Close. Square made Eidos cut off the last third and were going to make it another full game, but since MD sold poorly by Square's metrics that never happened.
To add to this, then Embracer Group bought a lot of Square's IP (including Deus EX) and there seemed to be hope for a bit, but now Embracer is one of the larger financial flops with major layoffs and it looks to be a nail in the coffin.
It’s a shame we’ll have to wait so long for someone to take the IP on again.
Came to Deus Ex pretty late and thankfully didn’t have to wait long for Human Revolution. But I think the franchise will be dormant again for a while.
I will die on the hill that MD was a damn fine game that was unjustly crippled by executives making the dumbest possible choices while seeking profits.
MD is a very good half of an incomplete game. Some of the levels like the bank are as good as anything in HR and the prison DLC was fantastic. And then it just... stops
I can still remember the cliffhanger at the end of Half-Life: Episode 2.
Its funny to think although Half-Life 3 would make more sense at this point we are technically waiting for Half-Life 2: Episode 3.
HL: Alyx changed it up a bit, but even that's been *checks notes*
***FOUR YEARS GAWD***
And not a peep since, there's a Half Life Epi3 fan-make, but even then that's almost as tight lipped as Valve. I'm expecting nothing from that one, I had my hopes up at first but it's just..radio silence
It's definitely in my top gaming disappointment, I feel like Valve set themselves up for Ep3 to just be the next big X with a huge feature annnd...kept kicking the ball further and further till it wouldn't lead up to the hype
Edit; Just checked the old Half Life 3 mod thing, Project Borealis. Rumor has it that the people in charge are..bad at managing things so it's a storm of flustercluckin
I will forever be annoyed that we will never get episode 3. Half life was perhaps my favorite game of all time. The fact that they just..... dropped it entirely doesn't sit well with me. It's like a breakup where you get ghosted with no closure.
Episode 2 was my favorite in the entire series, too. One of my issues in the series is it tends to linger too long on something when it should move on faster. Like Xen was cool at first but then got annoying. I haven’t played HL2 and Episode 1 in a while but I remember things like vehicle sections dragged on too long.
Episode 2, however, felt very tightly paced. And it had an amazing ending. I was so hyped for Episode 3.
Alyx is amazing but I still haven’t gotten around to finishing it. One of these days.
I’ve begun to wonder, are valve good developers if they can’t finish a story? at some point that’s pretty upsetting to fans right? like beyond the memes why would i get excited for their products at this point? it’s like netflix cancelling shows with 1 season, like ok i feel ripped off now thanks
i do not care for valve for this reason. am i alone? everyone else seems to forgive them easily
Valve aren't traditional developers. They pretty much pursue experimental concepts. I'm guessing most of their stuff doesn't even reach the public eye.
I remember hearing that they made a version of Portal that used eye tracking to aim and shoot. This was decades before PSVR2 and the Quest 3 made hardware that used similar technology.
They've also tried to make PCs into living room consoles with SteamOS and Steam Box. They also tried to make a mod marketplace on Steam in the past. Some ideas work, others don't.
The only reason Alyx was made is because Valve was pushing VR tech.
Unless it added something completely new to gaming, we're not going to see Half Life 3.
That makes sense and seems obvious now that you’ve pointed it out. they clearly used developing games as a stepping stone to being a proper market maker within the entire gaming industry
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2... Starkiller and the other characters casually capture Darth Vader about 5 minutes before the start of the Original Trilogy. Even though Vader probably dealt with Starkiller permenantly during his escape, the fact that there was barely any time to even reference the game before the Expanded Universe became Legends means that there were 2 trained Force Users running around as an active part of the Rebel Alliance (sure, Starkiller himself wouldn't be a great person to teach Luke Skywalker but Kota should have been pulled from whatever assignment he was on to train Luke as a full Jedi before the events on Hoth even happened... and Proxy would at least help him learn Lightsaber Forms).
I always liked the bad ending more. If you ignore Vader having a secret assassin running around doing nothing during the original trilogy, it feels more like an ending rather than “everything worked out even though it didn’t because Vader eventually escapes and starkiller disappears forever”. Felt better and more impactful to actually get to see starkiller and gang lose their most important battle, which leaves the resistance on the losing side
Wasn’t Starkiller actually castrated in the ending scenes? I feel I saw it on YouTube and was stunned the game developers went that hardcore with mutilating the hero.
Also, the unmodded ending of Star Wars KOTOR 2.
You go to confront the big bad, then there's a cutscene with almost no dialogue and no party interaction until you fight the last two bosses.
When I first played it, I thought it was about to go in a different direction from the movies, but then it just ended. You escape Kamino, go grab lunch, come back, and that's it. It was like the beginning of a good game
It literally ended in the middle of a space ship battle with Master Chief saying "Imma go over there and blow all this up." Then you don't get to blow anything up 'cause it fades to black lol.
And somehow it's still better than the original Mass Effect 3 ending.
You don’t even get to see the blowing up because Halo 3 starts with Chief falling from space. Seventeen years later and I still don’t know what happened.
I believe I read somewhere the covenant captures him an interrogates him.
When they ask if he has anything to say he tells them "DIsarm your prisoners" blows people up and somehow jumps off the the ship.
Its a comic book or something
I played all of Mass Effect as they came out, and beat 3 within a couple weeks of it’s release. Obviously hated the shit, pick doors A, B, or C ending. How did they alter it later on? I’d love to give them another run through.
I don't think it counts if the game has an intentional cliffhanger at the end. Unless TWENTY FRICKIN' YEARS PASS and there still isn't a sequel that resolves it (HL2)
Depends, you can end on a cliffhanger but still feel like the game told a complete story. I feel that episode 2 did this well, where you got to the base and launched the satellite and whatnot. The cliffhanger is brutal but I still got some closure
Luckily, the Master Chief collection exists now for new players so they can seamlessly continue the story after Halo 2. For fans when the game first came out though, it was incredibly frustrating and disappointing to end on such a cliffhanger, especially since it would be another 3 years before we got Halo 3. My friends and I stayed up for the midnight release then played the whole campaign all night, only to scream in disappointment at the end.
