The 20 BEST Video Game Endings of All Time
advertisement
VOICE OVER: Callum Janes
WRITTEN BY: Caitlin Johnson
Whether it's through vanquishing an intimidating foe or an emotionally resonant climax, these are the best video game endings of all time! For this list, we're looking at the greatest video game endings in history. And obviously, we will be spoiling all of these games so we can talk about the endings: you've been warned. Our countdown includes "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" (1998), "Spec Ops: The Line" (2012), "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater" (2004), "Portal 2" (2011), and more!
Whether it's through vanquishing an intimidating foe or an emotionally resonant climax, these are the best video game endings of all time! For this list, we’re looking at the greatest video game endings in history. And obviously, we will be spoiling all of these games so we can talk about the endings: you’ve been warned. Our countdown includes "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" (1998), "Spec Ops: The Line" (2012), "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater" (2004), "Portal 2" (2011), and more! Let us know in the comments which gets the tears flowing.
This game kickstarted a new era in “Call of Duty” history, bringing the series out of the WWII period it had been in since the beginning. It was a bombastic take on modern geopolitics and extremism, pitting primarily a group of SAS operatives against the war criminal Zakhaev. Finally, at the end of the game, you’re given your chance to take out Zakhaev as he approaches Soap in dramatic slow-motion. Beset by enemy choppers, Zakhaev looks away just long enough for Soap to get a pistol and shoot him and his entourage. For a moment, it felt like there was absolutely no way out, only for Soap to bring it home at the last second.
As with other RPGs, “Undertale” has a few endings. While some will lament you for being an irredeemable monster if you decided to kill everybody you encounter, we’re going to look at the ultimate pacifist route that leads to what everybody accepts as the “true ending”. You will have gone through the game by this point befriending everyone and sparing all the creatures you meet. After defeating the real final boss, it’s down to you to lead the monsters to the surface world in order to bring peace between the realms and vouch for the monsters so that the humans don’t kill them. Not only did you get to make some great friends, but the peace of two societies is in your hands.
Following a planet-hopping adventure where Mario is yet again tasked with rescuing Princess Peach from Bowser’s clutches, it looks like the entire galaxy is doomed. And considering a black hole forms and then collapses into a fiery supernova, you’d be forgiven for thinking Nintendo briefly decided to get rid of its most iconic characters. Of course, that’s not the case; the galaxy is reborn from the ashes of its predecessor, reforming from all the disparate pieces of the planets. Black holes don’t mean destruction at all in this world: they’re how new life is formed. Mario wakes up right back where he started: the Mushroom Kingdom.
The entire game is really a big romance plot about the Prince and Farah, the Maharajah’s daughter, whom the Prince greatly wrongs at the beginning. Over the course of the story, the pair have to learn to trust each other while being constantly pursued by the Vizier, and they begin to fall in love. But it ends in tragedy: Farah dies and the Prince, enraged, destroys the Hourglass of Time the Vizier wants to control. This rewinds us back to the beginning, and we discover that the Prince has been telling the entire story to Farah in the past. He defeats the Vizier and whispers something in her ear; we don’t know what he says, but it’s clear that it means everything.
Everybody knows that the “Zelda” timeline is complicated, and “Ocarina of Time’s” three endings are the main reason why. The ending creates three separate timelines which, in turn, lead to numerous other “Zelda” games as we follow Link in parallel timelines and different points in his life. But throughout the credits you see various shots of all the people Link helped during his adventure and the worlds he saved, as well as many of the important locations – all while you’re serenaded by Zelda playing the Ocarina itself. It’s a truly beautiful way to end one of the greatest games of all time.
Who knew that a Metroid would someday be one of Samus’s most important allies? “Super Metroid” opens with Samus trying – and unfortunately failing – to defend a space colony researching a Metroid larva from the space pirates. After ruthlessly pursuing the space pirates across the galaxy, it’s finally time for her to once more face Mother Brain. But it turns out that that very same Metroid larva from the beginning, while initially being hostile, recognizes Samus as its own mother, leading it to sacrifice itself so that Samus can defeat Mother Brain yet again. It appeared at the very last second when all hope was lost, in a moving climax.
The ending of the first game set a high bar for the sequel, with that gut-wrenching revelation that there never was a cake. “Portal 2”, of course, delivers. After you finally defeat Wheatley by putting a portal on the moon and sending him into space, GLaDOS regains control of Aperture Science, deciding that rather than killing Chell she’ll simply let her go. On your way up through the elevator, you witness something moving and bizarre in equal parts: the oddly beautiful turret opera. The game ends with Chell escaping into the real world and then, since this is “Portal”, we get another iconic credit song in the form of “Want You Gone”.
