Winning doesn’t always feel good.What have you sacrificed in your fight for a better future?When all is said and done, sometimes winning means losing something of equal value or maybe even more.
10 Incredible Games With Weak Endings
There have been some incredible games throughout history and yet, the ones that are truly remembered for greatness are the ones that nail the landing.
These games don’t give perfect, comfy, feel-good stories. Instead,they dole out bittersweet moments, leaving behind a sense of achievement that’s tinged with a lasting sorrow.
But these pyrrhic victories often come with a message, thoughthe meaning is up to you to decide.We’ll be listing bittersweet moments that got you saying, “I’ve won, but at what cost?”
Spoiler Warning: This list contains major story spoilers!!!
10Life Is Strange
Ride Or Die
Life is Strange
Life is Strangeremains as thebest game in the franchisefor its controversial ending. As the storm looms over the town of Arcadia Bay, you’re met with a difficult choice anda moral dilemma:Save Arcadia Bay by travelingback in timeand letting Chloe die, or let the storm destroythe townand save Chloe.
Let’s be honest:most of us chose Chloe over Arcadia Bay.It’s a controversial and polarizing decision that is still hotly debated.
Playing from the perspective ofMax Caulfield,we’ve gotten to know and care for Chloe despite her shortcomings,and perhaps even fallen in love with her. Making the decision to save Chloe should be an easy one—well, aside from the moral quandary of sacrificing an entire town for one person, that is.
Still, if you choose to sacrifice Arcadia Bay, you’re left with a strange feeling in your gut:Was Chloe worth it?Are things better off this way?
Well, we find out inDouble Exposurethat Chloe and Max unfortunately don’t last forever.
9Ghost Of Tsushima
Forgive Me, Uncle
Ghost of Tsushima
Fextralife Wiki
After defeating Khotun Khan anddriving off the Mongol Invadersfrom thetitular Japanese islandinGhost of Tsushima, Lord Shimura approaches Jin with a heavy heart, saying thatthe shogunhas ordered Jin’s death for his unorthodox tactics as the Ghost.
They both know what must be done, as the uncle and nephew prepare their death poems before their inevitableduel. The game gives you time to let Jin come to peace with this and reminisce about his relationship with Shimura before the penultimateduel to the death, along with abeautiful sunset as a backdrop.
When you defeat Shimura, you’re faced with two impossible choices: kill him and give him an honorable death, or spare him and dishonor him. Sparing Lord Shimura severs their familial ties, and that “The Ghost will be hunted for the rest of his days.” Jin puts on his mask,fully embracing his identity as the Ghost and abandoning thesamurai path.
While bittersweet, this is the perfect and perhaps a canonicalending for Jin’s character.Not only is it the perfect representation of what he is willing to sacrifice to save his loved ones, but Shimura is the only family he has left, andthe last thing Jin would have wanted was to spare his own uncle, even if it means making an enemy out of him.
With a tragic hero and a pyrrhic victory,Ghost of Tsushima’sending is nothing short of Shakespearean.
8Final Fantasy XVI
“And Thus, Did Our Journey End.”
Final Fantasy 16
One of the major themes inFinal Fantasy 16is about freedom: living life on your own terms and seizing your free will, even if it costs you your life.
The main antagonist, Ultima, seeks to inhabit Clive’s body and sacrifice the people of Valistheato create a new paradise and revive his race.
Of course, this doesn’t sit right Clive. Combined with the Blight sucking the life out of the land’s flora and fauna,magic also seems to be the cause of the world’s problems,despite it being a convenient replacement for technological innovation.
Clive’s resistance against Ultima culminates in a fierce boss fight and the god’s defeat, and with the power of Ifrit,Clive absorbs the god’s power to eliminate magic once and for all,stopping the spread of Blight that’s killing the world.
With the world saved, Clive can be seen lying on a beach, seemingly succumbing to the curse that plagues magic users due to the sheer amount of magic overuse. While it’s heavily implied that Clive died, we’re not so sure about that, as he is heard narrating the final scene, showinga better world where Eikons and Dominants are all but myths and legends.
You Can Rest Now, Arthur
Red Dead Redemption 2
Red Dead Redemption 2is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful games withan evocative story that makes even grown men cry their eyes out.
Halfway through the story, we realize thatArthur is slowly but surelydying from tuberculosis.If you’re on ahigh-honor playthrough, Arthur may decide that the only way to redeem himself is to help as many people as he can, especially the remaining gang members like Abigail and Tilly, who are just caught in theconflict between him and Dutch.
With the Van der Linde gang in shambles,Arthur is forced to face off Dutch and Micah in a final confrontation,but with his tuberculosis worsening and Pinkertons closing in, Arthur can only hold them off for so long for John to escape and make a new life for himself and his family.
As Arthur falls and succumbs to tuberculosis and his injuries,he watches the sun rise and dies soon after,knowing that he has done all he can to help. It’s a tragic yetbittersweet ending to Arthur’s story,and it’s nice to know that John makes it out alive and tries to create a better life for his family in the epilogue.
6Cyberpunk 2077
“Haven’t Forgotten A Thing. Never Will.”
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077has a variety of endings. Depending on what you choose and the faction you align with,your ending can either be a happy one, bittersweet, or downright depressing.