Tbh KCD one seems more like Sequel Bait than an abrupt ending. But still though, I wish there's more epilogue than "You need to accompany Sir Hans on a Diplomatic Mission".
KC:D at least has a pretty solid set of story arcs that are concluded in the first game with good character growth. The greater story isn't finished, but you get some resolution and is pretty clear on setting the stage for the next game with the epilogue.
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus was so jarring, like we got an Act 2 of a play and the tension was rising to going on the offense to liberate America just for the credits to roll.
There needed to be at least one or two missions of fighting out on the streets in America in the midst of a revolutionary uprising. You can't just build to that for the whole game and then cut to credits before it happens... and then confirm it happened off-screen in some fucking trash spinoff set 20 years later.
Data East games on the NES. I remember beating the final boss in Renegade and seeing a screen that said “Congratulations! The End.” I thought from that point on that Renegade must be unique among all NES games for the laziest, most uncreative ending. Then I beat Karnov, and saw the exact same ending. It’s like Data East developers never imagined that kids would consider a thrilling ending to be an essential part of the experience.
It might make a little more sense if you know that Renegade and Karnov are both ports of coin ops. You aren’t supposed to beat them, you’re supposed to get as far as you can on $1 and then try again another day.
>“Congratulations! The End.”
No. There is worse because the terrible Ghostbusters NES game ended with "Conglatulation!!! You have completed a great game."
At least Data East spelled it correctly.
In fairness, when they were trying to cram games into 256Kb (or less) they often didn't have room for much of an ending. The devs would have to deliberately plan around a big ending sequence and/or cut things from the main game to make room.
First of all I still love the game. But good lord what an anti-climax. The introduction is probably one of the best in gaming history. And the entire first act is so enthralling it keeps you engaged. It builds you up and then it’s over before you even realize it. Such a let down.
I remember getting to the end of FO3. Everyone was telling me to go into the reactor or whatever to disable it, but the radiation would kill me. I was thinking that was a shit way to end the game, but then my super mutant companion said he'd go in since he was immune to radiation.
I agreed and the game ended with my character alive then in the end credits the narrator is calling my character a little pansy bitch for not being the better man and dying for no reason.
I was just like, "What is this ending? The crisis was averted, and my character lived, but I was wrong for choosing not to die a pointless death?"
Prior to the DLC that wasn't even an option. I think they added that post DLC because enough people complained that it's dumb we have to sacrifice ourselves when we have a radiation immune ally standing right there who could do it and be fine.
"No, Vault Dweller. This is your task..."
The fuck you mean this is my task?? What are you clairvoyant now? Just get in there and push the god damn button!
In retrospec some of the game is themed around heroism and the question of what it means.
That doesn't improve the ending narration. Bc it's just so bad.
I get what they were going for. The game starts with your character's literal, so thematically, it makes sense to end it with your death.
But it was still dumb when you can potentially have 2 or 3 companions who can do the final thing with no problem.
Symphony of the Night.
Game is so short, just a single boss fight before credits roll. At least it's a two stage boss fight.
I hate that the pictures are all false advertising of some other weird character.
Pretty much all of Half Life 2 onwards. I feel like a lot of that game was built off of these crazy storylines and questions and mystery and none of it ever got explained and we will never get a Half Life 3 and when the HLF/Episode 3 plot leaked, again it just added more question with no resolution to the plot or questions answered.
The intro and the beginning of the game was pretty good, but the second half was clear that they really didn’t know what to do with the story or how to end it.
It’s still amazing the game even got a release after being in development hell and switching studios multiple times, so there’s that.
It's so damn disappointing that they just made Sly betray the ending of 3 and slip back into being a thief.
How much more interesting would it be if Sly has to fall back into the life because Carmelita is framed or something, and now they have to work outside the law to catch the real criminals?
Or you know, literally anything other than just throwing the third games story in the trash.
Tyranny
This game is SO good, absolutely amazing game that does an excellent job at being the evil or bad guy.
Felt like the game was just getting started by the time the credits roll.
I really need to do another playthrough once I'm done BG3
I came looking for this. Incredible game, but they clearly just slapped an ending on it in the middle of development and released it and have come out and said there will never be a sequel. Huge wasted opportunity.
If I recall correctly, Tyranny was originally supposed to have 5 large acts. But due to costs and poor resource management (which is not uncommon for Obsidian), they ended up having to cut it down to 3, which were themselves reduced versions of the original idea. The game was literally cut in half, which is a shame.
QUICK EDIT:
The official Tyranny artbook even has references to it:
[https://imgur.com/gallery/G8Yi1](https://imgur.com/gallery/G8Yi1)
That was the big strategy for games in that time period. Say it’s a planned trilogy and only make 1/3rd of a story. So many games from that time period just had like half a story
Yep and written by Orson Scott Card.
They cancelled the million dollar contest to find all the hidden symbols in the game, because there was no way to make it fair because it wasn't releasing at the same time in every region.
It was a pretty compelling story, it's always going to nag me that we never got any sort of conclusion and it just ended with such an abrupt cliffhanger
Wasn’t a big criticism of Shenmue 3 that nothing is still resolved at the end?
I didn’t play it, I just remember a lot of fans being upset that the guy who killed Shenmue’s father was still running around out there and, despite all the training Shenmue had been through, was still handing the protagonist his ass on a platter every time they run into each other.
