Every game has an ending. Some are great, some are bad and some leave us wanting more. An ending can be as important in a video game as the rest of the story itself.
FYI, we’re talking about game endings here, so expect spoilers!
Here are eight games with some of the best endings of all time.
The Last of Us
Throughout the game, you’re paired with a young girl as you traverse the world devoid of anything left that’s good. You and your companion are constantly faced with challenges that make you skim the gray area of morality.
The game itself plays on your emotions and the ending is no different. One cannot be human and not feel just a little sad at the end of The Last of Us.
Mass Effect 2
As with any Bioware title, Mass Effect 2 doesn’t have a specific ending, but one of a few based on your choices throughout the game. Still, each ending requires you to run a gauntlet and make important choices that have a major effect on the rest of your team and if they’ll survive. You want to send your favorite characters, but sometimes you know it leads to their death. You have to make that choice that any leader must make and decide what’s best for the mission above companionship.
Final Fantasy X
For the most part, the game’s storyline revolves around the main character’s romance. However, when the ending reveals that Tidus is a summoning of Spira’s Fayth and not, as we would call, corporeal, it’s more than a little heart-wrenching, as the two are forced to say goodbye.
Portal
You’ve made it. You finished every puzzle and defeated GlaDOS. What’s your reward? Cake? Gold? That sense of accomplishment? Nah! GlaDOS sings you a song!
Red Dead Redemption
John tries throughout the game to reunite with his family, especially his son. In the end, he sacrifices himself to save the rest of his family. Try as you might, Jack eventually becomes an outlaw and hunts down the villain that took the lives of his family. The showdown is one of great satisfaction.
Bastion
In Bastion you have a choice to save or abandon Zulf who had just suffered a beating by his Ura.
Should the player choose to rescue Zulf, The Kid drops the Battering Ram, retrieves Zulf and moves through the host of Ura soldiers all the while taking whatever beating you are given without a chance to fight back. It is only after you are a hair from death that they stop out of a sign of respect. An Ura Crossbowman shoots at you anyway and is immediately struck down by an Ura General. While Zulf is seriously injured, he survives and you will see him in both endings.
If you decide to abandon Zulf in the Terminals, the implication is that he died from his wounds. He does not appear during the Evacuation credits but still appears in the Restoration credits.
Half-Life 2: Episode 2
The thing that sucks about this ending is its a cliffhanger into a potential Half-Life 3. Of course, at this rate we I’m not even going to bother worrying if it will ever see the light of day or not.
The Half-life games had an incredible story of a nerd being the hero instead of some jacked up soldier and just an all-around fun FPS. So it appealed to quite a number of nerdlings such as myself. They ran the ending to the point of creating a cliffhanger, which does nothing but gets people frothing at the mouth for more… which never arrived.
It’s still a great ending and worth a watch, though.
Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite‘s ending is one of sadness. Throughout the game you venture through the city of Columbia with the young lady, Elizabeth. She appears to be an innocent young woman who sees everything for the first time after being locked away for most of her life. The ending shows she’s not simply a young lady, but your daughter, one of many through parallel worlds. In the end, you find out you weren’t defeating a villain, but yourself and Elizabeth is the one that finally stops you.
Buty it’s not all sorrow, when you awaken again you’re reunited in a world before you give your baby to Comstock.
