on killing the entire population, one age group at a time, and the party soon finds out that their world is just a figment. A painted dream that one of the party members, Maelle, is a part of since she’s actually from the real world of Paris.
Flashing forward a bit, the true villain of the game is eventually conquered, Maelle’s father, and players have to 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 evil, so going with Verso will see every character players had come to love during the game vanish forever, thus rendering the journey almost pointless, but it’s also a peaceful way to go.
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