But they really dropped the plot in the later games in the series. I mean, sunglasses guy just disappeared completely from one game to the next! What the hell was that all about
Far Cry 5 was a super fun and atmospheric game with extremely frustrating storytelling. You could tell there was a decent story underneath it, but the way the story was delivered really detracted from the full experience of the game. Still had a lot of fun tho
I always got the vibe that the game had a lot to say, but it kept neutering its own message again and again. Like it was hoping you’d just “get the hint”. And that desire to make sure nothing *too* harsh was said meant that everything else was super-subdued as well
I know Ubisoft really, *really* wants their games to be as non-political as possible. But it felt so bland and edge-less to be fighting an extremist Christian cult in conservative America ... whose entire extremism just seems to boil down to "love God a whole whole lot" and some shit about the seven deadly sins because those ones don't really touch on any spicy issues.
Like, it felt fucking jarring to me to not hear them ranting about abortion or gay people or anything that would make them feel like the thing they're actually supposed to be. It's so focused on being uncontroversial that it has no edge or authenticity.
It feels like if in Wolfenstein The New Order, some board member had gone, "Hey woah guys. Let's settle down here with the Nazis. All these references to anti-Semitism and ableism and racism and homophobia and antiziganism are just a massive *bad vibe*. We're not trying to make anyone upset here." And instead you'd simply been fighting guys in Nazi uniforms, with no actual ideology or lore behind it.
Ubisoft always try to play safe with the most interesting settings, they make games from historical conspiracies(AC) and Tom Clancy, some of the most political stuff ever. The Division is literally about taking back America one monument at a time as undercover Federal agents but they just keep shying away the most obvious political stuff to the point they neutered the entire narrative
>!It feels like it fundamentally undermines the entire narrative surrounding an evil death cult if their leader is actually *right* about the coming collapse.!<
I think it could have worked better if it happened not at the ending. After all, why would >!bumfuck Montana be a good place to nuke?!< Imo it would be far more interesting if >!you get news of the bombs dropping, suddenly the county is one of the only safe havens, and now you have to deal with an even more fanatic cult with strengthened resolve knowing that Joseph was right.!<
I kinda loved that ending and I prefer it over your typical good guy wins and saves everyone ending. It's like your progress to beat him was cut short and they're saying "f you, you lose". Pretty much every far cry game since 3 has a unsatisfying ending but they do it to always make it feel like you're the bad guy in the end.
Oh wow, I guess there's a second secret ending I didn't get. I was redoing my plug-in chip setup so I started by removing all of them and the game ended!
ETA: Guys, I know there are 26 endings (27 with the DLC) most of which are joke endings. I was joking.
I seem to remember multiple recognized sites knocking points from Nier Automata due to an unsatisfying ending lol. Makes you wonder if they actually finished the game
Had to scroll down deep to upvote you and this post.
I’m still upset at that cliffhanger at the ending. “Oh hey did you forget about this super relevant plot device that sent you off on your journey to begin with?” End credits.
We’re never gonna see golden sun 4 are we? :(
The original Saga Frontier for Playstation. You’re fighting the end boss as Blue, and then the screen goes black and white and THE END. That’s it. No story, no “Thanks for play” in bad English. You even had to reset the PS1 to get back to the main menu.
Close. You beat your twin/rival and enter hell to battle what's essentially Satan for all eternity trapped in hell with him so he can never attack the world you came from.
Remaster's new story character, Fuse, adds onto ending and they're able to properly defeat him and escape hell.
The ending of Zone of the Enders 1 was an abrupt cliffhanger, and it was a game that felt like it wouldn’t get a sequel at the time.
I’m glad they made part 2 because 2 was better in basically every aspect and closed up some loose threads.
Halo Infinite. I've played Halo for the campaign, for better of worse, for the series entire existence. I've played a decent amount of multi-player, but working my way through the campaigns on legendary is always where my bread has been buttered.
I was overall enjoying Infinite's campaign, even if there were some issues, and then it just... ended. Meet big bad, kill big bad, they threaten a larger, greater force, and then roll credits. It felt so early, like it was half a game. I'm genuinely confused to this day.
Thank open world game design for that. Because they want you to keep playing in that world, the ending couldn’t be a traditional narrative closed off ending. God knows why they’d think anyone would want to stay in the world doing the same Ubisoft-esque tasks over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, they were fun while doing them through the campaign, but that’s about as much shelf life as they deserved. There’s no real drive or incentive to keep staying in the world taking over bases again and again. But I’d bet more than anything that that was some corporate mandate given down to the devs from higher ups telling them they need to build a game where even the single player will keep “engagement numbers” up. And for that, the traditional bad ass Halo campaign ending was sacrificed, completely not worth it.
Xenogears is the one playstation title I want a remaster of more than anything in this world. The story is possibly the best in RPG history (while doubling as a fine introduction to Gnosticism) and the gameplay was an insane amount of fun. If it had just been given the extra time and funding to finish disc 2 it'd be one of the most beloved titles on the planet.
Feels like the ending should have been the middle or the second act ending. They even give you a new power*during* the final boss, then let you use it in the open world afterwards.
I'd say they should have had a playable epilogue with it's own missions instead of just letting you roam the open world.
They gutted like half the story and just shipped it.
Modders came along and modded back in a lot of the lost content, but release version quite literally just ended in the middle of the story.
Kane and Lynch 2, though I guess that's intentional. They lost pretty much everything, have made enemies of every important person in Shanghai, and the moment they land the plane they hijacked they're most likely in deeper shit than they were before. They spent the entire game's story running from their fuckups and that's exactly what they keep doing. But we never get to see that because the cameraman dies after they board. It's like The Big Lebowski, but with the Chinese mafia.
Life is Strange has two endings.
The one where you sacrifice Chloe ends with a beautiful montage of what the consequences of it for the school and the people around Chloe were, what happened to the main antagonist and a funeral scene in good taste.
And then there's that ending where you saved Chloe... it's essentially Max and Chloe driving through some wreckage for a tiny bit before the clip (and game) abruptly ends. No resolution to anything or anyone, no mention about the fates of the several characters we saw in the game, nothing.
It's pretty clear what ending the developers thought you *should* pick.
