Remember the good old days? When game endings were good?

[Brian]

I've noticed a marked trend that seems -- unfortunately -- to be on the upswing ever since the mistake that was Mass Effect 3.  And that trend is quite simply, bad endings.

Bad endings can be an ending that's vague, or hard to really get a definitive meaning out of.  They can also be, "Everything you did was moot," or otherwise leave you fulfilled.

In the good old days, endings were straightforward, unpretentious, and generally positive, outside of potential sequel hooks.  But these days, endings keep getting more 'artsy' or 'vague'.  Seriously, how hard is, "And the hero earned his happy ever after!"?  Why do we need, "And you never really know for sure if your character succeeded or just went crazy."

I've beaten two games in two days, and one of them was Remember Me -- the ending clearly meant to be uplifting, but was shot down by the horror that is the main plot, and the other was Mark of the Ninja.  Great game, but the ending isn't a reward, just a thing that happens.

Gettin' real tired of this BS, game industry.

Real tired.

[thepanda]

What 'good old days'? Crap endings have been a staple of video games since someone thought replacing high scores with CONGRATULATIONS! was a brilliant idea. Its just now you don't really get done-in-one-sitting games as often, so the time you invest makes the crappy ending feel crappier.

[Brian]

I mean pretty much any NES game ending, actually.  This isn't nostalgia goggles, this is, "Endings that don't make you feel good are becoming more common."

"Congratulations!" would be a damn sight better than some actual endings we're getting these days.

[thepanda]

... And now I'm imagining Mass Effect with one of those endings. A smiling, 8-bit Shepard holding their love interest with CONGRATULATIONS! YOU BEAT THE REAPERS! in multicolored text hanging above them.

[KLSymph]

The frequency of those kinds of endings is on a pendulum. Like dark versus classic heroes as protagonists, sooner or later people will get tired of all the dark or vague endings and writers will start making classic happy endings.  Some time after that, people will get tired of all the cheesy happy endings that tie up everything super-neatly, and writers will swing back toward dark/vague endings. On and on it goes as audience preferences change, good writers try to keep up with them, and hack writers try to follow the leader.

[Dracos]

... And now I'm imagining Mass Effect with one of those endings. A smiling, 8-bit Shepard holding their love interest with CONGRATULATIONS! YOU BEAT THE REAPERS! in multicolored text hanging above them.

I'd take it.

[Phlogiston Man]

I agree with KLSymphs explanation of the more recent trend, but in the long term I think some of the cause is the change from games being challenges to be beaten, to stories to be experienced. In the "good old days," endings were rewards for beating the game, while now they're more like the ending of a book or a movie.

[Brian]

I can't buy into that, though; the 'pendulum' hasn't finished a full swing.  It's a bit too early to call it a clear pattern.

[Dracos]

Everyone dies endings are Easy-mode Anno?

[KLSymph]

I can't buy into that, though; the 'pendulum' hasn't finished a full swing.  It's a bit too early to call it a clear pattern.

It's a pattern with more established fiction, or so I've heard.  Video games are still relatively new as a storytelling medium and the technology hasn't settled, so you're probably right.

Good, satisfying endings are rare among games I've played.  I liked FF9's ending and Dead Space 2's ending.  Demons's Souls and Dark Souls had very minimal stories so their "endings" were pretty threadbare, but they're appropriate so I give them a pass.  The Thief games, System Shock 2, and the InFamous games are very sequel-hook based, which I'm not fond of.  Deus Ex, Deus Ex: Human Revolutions, and DMC Devil May Cry had endings that seemed like they were going for something profound and got an entire "...well, okay then" out of me.  Assassin's Creed 3's ending is an abomination, and also a sequel hook.

Yeah, it's mostly bwuh endings.

[Rezantis]

To be fair, there have been some very well done 'And you never really know for sure if your character succeeded or just went crazy' endings - Dreamweb springs to mind.

Of course, Deadlight springs to mind as a game where the writer needs to be dragged outside and shot.

[Iron Dragoon]

The Spec Ops: The Line endings were all pretty good. (I can't recommend that game enough.)

[Dracos]

To be fair, there have been some very well done 'And you never really know for sure if your character succeeded or just went crazy' endings - Dreamweb springs to mind.

Of course, Deadlight springs to mind as a game where the writer needs to be dragged outside and shot.

It's a difficult angle to pitch.  There's many very complicated story endings that one can point at a single case of it being done well, but I don't think that by and large forgives the general push of games toward difficult to delivery storyline conclusions that are generally miserable on the success case, and bleh on the failure case.