As all the “Mafia” games aim to prove, getting involved with the mob might initially seem like a good idea – but it’s always going to end badly. We see Tommy Angelo, a cab driver, join the mafia and rise through the ranks until, inevitably, his downfall begins. He needs to flee the family, betraying the mob to the cops and going into hiding in Empire Bay. You can never truly leave the life of crime, though, and two of the Commission’s goons show up with one message. It was a chilling ending in 2002, but what makes it even more dramatic is that the guys sent to kill Tommy are Vito and Joe, the main characters in “Mafia II”.
Very little is explained to you in “Journey”, but that’s always been part of its appeal. It’s abstract, artistic, and emotional, as you explore a strange desert landscape as an unusual, robed figure. Environmental storytelling teaches you about the lost civilization that came before, and along the way, you encounter other figures just like yourself. When you finally reach the mountain and get to the end credits, you’re treated to the revelation that all those figures weren’t NPCs: they were fellow players, just like you, exploring this beautiful world. It’s this sense of community in a place that could be so strange and empty that brought so many to tears.
Nobody disagrees that the first season of Telltale’s “The Walking Dead” was the best – though the final one was pretty good, too. A big part of what made it so profound was its ending. You’ve been playing as Lee the entire game, who finds a young girl, Clementine, hiding from the zombies early on and is left with no option but to take care of her. By the final episode, though, Lee has been bitten by a walker. Whether you choose to amputate his arm or not, he will eventually succumb to the infection, and the player’s last choice is whether or not Clementine is able to shoot him before he turns. If you didn’t cry here, we don’t know what to tell you.
It’s very rare that a franchise manages to finish off a trilogy on a high note. When said high note is the greatest game in the franchise and is regarded as the best game of an entire year, you know you’ve got something nothing short of spectacular. Depending on a ludicrous amount of variables throughout the game, the various endings for Geralt, his romantic life, Ciri and the fate of the Northern Kingdoms all vary greatly. However, we’re especially fond of the ending that sees Ciri becoming the new emperor, as it features a touching segment where Geralt and Ciri wander the woods and enjoy their last fleeting moments together.
This sequel more than matched its predecessor in terms of a dark narrative, most of which was due to the superb portrayal of Batman’s greatest foe. While he may have been calling the shots in the madhouse, the Joker was shown to be vulnerable and desperate as he slowly begins to waste away due to the events of Arkham Asylum. His chances for salvation go down the drain when his murderous habits force him to take a stab at the Bat, only to break the cure for his condition instead. As you watch the Clown Prince of Crime laugh away his last breaths, a small part of you can’t help but feel sympathy. R.I.P
Marcus Fenix and company have been to hell and back again in their campaign to destroy the vicious and butt-ugly Locust, and we’ve enjoyed every second of it. After discovering Fenix’s father has found a way to end the threat, the Gears have to endure wave after wave of enemies before the device that can kill them is activated. Even then, it comes at the cost of Adam Fenix’s life. With so many friends and loved ones added to the enormous body count, seeing Marcus drive that knife into the Locust Queen was ever so satisfying. Humanity, as always, finds a way to survive.
The Bioshock franchise has prided itself on exploring the darker side of humanity’s nature. Its latest instalment very much sent players on a wild trip through various timelines, leading to the rather depressing ending where our protagonist must decide who he ultimately wants to be. With so many Booker DeWitt’s scattered across time, some of them even becoming the villainous Comstock, Booker decides that he wants to remain a good man, and allows the various incarnations of Elizabeth to drown him in order to protect her many, many futures. Confusing? Yes. Heart-breaking? Absolutely.
The highlight of this epic space opera definitely came from its second outing. Working with the shady Cerberus organisation and awesome otherworldly characters, Commander Shepard must traverse through the galaxy to defeat the fearsome Collectors, who have a bad habit of kidnapping and liquidising humans. Depending on who you’ve sided with and helped out throughout the course of the game, as well as who you assign to do what during the infamous mission, who lives and dies can vary greatly – including Commander Shepard. By offering a similar-but-still-different ending to everyone who plays, Mass Effect 2 manages to finish off on a surprisingly personal note for those who get to the end.