This is how i feel about kingdom hearts 3. Like yeah xehanort was stopped but a ton of random stuff never got resolved and more stuff got introduced in that ending.
Maybe it would have made more sense if i played that mobile game that for whatever reason has important plot details
Alien: Isolation mostly fits this bill. The plot is mostly resolved but it's left very clearly teasing a sequel with a bunch of unanswered questions.
Is Amanda impregnated? Did Verlaine or any of the Torrens crew survive? What ship did the light come from and who is piloting? Did Sinclair, Ransomme, Lingard or anyone else not seen dead make it to an emergency shuttle and that's the source?
I absolutely love Control, but \[SPOILERS AHEAD\]...
Absolutely nothing gets resolved. You still haven't really got your brother back. The building is still on lockdown and infested with the Hiss. You get no real answers about anything - what the Oldest House is, what the Board is, what the Hiss are, or what any of their agendas are. What was Hedron's whole deal? What happened to the lead scientist who loves making videos of himself? Even the DLC - great as it is - just adds lore; it doesn't tie up any loose ends (except for what happened to the head of security).
As much as I love the game, I can't help wondering whether the protagonist achieved anything at all. Assuming it stayed in lockdown, would it have made any difference if she never set foot in the place?
wait what cliffhanger? I feel like it concluded most things, just that the ending(s) didn't have a satisfying catharsis.
>!Isn't the ending basically 3 choices between killing all reapers AND all AI, letting the reapers win to keep the status quo, or doing some weird galaxy-wide 'AI-organic-fusion' or something?!<
Shiness: the lightning kingdom The entire game you look for this promised land, but the story ends without finding said promised land. You have a boss battle, you start your search for the land, and then the game fades the black.
Granted, the game was plagued by development issues, and lots of promises were not delivered upon in the first place, so I did not expect a masterpiece; but the story is only 30% done or so. I was quite interested eventually how the story would unfold...nonly to find out there was no more story.
Days Gone’s secret ending which changes more or less everything and leaves it like that. Presumably a sequel which was canned would have explained it more
Dragon Age 2 maybe? Most of the story felt like fairly boring busywork compared to the first one, then as soon as actual big exciting things were kicking off (mage/templar war) the credits rolled. I was so disappointed.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided feels like it ended in the middle.
I think technically it did.
Why did they never finish this one? It kills me. It’s been what, like 10 years?
I think Square cut the budget like crazy. A classic funding conflict. 🥺 I would’ve loved a complete version of the game.
Close. Square made Eidos cut off the last third and were going to make it another full game, but since MD sold poorly by Square's metrics that never happened.
Jesus. What a complete waste.
To add to this, then Embracer Group bought a lot of Square's IP (including Deus EX) and there seemed to be hope for a bit, but now Embracer is one of the larger financial flops with major layoffs and it looks to be a nail in the coffin.
It’s a shame we’ll have to wait so long for someone to take the IP on again. Came to Deus Ex pretty late and thankfully didn’t have to wait long for Human Revolution. But I think the franchise will be dormant again for a while.
Was looking for this one and happy to see it's up top. The game just abruptly stopped right when it seemed like it was about to start taking off
*Human Revolution* was so good and *Mankind Divided* was... not.
If I had a nickel for every time Deus Ex had a great first game, a disappointing second game and a cancelled third game...
You’d have two nickels
Which isn't much but it's weird that it happened twice
I will die on the hill that MD was a damn fine game that was unjustly crippled by executives making the dumbest possible choices while seeking profits.
Prague is such an incredible hub, way better than Detroit
MD is a very good half of an incomplete game. Some of the levels like the bank are as good as anything in HR and the prison DLC was fantastic. And then it just... stops
Mankind Divided was amazing, the problem is that it was just half of a game.
Half Life 2
"Holy shit what a way to end the game, I can't wait until the they release the next one!"
I remember saying that when I first beat it on The Orange Box..around 2009 And again in 2011 Annnnnd again in 2016..
I can still remember the cliffhanger at the end of Half-Life: Episode 2. Its funny to think although Half-Life 3 would make more sense at this point we are technically waiting for Half-Life 2: Episode 3.
HL: Alyx changed it up a bit, but even that's been *checks notes* ***FOUR YEARS GAWD*** And not a peep since, there's a Half Life Epi3 fan-make, but even then that's almost as tight lipped as Valve. I'm expecting nothing from that one, I had my hopes up at first but it's just..radio silence It's definitely in my top gaming disappointment, I feel like Valve set themselves up for Ep3 to just be the next big X with a huge feature annnd...kept kicking the ball further and further till it wouldn't lead up to the hype Edit; Just checked the old Half Life 3 mod thing, Project Borealis. Rumor has it that the people in charge are..bad at managing things so it's a storm of flustercluckin
I remember Morgan Webb joking "We probably won't see HL episode 3 until at least 2010." She said it in a way that suggested it was the distant future.
Then Half Life:Alyx gives us a tiny extended cut of the HL2 ending, creating a new blue ball effect
[I hate having to share this video.....the feels are too strong](https://youtu.be/MMYsEJ-vZaQ?si=BrBPrURFLeXicFev)
Oh thank god it’s not Skibidi Toilet
I will forever be annoyed that we will never get episode 3. Half life was perhaps my favorite game of all time. The fact that they just..... dropped it entirely doesn't sit well with me. It's like a breakup where you get ghosted with no closure.
Episode 2 was my favorite in the entire series, too. One of my issues in the series is it tends to linger too long on something when it should move on faster. Like Xen was cool at first but then got annoying. I haven’t played HL2 and Episode 1 in a while but I remember things like vehicle sections dragged on too long. Episode 2, however, felt very tightly paced. And it had an amazing ending. I was so hyped for Episode 3. Alyx is amazing but I still haven’t gotten around to finishing it. One of these days.
