Nothing lasts forever. Seemingly endless arcade classics either reach an impassable kill screen, or tire the player out until they stop playing. But that’s why more story-driven titles like to try and tie things up at the end, even if they’re as simple as “Mario and/or Luigi saves the Princess”.
But it’s better to tell a simple story with a satisfying payoff than to tell a complex one that goes nowhere. It’s all too easy for one fault or another to upset things, causing things to end ham-handedly, get cut out and used for the sequel, or simply stop in place. These games either didn’t foreshadow their conclusions or hadendings that came out of nowhere. Given the topic, there will be spoilers, so watch out.
Unlike the other entries on this list,Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walkerdoes technically come to a solid conclusion. The titular mech is shut down, the nuclear threat is avoided, and Big Boss accepts being Big Boss. All that’s left are the Extra Ops, like those missions where KGB spy Zadornov keeps disappearing. But if players recapture him for the last time, they learn he’s escaped again, and this time without a single clue.
They have to go through the Extra Ops themselves to find him, and when they do, they discover another plot twist,a new Metal Gear to fight, and a new ending to see. Nowadays, the route to getting it is pretty well detailed (and criticized). But at the time, it was so hidden that most players never bothered tracking it down. Which must’ve madeGround Zeroesa confusing experience as it takes place directly after this extra ending.
On the face of it,Like A Dragon: Ishin’s ending ties things up nicely as Ryōma and his foster brother Hanpeita have their last duel, then hash things out as the sun rises. The morally gray villain gets reformed without needing to be at death’s door, and peace is restored. But this wasn’t enough for RGG Studio, as they’d reveal Hanpeita was controlled by someone else all this time: Yodo Yamauchi.
Yodo was barely mentioned a single time before his endgame appearance, if at all, and cackles his evil plan like a baddy in a pantomime. The game uses him simply as a tool (in every sense of the word) to give Ryōma someone morally horrible enough to kill off-screen during the credits. Yodo wasn’t the first obviously-evil surprise villain in the series, but he is the worst example of the trope in theLADgames.
God of War: Ragnarokis a great game, yet it has its bugbears. Many felt its ending was rather rushed, with the player barely getting enough time with its new characters, like Freyr and Surtr. It led some to thinkRagnarokshould’ve been split into two games to balance the story out better. But this hypothetical second Norse game might’ve endedup repeating history and ending suddenly likeGod of War 2did.
The second entry in the Greek saga is considered one of the best games in the series, if not THE best. Kratos fought Zeus,accidentally killed Athena, and brought the Titans back for a full-frontal assault on Olympus, where it promptly ended. Like a bubble, the stakes got bigger and bigger until they just popped. Players had to wait 3 years untilGod of War 3to see how Kratos and the Titans' charge turned out.
Xbox owners didn’t haveGod of War, butHalo 2made sure they had their own sudden cliffhanger to deal with. When Tartarus’ plan to activate the Delta Halo is cut short by the Arbiter and Sergeant Johnson, it ends up putting it and several other rings on standby for remote activation from a place called ‘The Ark’. Master Chief gets in touch with Admiral Hood and announces he’s going to “finish this fight”. Then the game cuts to black and ends.
It turned out Bungie tried to do too much in too short a timeframe. With time pressing, they had to cut out a lot of stuff to get the game out on time. This included theiroriginal plan forHalo 2’s ending, where Master Chief and the Arbiter would’ve fought the Prophet of Truth on the Ark on Earth. Instead, Bungie had to form a new conclusion that essentially put things on ice untilHalo 3could finish the story.
What’s worse than a cliffhanger ending? A cliffhanger ending that’ll never be followed up on. Silicon Knights spent the best part of a decade trying to makeToo Human, an action RPG that combined Norse mythology with sci-fi tropes. UnlikeHalo, it was intended to be the first of a trilogy, which shows in its story as Baldur’s quest to avenge his wife’s death goes horribly wrong.
He succeeds in getting his revenge, and as a result, Helheim is destroyed, the undead are roaming the Earth, Loki is free to lead his rebellion, and the Aesir are now weaker than before and have lost the trust of humanity. Baldur would’ve helped fix this in the sequels, but the game’s shady development andsubsequent legal issuesshelved their plans way before SK’s bankruptcy made it final.
At leastBorderlandsreceived plenty of sequels, spin-offs, and even a ‘Pre-Sequel’. The original game was a colorful breath of fresh air in an era when most games were dominated by beige earth tones and grim, serious heroes. However, that didn’t stop its abrupt ending leaving a foul smell, as Steele opens the Vault and reveals the Destroyer, a giant tentacle monster that was shut off by the Eridians to keep the universe safe.
The player has to send the giant beast back to hell in a rather tricky boss fight. Then, once the Destroyer is finally destroyed, the Guardian Angel congratulates the player via satellite, and…that’s it. Claptrap becomes ‘Cl4p-Tp’ the ‘Interplanetary Ninja Assassin’ to tie into some DLC, but beyond that, there’s nothing left to do but collect the leftover loot. It’s not so much an ending as a stop-off point.
RAGEwas hyped as the next big thing in shooter games, with new graphics tech bringing a new, massive world to life. Instead, it was a rather linear shooter set in a very gray world. For an ordinary FPS, it was a fine, gun-toting time. As a supposed groundbreaker, it fell short of the mark. Especially when it comes to its story and sudden ending.
The final act sees Lt Raine reach the center of the Authority’s HQ to activate Earth’s Arks. The idea was that it would form an army large enough to overcome them. In practice, the player strafes around a console to get a scene of some buildings rising from the Earth and opening their doors to reveal the end credits. For such a big buildup,RAGE’s climax is a textbook example of just ending on a weak note.
Unlike most RPGs,SaGa Frontierhas multiple endings for its multiple character campaigns, depending on which choices the player makes (e.g. go full mystic with Asellus, or stay human, etc). It seems straightforward enough, and it is, except for when they’re trying to get Blue’s endings. His quest depends on his fight against his brother, Rouge, where the player has to beat him seven times, or lose to him seven times.
Either way, Blue and his party would end up in the underworld to fight Hell’s Lord in order to seal the place off. Then, midway through the battle, the game fades to sepia and says “The End”. Squaresoft couldn’t give him an ending in time, so they explained what happened to him, his party, and Rouge in a tie-in book. Shame it wasn’t released outside Japan. Nor was it adapted intothe game’s Remastered edition, leaving Blue’s story as inconclusive now as it was in the 1990s.