Throughout this horrifyingly surreal take on conflict and its consequences, Captain Martin Walker is convinced that the atrocities committed in war-torn Dubai were due to a rogue soldier by the name of Konrad. After tracking him down, players were greeted with the harsh truth that Konrad had been a hallucination the entire time, as a way to shift blame for the Walker’s own murderous actions following a mass manslaughter with white phosphorus. A shell of his former self, players were left to decide Walker’s fate – return home as a broken man, take the easy way out, or embrace the monster within.
There hasn’t been a game to date that’s captured the sense of tension and hopelessness quite like this survival-horror. While the thrills of escaping clickers and cannibals definitely kept gamers on the edge of their seat, it was the slow-building relationship between Joel and Ellie that kept us emotionally invested. Then they delivered an ending that left us feeling internally conflicted, as the player is forced to watch Joel sacrifice humanity’s future for the sake of Ellie, all because she’s filled the void left in his life after his daughter’s death. Whether you agree with his actions or not, there’s no denying that it perfectly fits in with the game’s sombre and grieving tone.
In a bid to save his deceased love, Wander seeks out the mysterious Dormin in an attempt to reverse her death. It instructs him that to do so he must kill sixteen Colossi, but there will be a heavy price to pay. Sure enough, after the last Colossus has fallen, it’s revealed that the ritual was just a way for Dormin to resurrect itself with Wander as his new host. It’s not long before the demon ends up getting banished once again, with Wander getting dragged along for the ride. Just to add insult to injury, his beloved is brought back to life just afterwards. Bittersweet doesn’t even come close to describing this one!
In this prequel, we get to see the original Snake set out to kill his traitorous mentor known as The Boss, a legendary soldier and apparent Soviet defector. After sneaking and choking your way through the campaign, it all boils down to an emotional and epic final fight with a painful ending that forces the player to pull the trigger. Of course the real heartbreak comes with the reveal that The Boss never defected, and orchestrated her own death as a way to protect the country she loved. As you can imagine, there wasn’t a single gamer who wasn’t weeping.
After so many hours watching John Marston battle through various bandits and dodge an endless amount of bullets, we were just happy to see him settle down with his family at the end of it all. We were then greeted to one of the most heart-shattering scenes in gaming. Outnumbered, and in a desperate bid to save his wife and son, all the player can do is try and shoot as many enemies as they can before this happens. Luckily the game offered one hell of an epilogue. Players assumed the role of John’s son to hunt down the dirty old codger that had ordered his father’s death. Needless to say, vengeance was sweet!
#20: “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” (2007)
This game kickstarted a new era in “Call of Duty” history, bringing the series out of the WWII period it had been in since the beginning. It was a bombastic take on modern geopolitics and extremism, pitting primarily a group of SAS operatives against the war criminal Zakhaev. Finally, at the end of the game, you’re given your chance to take out Zakhaev as he approaches Soap in dramatic slow-motion. Beset by enemy choppers, Zakhaev looks away just long enough for Soap to get a pistol and shoot him and his entourage. For a moment, it felt like there was absolutely no way out, only for Soap to bring it home at the last second.
#19: “Undertale” (2015)
As with other RPGs, “Undertale” has a few endings. While some will lament you for being an irredeemable monster if you decided to kill everybody you encounter, we’re going to look at the ultimate pacifist route that leads to what everybody accepts as the “true ending”. You will have gone through the game by this point befriending everyone and sparing all the creatures you meet. After defeating the real final boss, it’s down to you to lead the monsters to the surface world in order to bring peace between the realms and vouch for the monsters so that the humans don’t kill them. Not only did you get to make some great friends, but the peace of two societies is in your hands.
#18: “Super Mario Galaxy” (2007)
Following a planet-hopping adventure where Mario is yet again tasked with rescuing Princess Peach from Bowser’s clutches, it looks like the entire galaxy is doomed. And considering a black hole forms and then collapses into a fiery supernova, you’d be forgiven for thinking Nintendo briefly decided to get rid of its most iconic characters. Of course, that’s not the case; the galaxy is reborn from the ashes of its predecessor, reforming from all the disparate pieces of the planets. Black holes don’t mean destruction at all in this world: they’re how new life is formed. Mario wakes up right back where he started: the Mushroom Kingdom.
#17: “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” (2003)
The entire game is really a big romance plot about the Prince and Farah, the Maharajah’s daughter, whom the Prince greatly wrongs at the beginning. Over the course of the story, the pair have to learn to trust each other while being constantly pursued by the Vizier, and they begin to fall in love. But it ends in tragedy: Farah dies and the Prince, enraged, destroys the Hourglass of Time the Vizier wants to control. This rewinds us back to the beginning, and we discover that the Prince has been telling the entire story to Farah in the past. He defeats the Vizier and whispers something in her ear; we don’t know what he says, but it’s clear that it means everything.