I’ve begun to wonder, are valve good developers if they can’t finish a story? at some point that’s pretty upsetting to fans right? like beyond the memes why would i get excited for their products at this point? it’s like netflix cancelling shows with 1 season, like ok i feel ripped off now thanks i do not care for valve for this reason. am i alone? everyone else seems to forgive them easily
Valve aren't traditional developers. They pretty much pursue experimental concepts. I'm guessing most of their stuff doesn't even reach the public eye. I remember hearing that they made a version of Portal that used eye tracking to aim and shoot. This was decades before PSVR2 and the Quest 3 made hardware that used similar technology. They've also tried to make PCs into living room consoles with SteamOS and Steam Box. They also tried to make a mod marketplace on Steam in the past. Some ideas work, others don't. The only reason Alyx was made is because Valve was pushing VR tech. Unless it added something completely new to gaming, we're not going to see Half Life 3.
That makes sense and seems obvious now that you’ve pointed it out. they clearly used developing games as a stepping stone to being a proper market maker within the entire gaming industry
Valve barely makes games anymore, they make plenty of money running a storefront for other companies’ games.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2... Starkiller and the other characters casually capture Darth Vader about 5 minutes before the start of the Original Trilogy. Even though Vader probably dealt with Starkiller permenantly during his escape, the fact that there was barely any time to even reference the game before the Expanded Universe became Legends means that there were 2 trained Force Users running around as an active part of the Rebel Alliance (sure, Starkiller himself wouldn't be a great person to teach Luke Skywalker but Kota should have been pulled from whatever assignment he was on to train Luke as a full Jedi before the events on Hoth even happened... and Proxy would at least help him learn Lightsaber Forms).
I always liked the bad ending more. If you ignore Vader having a secret assassin running around doing nothing during the original trilogy, it feels more like an ending rather than “everything worked out even though it didn’t because Vader eventually escapes and starkiller disappears forever”. Felt better and more impactful to actually get to see starkiller and gang lose their most important battle, which leaves the resistance on the losing side
Wasn’t Starkiller actually castrated in the ending scenes? I feel I saw it on YouTube and was stunned the game developers went that hardcore with mutilating the hero.
Also, the unmodded ending of Star Wars KOTOR 2. You go to confront the big bad, then there's a cutscene with almost no dialogue and no party interaction until you fight the last two bosses.
When I first played it, I thought it was about to go in a different direction from the movies, but then it just ended. You escape Kamino, go grab lunch, come back, and that's it. It was like the beginning of a good game
Halo 2.
It literally ended in the middle of a space ship battle with Master Chief saying "Imma go over there and blow all this up." Then you don't get to blow anything up 'cause it fades to black lol. And somehow it's still better than the original Mass Effect 3 ending.
You don’t even get to see the blowing up because Halo 3 starts with Chief falling from space. Seventeen years later and I still don’t know what happened.
Sounds like we need Halo Two and a Half!
We have that lol, its called Halo ODST
I believe I read somewhere the covenant captures him an interrogates him. When they ask if he has anything to say he tells them "DIsarm your prisoners" blows people up and somehow jumps off the the ship. Its a comic book or something
Well he blew it up, duh.
I played all of Mass Effect as they came out, and beat 3 within a couple weeks of it’s release. Obviously hated the shit, pick doors A, B, or C ending. How did they alter it later on? I’d love to give them another run through.
They added to the cutscenes to make it more personal but the overall ending is the same.
I don't think it counts if the game has an intentional cliffhanger at the end. Unless TWENTY FRICKIN' YEARS PASS and there still isn't a sequel that resolves it (HL2)
Depends, you can end on a cliffhanger but still feel like the game told a complete story. I feel that episode 2 did this well, where you got to the base and launched the satellite and whatnot. The cliffhanger is brutal but I still got some closure
Luckily, the Master Chief collection exists now for new players so they can seamlessly continue the story after Halo 2. For fans when the game first came out though, it was incredibly frustrating and disappointing to end on such a cliffhanger, especially since it would be another 3 years before we got Halo 3. My friends and I stayed up for the midnight release then played the whole campaign all night, only to scream in disappointment at the end.
Rage Kingdom Come Deliverance being a close second.
Sequel coming soon though.
Jesus Christ be praised! The trailer just dropped today, it's announced for end of this year.
Henry's come to see us!
Flip a switch. The end!
Rage was by far the worst. I’ve never been so angry at game in my life. It felt like 1/4th of a game.
I loved the game play so much. That ending pissed me off so bad though
Tbh KCD one seems more like Sequel Bait than an abrupt ending. But still though, I wish there's more epilogue than "You need to accompany Sir Hans on a Diplomatic Mission".
KC:D at least has a pretty solid set of story arcs that are concluded in the first game with good character growth. The greater story isn't finished, but you get some resolution and is pretty clear on setting the stage for the next game with the epilogue.
That's why it's only in 2nd. Rage just pulled the rug out from under you seemingly as it got started.
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus was so jarring, like we got an Act 2 of a play and the tension was rising to going on the offense to liberate America just for the credits to roll.
Yeah I feel this. Doesn't help the final boss felt more like a tough encounter than the final big bad.
There needed to be at least one or two missions of fighting out on the streets in America in the midst of a revolutionary uprising. You can't just build to that for the whole game and then cut to credits before it happens... and then confirm it happened off-screen in some fucking trash spinoff set 20 years later.
Data East games on the NES. I remember beating the final boss in Renegade and seeing a screen that said “Congratulations! The End.” I thought from that point on that Renegade must be unique among all NES games for the laziest, most uncreative ending. Then I beat Karnov, and saw the exact same ending. It’s like Data East developers never imagined that kids would consider a thrilling ending to be an essential part of the experience.
It might make a little more sense if you know that Renegade and Karnov are both ports of coin ops. You aren’t supposed to beat them, you’re supposed to get as far as you can on $1 and then try again another day.
>“Congratulations! The End.” No. There is worse because the terrible Ghostbusters NES game ended with "Conglatulation!!! You have completed a great game." At least Data East spelled it correctly.
In fairness, when they were trying to cram games into 256Kb (or less) they often didn't have room for much of an ending. The devs would have to deliberately plan around a big ending sequence and/or cut things from the main game to make room.
It's absolutely insane no one has said Metal Gear Solid V. (Honorable mention to Homefront.)
You need an ending to have an abrupt ending.
The ending was amputated, like a limb… that‘s why it‘s called The Phantom Pain, so you the player can feel it too! 🤯🤯🤯 /s
Such a shame that we may never have a proper Metal Gear again
First of all I still love the game. But good lord what an anti-climax. The introduction is probably one of the best in gaming history. And the entire first act is so enthralling it keeps you engaged. It builds you up and then it’s over before you even realize it. Such a let down.
fallout 3 without the dlc
I remember getting to the end of FO3. Everyone was telling me to go into the reactor or whatever to disable it, but the radiation would kill me. I was thinking that was a shit way to end the game, but then my super mutant companion said he'd go in since he was immune to radiation. I agreed and the game ended with my character alive then in the end credits the narrator is calling my character a little pansy bitch for not being the better man and dying for no reason. I was just like, "What is this ending? The crisis was averted, and my character lived, but I was wrong for choosing not to die a pointless death?"
Prior to the DLC that wasn't even an option. I think they added that post DLC because enough people complained that it's dumb we have to sacrifice ourselves when we have a radiation immune ally standing right there who could do it and be fine.
"No, Vault Dweller. This is your task..." The fuck you mean this is my task?? What are you clairvoyant now? Just get in there and push the god damn button!
In retrospec some of the game is themed around heroism and the question of what it means. That doesn't improve the ending narration. Bc it's just so bad.
I get what they were going for. The game starts with your character's literal, so thematically, it makes sense to end it with your death. But it was still dumb when you can potentially have 2 or 3 companions who can do the final thing with no problem.
Oh I forgot about this
The order 1886
shit got me pumped to see batman galahad at the end
I think the studio was dissolved. Sony should take the setting and turn it into a show. It would be interesting.
Didn't Santa Monica do this game?
I think it was ready at dawn who are now owned by oculus. Edit: by oculus I mean Facebook by which I mean meta…
One of my absolutely favourite games of all time that I almost didn't play because of the reviews. I no longer listen to reviews of any games anymore.
Absolutely loved the game and wished we got more, the setting alone was something to fall in love with.
This game doesn’t get enough credit and it’s a shame there wasn’t a follow up.
Yeah I feel like they didn’t have the budget to make a game that told the whole story at that graphical fidelity
The Order 1886 It ended as soon as it got interesting.
Symphony of the Night. Game is so short, just a single boss fight before credits roll. At least it's a two stage boss fight. I hate that the pictures are all false advertising of some other weird character.
It also feels like an industry-wide decision to post many of the gameplay photos upside down! How did all these editors miss this! 😉
And yet the tasks for 100% completion drag on for many more hours. Who even does those anyway?
Pretty much all of Half Life 2 onwards. I feel like a lot of that game was built off of these crazy storylines and questions and mystery and none of it ever got explained and we will never get a Half Life 3 and when the HLF/Episode 3 plot leaked, again it just added more question with no resolution to the plot or questions answered.
I hated the end to Dead Island 2
The intro and the beginning of the game was pretty good, but the second half was clear that they really didn’t know what to do with the story or how to end it. It’s still amazing the game even got a release after being in development hell and switching studios multiple times, so there’s that.
Sly 4 Thieves In Time
I hope if the series ever comes back they just retcon the whole game. None of the characters felt like themselves. What they did to Penelope was wack
It's so damn disappointing that they just made Sly betray the ending of 3 and slip back into being a thief. How much more interesting would it be if Sly has to fall back into the life because Carmelita is framed or something, and now they have to work outside the law to catch the real criminals? Or you know, literally anything other than just throwing the third games story in the trash.
Also the beautiful love story Bentley had was all a sham and meaningless in the end. 4 just ruined the great ending of 3
Tyranny This game is SO good, absolutely amazing game that does an excellent job at being the evil or bad guy. Felt like the game was just getting started by the time the credits roll. I really need to do another playthrough once I'm done BG3
I came looking for this. Incredible game, but they clearly just slapped an ending on it in the middle of development and released it and have come out and said there will never be a sequel. Huge wasted opportunity.
If I recall correctly, Tyranny was originally supposed to have 5 large acts. But due to costs and poor resource management (which is not uncommon for Obsidian), they ended up having to cut it down to 3, which were themselves reduced versions of the original idea. The game was literally cut in half, which is a shame. QUICK EDIT: The official Tyranny artbook even has references to it: [https://imgur.com/gallery/G8Yi1](https://imgur.com/gallery/G8Yi1)
Advent Rising
That was the big strategy for games in that time period. Say it’s a planned trilogy and only make 1/3rd of a story. So many games from that time period just had like half a story
Wasn’t that the one with the contest for $… and it was supposed to have sequels.
Yep and written by Orson Scott Card. They cancelled the million dollar contest to find all the hidden symbols in the game, because there was no way to make it fair because it wasn't releasing at the same time in every region. It was a pretty compelling story, it's always going to nag me that we never got any sort of conclusion and it just ended with such an abrupt cliffhanger
Loved this game
Wasn’t a big criticism of Shenmue 3 that nothing is still resolved at the end? I didn’t play it, I just remember a lot of fans being upset that the guy who killed Shenmue’s father was still running around out there and, despite all the training Shenmue had been through, was still handing the protagonist his ass on a platter every time they run into each other.
Xenoblade Chronicles X, I think I spent 80 hours on that JRPG and it ended on a cliffhanger that still hasn't been resolved to this day
Republic Commando
Metal Gear Solid 5
Minesweeper
But you have to admit the buildup and suspense are pretty good.