#16: “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” (1998)
Everybody knows that the “Zelda” timeline is complicated, and “Ocarina of Time’s” three endings are the main reason why. The ending creates three separate timelines which, in turn, lead to numerous other “Zelda” games as we follow Link in parallel timelines and different points in his life. But throughout the credits you see various shots of all the people Link helped during his adventure and the worlds he saved, as well as many of the important locations – all while you’re serenaded by Zelda playing the Ocarina itself. It’s a truly beautiful way to end one of the greatest games of all time.
#15: “Super Metroid” (1994)
Who knew that a Metroid would someday be one of Samus’s most important allies? “Super Metroid” opens with Samus trying – and unfortunately failing – to defend a space colony researching a Metroid larva from the space pirates. After ruthlessly pursuing the space pirates across the galaxy, it’s finally time for her to once more face Mother Brain. But it turns out that that very same Metroid larva from the beginning, while initially being hostile, recognizes Samus as its own mother, leading it to sacrifice itself so that Samus can defeat Mother Brain yet again. It appeared at the very last second when all hope was lost, in a moving climax.
#14: “Portal 2” (2011)
The ending of the first game set a high bar for the sequel, with that gut-wrenching revelation that there never was a cake. “Portal 2”, of course, delivers. After you finally defeat Wheatley by putting a portal on the moon and sending him into space, GLaDOS regains control of Aperture Science, deciding that rather than killing Chell she’ll simply let her go. On your way up through the elevator, you witness something moving and bizarre in equal parts: the oddly beautiful turret opera. The game ends with Chell escaping into the real world and then, since this is “Portal”, we get another iconic credit song in the form of “Want You Gone”.
#13: “Mafia” (2002)
As all the “Mafia” games aim to prove, getting involved with the mob might initially seem like a good idea – but it’s always going to end badly. We see Tommy Angelo, a cab driver, join the mafia and rise through the ranks until, inevitably, his downfall begins. He needs to flee the family, betraying the mob to the cops and going into hiding in Empire Bay. You can never truly leave the life of crime, though, and two of the Commission’s goons show up with one message. It was a chilling ending in 2002, but what makes it even more dramatic is that the guys sent to kill Tommy are Vito and Joe, the main characters in “Mafia II”.
#12: “Journey” (2012)
Very little is explained to you in “Journey”, but that’s always been part of its appeal. It’s abstract, artistic, and emotional, as you explore a strange desert landscape as an unusual, robed figure. Environmental storytelling teaches you about the lost civilization that came before, and along the way, you encounter other figures just like yourself. When you finally reach the mountain and get to the end credits, you’re treated to the revelation that all those figures weren’t NPCs: they were fellow players, just like you, exploring this beautiful world. It’s this sense of community in a place that could be so strange and empty that brought so many to tears.
#11: “The Walking Dead: Season One” (2012)
Nobody disagrees that the first season of Telltale’s “The Walking Dead” was the best – though the final one was pretty good, too. A big part of what made it so profound was its ending. You’ve been playing as Lee the entire game, who finds a young girl, Clementine, hiding from the zombies early on and is left with no option but to take care of her. By the final episode, though, Lee has been bitten by a walker. Whether you choose to amputate his arm or not, he will eventually succumb to the infection, and the player’s last choice is whether or not Clementine is able to shoot him before he turns. If you didn’t cry here, we don’t know what to tell you.
#10: “The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt” (2015)
It’s very rare that a franchise manages to finish off a trilogy on a high note. When said high note is the greatest game in the franchise and is regarded as the best game of an entire year, you know you’ve got something nothing short of spectacular. Depending on a ludicrous amount of variables throughout the game, the various endings for Geralt, his romantic life, Ciri and the fate of the Northern Kingdoms all vary greatly. However, we’re especially fond of the ending that sees Ciri becoming the new emperor, as it features a touching segment where Geralt and Ciri wander the woods and enjoy their last fleeting moments together.