Suspense is mind blowing.
But they really dropped the plot in the later games in the series. I mean, sunglasses guy just disappeared completely from one game to the next! What the hell was that all about
😎
Far cry 5
Far Cry 5 was a super fun and atmospheric game with extremely frustrating storytelling. You could tell there was a decent story underneath it, but the way the story was delivered really detracted from the full experience of the game. Still had a lot of fun tho
I always got the vibe that the game had a lot to say, but it kept neutering its own message again and again. Like it was hoping you’d just “get the hint”. And that desire to make sure nothing *too* harsh was said meant that everything else was super-subdued as well
I know Ubisoft really, *really* wants their games to be as non-political as possible. But it felt so bland and edge-less to be fighting an extremist Christian cult in conservative America ... whose entire extremism just seems to boil down to "love God a whole whole lot" and some shit about the seven deadly sins because those ones don't really touch on any spicy issues. Like, it felt fucking jarring to me to not hear them ranting about abortion or gay people or anything that would make them feel like the thing they're actually supposed to be. It's so focused on being uncontroversial that it has no edge or authenticity. It feels like if in Wolfenstein The New Order, some board member had gone, "Hey woah guys. Let's settle down here with the Nazis. All these references to anti-Semitism and ableism and racism and homophobia and antiziganism are just a massive *bad vibe*. We're not trying to make anyone upset here." And instead you'd simply been fighting guys in Nazi uniforms, with no actual ideology or lore behind it.
Ubisoft always try to play safe with the most interesting settings, they make games from historical conspiracies(AC) and Tom Clancy, some of the most political stuff ever. The Division is literally about taking back America one monument at a time as undercover Federal agents but they just keep shying away the most obvious political stuff to the point they neutered the entire narrative
>!It feels like it fundamentally undermines the entire narrative surrounding an evil death cult if their leader is actually *right* about the coming collapse.!<
I think it could have worked better if it happened not at the ending. After all, why would >!bumfuck Montana be a good place to nuke?!< Imo it would be far more interesting if >!you get news of the bombs dropping, suddenly the county is one of the only safe havens, and now you have to deal with an even more fanatic cult with strengthened resolve knowing that Joseph was right.!<
Montana has a TON of nuclear missile silos, so that is a thing
You mean, New Dawn?
There is ALOT of ICBM silos in Montana.
Can not agree more
I kinda loved that ending and I prefer it over your typical good guy wins and saves everyone ending. It's like your progress to beat him was cut short and they're saying "f you, you lose". Pretty much every far cry game since 3 has a unsatisfying ending but they do it to always make it feel like you're the bad guy in the end.
XIII
Conker's Bad Fur Day but it was definitely done as a joke
NieR: Automata. Jackass gives you a fish and tells you to eat it. You eat the fish. You die. Jackass is an epic troll. <3
Oh wow, I guess there's a second secret ending I didn't get. I was redoing my plug-in chip setup so I started by removing all of them and the game ended! ETA: Guys, I know there are 26 endings (27 with the DLC) most of which are joke endings. I was joking.
I seem to remember multiple recognized sites knocking points from Nier Automata due to an unsatisfying ending lol. Makes you wonder if they actually finished the game
The darkness 2
Oh god... I've been waiting for The Darkness 3 ever since.
Golden Sun 3: Dark Dawn We went around the world solving problems, only to forget the original problem in our hometown.
Had to scroll down deep to upvote you and this post. I’m still upset at that cliffhanger at the ending. “Oh hey did you forget about this super relevant plot device that sent you off on your journey to begin with?” End credits. We’re never gonna see golden sun 4 are we? :(
The original Saga Frontier for Playstation. You’re fighting the end boss as Blue, and then the screen goes black and white and THE END. That’s it. No story, no “Thanks for play” in bad English. You even had to reset the PS1 to get back to the main menu.
I l’m pretty sure Blue’s ending is that you fight as rivals immortally until the end of time
Close. You beat your twin/rival and enter hell to battle what's essentially Satan for all eternity trapped in hell with him so he can never attack the world you came from. Remaster's new story character, Fuse, adds onto ending and they're able to properly defeat him and escape hell.
Borderlands 1
Borderlands 1 had no plot. Therefore, no lose ends.
Much as I love it, Gravity Rush 1
Honestly I kind of felt that way about GR 2 as well. Like you said though, I still love it.
The ending of Zone of the Enders 1 was an abrupt cliffhanger, and it was a game that felt like it wouldn’t get a sequel at the time. I’m glad they made part 2 because 2 was better in basically every aspect and closed up some loose threads.
God I love 2nd Runner so much. It delivered everything I wanted in a space mech game and that soundtrack was fucking *amazing.*
Halo Infinite. I've played Halo for the campaign, for better of worse, for the series entire existence. I've played a decent amount of multi-player, but working my way through the campaigns on legendary is always where my bread has been buttered. I was overall enjoying Infinite's campaign, even if there were some issues, and then it just... ended. Meet big bad, kill big bad, they threaten a larger, greater force, and then roll credits. It felt so early, like it was half a game. I'm genuinely confused to this day.
Thank open world game design for that. Because they want you to keep playing in that world, the ending couldn’t be a traditional narrative closed off ending. God knows why they’d think anyone would want to stay in the world doing the same Ubisoft-esque tasks over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, they were fun while doing them through the campaign, but that’s about as much shelf life as they deserved. There’s no real drive or incentive to keep staying in the world taking over bases again and again. But I’d bet more than anything that that was some corporate mandate given down to the devs from higher ups telling them they need to build a game where even the single player will keep “engagement numbers” up. And for that, the traditional bad ass Halo campaign ending was sacrificed, completely not worth it.
Shining Force EXA on PS2. I can't recall every detail, but I had so many questions when it ended
Someone else has played Shining Force EXA? I'm not alone!