#9: “Batman: Arkham City” (2011)
This sequel more than matched its predecessor in terms of a dark narrative, most of which was due to the superb portrayal of Batman’s greatest foe. While he may have been calling the shots in the madhouse, the Joker was shown to be vulnerable and desperate as he slowly begins to waste away due to the events of Arkham Asylum. His chances for salvation go down the drain when his murderous habits force him to take a stab at the Bat, only to break the cure for his condition instead. As you watch the Clown Prince of Crime laugh away his last breaths, a small part of you can’t help but feel sympathy. R.I.P
#8: “Gears of War 3” (2011)
Marcus Fenix and company have been to hell and back again in their campaign to destroy the vicious and butt-ugly Locust, and we’ve enjoyed every second of it. After discovering Fenix’s father has found a way to end the threat, the Gears have to endure wave after wave of enemies before the device that can kill them is activated. Even then, it comes at the cost of Adam Fenix’s life. With so many friends and loved ones added to the enormous body count, seeing Marcus drive that knife into the Locust Queen was ever so satisfying. Humanity, as always, finds a way to survive.
#7: “Bioshock Infinite” (2013)
The Bioshock franchise has prided itself on exploring the darker side of humanity’s nature. Its latest instalment very much sent players on a wild trip through various timelines, leading to the rather depressing ending where our protagonist must decide who he ultimately wants to be. With so many Booker DeWitt’s scattered across time, some of them even becoming the villainous Comstock, Booker decides that he wants to remain a good man, and allows the various incarnations of Elizabeth to drown him in order to protect her many, many futures. Confusing? Yes. Heart-breaking? Absolutely.
#6: “Mass Effect 2” (2010)
The highlight of this epic space opera definitely came from its second outing. Working with the shady Cerberus organisation and awesome otherworldly characters, Commander Shepard must traverse through the galaxy to defeat the fearsome Collectors, who have a bad habit of kidnapping and liquidising humans. Depending on who you’ve sided with and helped out throughout the course of the game, as well as who you assign to do what during the infamous mission, who lives and dies can vary greatly – including Commander Shepard. By offering a similar-but-still-different ending to everyone who plays, Mass Effect 2 manages to finish off on a surprisingly personal note for those who get to the end.
#5: “Spec Ops: The Line” (2012)
Throughout this horrifyingly surreal take on conflict and its consequences, Captain Martin Walker is convinced that the atrocities committed in war-torn Dubai were due to a rogue soldier by the name of Konrad. After tracking him down, players were greeted with the harsh truth that Konrad had been a hallucination the entire time, as a way to shift blame for the Walker’s own murderous actions following a mass manslaughter with white phosphorus. A shell of his former self, players were left to decide Walker’s fate – return home as a broken man, take the easy way out, or embrace the monster within.
#4: “The Last of Us” (2013)
There hasn’t been a game to date that’s captured the sense of tension and hopelessness quite like this survival-horror. While the thrills of escaping clickers and cannibals definitely kept gamers on the edge of their seat, it was the slow-building relationship between Joel and Ellie that kept us emotionally invested. Then they delivered an ending that left us feeling internally conflicted, as the player is forced to watch Joel sacrifice humanity’s future for the sake of Ellie, all because she’s filled the void left in his life after his daughter’s death. Whether you agree with his actions or not, there’s no denying that it perfectly fits in with the game’s sombre and grieving tone.
#3: “Shadow of the Colossus” (2005)
In a bid to save his deceased love, Wander seeks out the mysterious Dormin in an attempt to reverse her death. It instructs him that to do so he must kill sixteen Colossi, but there will be a heavy price to pay. Sure enough, after the last Colossus has fallen, it’s revealed that the ritual was just a way for Dormin to resurrect itself with Wander as his new host. It’s not long before the demon ends up getting banished once again, with Wander getting dragged along for the ride. Just to add insult to injury, his beloved is brought back to life just afterwards. Bittersweet doesn’t even come close to describing this one!
#2: “Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater” (2004)
In this prequel, we get to see the original Snake set out to kill his traitorous mentor known as The Boss, a legendary soldier and apparent Soviet defector. After sneaking and choking your way through the campaign, it all boils down to an emotional and epic final fight with a painful ending that forces the player to pull the trigger. Of course the real heartbreak comes with the reveal that The Boss never defected, and orchestrated her own death as a way to protect the country she loved. As you can imagine, there wasn’t a single gamer who wasn’t weeping.
#1: “Red Dead Redemption” (2010)
After so many hours watching John Marston battle through various bandits and dodge an endless amount of bullets, we were just happy to see him settle down with his family at the end of it all. We were then greeted to one of the most heart-shattering scenes in gaming. Outnumbered, and in a desperate bid to save his wife and son, all the player can do is try and shoot as many enemies as they can before this happens. Luckily the game offered one hell of an epilogue. Players assumed the role of John’s son to hunt down the dirty old codger that had ordered his father’s death. Needless to say, vengeance was sweet!