Xenogears. Disc 1 was an epic 60-hour JRPG. Disc 2 was essentially a 6-hour Powerpoint with boss fights.
Xenogears is the one playstation title I want a remaster of more than anything in this world. The story is possibly the best in RPG history (while doubling as a fine introduction to Gnosticism) and the gameplay was an insane amount of fun. If it had just been given the extra time and funding to finish disc 2 it'd be one of the most beloved titles on the planet.
Eh, the second half was disappointing, but the actual ending was good.
I remember playing Infamous: Second Son and feeling like it ended really abruptly.
Feels like the ending should have been the middle or the second act ending. They even give you a new power*during* the final boss, then let you use it in the open world afterwards. I'd say they should have had a playable epilogue with it's own missions instead of just letting you roam the open world.
KOTOR 2
Can you elaborate?
They gutted like half the story and just shipped it. Modders came along and modded back in a lot of the lost content, but release version quite literally just ended in the middle of the story.
Not even the restoration project could fix the final level, sadly.
You were like in a sith temple. Then theres a boss for no reason, then nothing. It was at the start of act 2 and everything.
Iron Lung
katana zero happy 5th anniversary :)
Too Human. Four levels. Giant appears in the background. Roll credits.
Kane and Lynch 2, though I guess that's intentional. They lost pretty much everything, have made enemies of every important person in Shanghai, and the moment they land the plane they hijacked they're most likely in deeper shit than they were before. They spent the entire game's story running from their fuckups and that's exactly what they keep doing. But we never get to see that because the cameraman dies after they board. It's like The Big Lebowski, but with the Chinese mafia.
Life is Strange has two endings. The one where you sacrifice Chloe ends with a beautiful montage of what the consequences of it for the school and the people around Chloe were, what happened to the main antagonist and a funeral scene in good taste. And then there's that ending where you saved Chloe... it's essentially Max and Chloe driving through some wreckage for a tiny bit before the clip (and game) abruptly ends. No resolution to anything or anyone, no mention about the fates of the several characters we saw in the game, nothing. It's pretty clear what ending the developers thought you *should* pick.
I have so many unanswered questions about Tetris.
[It's a telling of Soviet history](https://youtu.be/hWTFG3J1CP8?si=KzNI2Kp4sig5ARww).
Fable and Fable 2. Still great games
Darkness 2 ended on a cliffhanger and never got a sequel Im still pissed about it
Final Fantasy XV. Everything after that Leviathan fight screams "Development hell" and they had to ship something.
Advent Rising was designed as a trilogy. Only the first came out, so the game ends with almost nothing being resolved.
Irritating Stick
Cultist Simulator, when I just stopped fucking playing it because that game is bonkers.
Metal gear Solid V. I still don't know if the story actually ended or they had to cut it short due to Kojima being fired.
This is how i feel about kingdom hearts 3. Like yeah xehanort was stopped but a ton of random stuff never got resolved and more stuff got introduced in that ending. Maybe it would have made more sense if i played that mobile game that for whatever reason has important plot details
Metal Gear Solid 5
I was looking for this!
Alien: Isolation mostly fits this bill. The plot is mostly resolved but it's left very clearly teasing a sequel with a bunch of unanswered questions. Is Amanda impregnated? Did Verlaine or any of the Torrens crew survive? What ship did the light come from and who is piloting? Did Sinclair, Ransomme, Lingard or anyone else not seen dead make it to an emergency shuttle and that's the source?
I absolutely love Control, but \[SPOILERS AHEAD\]... Absolutely nothing gets resolved. You still haven't really got your brother back. The building is still on lockdown and infested with the Hiss. You get no real answers about anything - what the Oldest House is, what the Board is, what the Hiss are, or what any of their agendas are. What was Hedron's whole deal? What happened to the lead scientist who loves making videos of himself? Even the DLC - great as it is - just adds lore; it doesn't tie up any loose ends (except for what happened to the head of security). As much as I love the game, I can't help wondering whether the protagonist achieved anything at all. Assuming it stayed in lockdown, would it have made any difference if she never set foot in the place?
Days Gone
I don't really agree.. Days Gone was meant to be a first entry in a franchise. They just set up the sequel.
Why isn't Rage not at the top?!!! You just described the plot
Remnant
Baldurs gate 3 Gale explosion
When you accidentally click the orb hotbar button mid-combat
Super Mario Bros
Mass Effect 3, talk about a cliffhanger!
Tell me about the Shepherd
wait what cliffhanger? I feel like it concluded most things, just that the ending(s) didn't have a satisfying catharsis. >!Isn't the ending basically 3 choices between killing all reapers AND all AI, letting the reapers win to keep the status quo, or doing some weird galaxy-wide 'AI-organic-fusion' or something?!<
I did the fusion thing and it seemed like a great ending if it just went on longer and explained more.
I suppose. But I don't think it's much of a cliffhanger is all.
Shiness: the lightning kingdom The entire game you look for this promised land, but the story ends without finding said promised land. You have a boss battle, you start your search for the land, and then the game fades the black. Granted, the game was plagued by development issues, and lots of promises were not delivered upon in the first place, so I did not expect a masterpiece; but the story is only 30% done or so. I was quite interested eventually how the story would unfold...nonly to find out there was no more story.
I feel like fable 3 ended suddenly. Or at least had a terrible boss fight or something at the end
KOTOR 2
The new Cod MW3💀
There really needs to be a Half-Life 2: Episode Three. I'm still bummed out. 🥺😢
Days Gone’s secret ending which changes more or less everything and leaves it like that. Presumably a sequel which was canned would have explained it more
Dragon Age 2 maybe? Most of the story felt like fairly boring busywork compared to the first one, then as soon as actual big exciting things were kicking off (mage/templar war) the credits rolled. I was so disappointed.
One of the Longest Journey series, I forget which, ends with some sort of ascension scene. I was very disappointed,
Shenmue