Of course, there’s no such thing asa happy endingin a place likeNight City, so we’ll have to look for something that is at leasthappy-adjacent.
It’s not too hard to choose which ending is the most bittersweet.“The Devil” (Arasaka) is horrifyingly sinister;“The Path of Least Resistance”(The easy way out) is morose at best; and “The Star” (Panam), while is arguably the best ending, is a bit too happy for a cyberpunk story.
WhilePhantom Liberty’s"The Tower" ending is bittersweet, the fact that V’srelationshipsfizzle out after two years makes it lean more on the bitter side.
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Wrong city, wrong people.
Instead, “Temperance” is the most bittersweet ending, as it perfectly balances the good ending thatV gives Johnny their body, who carries on V’s memory and leaves Night City. But Johnny also leaves V’s friends wondering where they went without a proper goodbye.RomancingJudyorPanamgives you some heartbreaking voicemails in the end credits.
5Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
No Promises Await At Journey’s End
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Since the originalFinal Fantasy 7in 1997,Aerith’s death has been widely known as one of the most heartbreaking in gaming history.
WithFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirthtouted as aretelling of the second actof the original game,fans have been mentally preparing to watch her inevitable doom at Sephiroth’s hand in 4K.
After a climactic ending that sends the game into a multiversal foray, we find out that differentrealities/timelines have collided, resulting in Aerith dying inCloud’stimeline (as expected), thoughhe can still perceive her while the rest of the group is mourning her.There’s a lot of room for interpretation as to what this really means, though that’s not the focus right now.
As the group set off to track down Sephiroth and put a stop to this multiversal threat once and for all, we can see thatAerith, while within the Lifestream, is determined to help them however she can.
If you’re like me,then you’ve no doubtfallen in love with AerithsinceRemake,and though we’ve known that she would die for almost three decades,losing her still stings, and yet it’s somehow comforting to know that her memory will linger on.
4Destiny 2: The Final Shape
Guardians Make Their Own Fate
I’ll have to admit—there’s a little bit of personal bias as a longtimeDestinyplayer, but this one is well-warranted.Cayde-6 has always been a fan favorite in the ten years we’ve known him inDestinyandDestiny 2.Ask anyDestinyfan and they’ll agree with this ranking.
Many fans, including myself, quickly fell in love with hischarismatic and roguish personalityduringThe Taken King, and were heartbroken overhis death inForsaken, combined with the fact thatNathan Fillion did not reprise his rolefor this expansion.
It wasn’t until six years later inDestiny 2’sbest expansion,The Final Shape,that we were reunited with Cayde, though he wasn’t truly back to life, ashe was “resurrected” by a combination of Ahamkara wish magic and the Traveler’s paracausal powerin the Pale Heart.
After a hard-fought victory against the Witness in theSalvation’s Edge raid,we chased the Witness and destroyed it in the Excision mission.But this moment of triumph was short-lived, because unleashing all that Light to kill the Witnessed was fatal to our Ghost.
In this heartbreaking cutscene where our character breaks silence and pleads for the Traveler to resurrect a Ghost, Cayde comes in and revives our Ghost with all his Light, knowing that he has been living under borrowed time anyway.
This was the perfect goodbye to Cayde, and though we will never have a Hunter Vanguard and a beloved character like him again,Destiny 2still has a future to look forward to despiteBungie’s rocky relationship with the player base.His final parting words will live with us forever:“You’re my favorite. Don’t ever forget that.”
3Outer Wilds
A Symphony To Herald A New Cosmos
Outer Wilds
If you haven’t already playedOuter Wilds,skip this entry for your sake.This game is best playedwithout any spoilers.
Outer Wildsis a uniquephilosophicalgame thatgets better the more you play it. The entire premise ofOuter Wildsis based on finding the Eye of the Universewithin the infinitetime loopsof the universe’sfinal 22-minutes.
Through your discoveryof quantum objects, the Nomai’s extinction, and the Ash Twin Project, you, the intrepid Hearthian explorer, soon learn thatDark Bramble is the final part of the equation that makes up this time-loop mystery thatconnects everything together.
Using those final22 minutesto extract the power core of the Ash Twin Project (thereby riskingdying permanently) andtravel into an escape podtrapped in the deceptively large Dark Bramble, you can reinstall the core into the pod, warping you to your destination:The Eye of the Universe.
Amidst the incomprehensible cosmic tunnels and corridors, you’ll soon watch as every star flickers out. But you’re not alone, as you find your fellow Hearthian travelers, along with Solanum the Nomai and the Stranger, gathering each traveler toplay one final symphony that shapes the next universe in place of a dying one.
2The Last Of Us 2
The Cycle Of Violence Never Ends
The Last of Us Part 2
ThoughThe Last of Us 2won GOTY in 2020, many of the game’s detractors were quick to dismiss it, and I used to be one of them.But experiencing the game firsthand changed my mind,as it is anamazing cinematic gamewith a powerful message that I’ll never forget.
While some might argue thatThe Last of Uswas about the destructive and arguably healing aspects of love (one might argue obsession),The Last of Us2was undoubtedly centered around the destructive nature of vengeance and hate.
Through Ellie’s bloody crusade to avengeJoel’s tragic death, she hunts and kills Abby’s friends just to get to her, chasing her across a post-apocalyptic America inan unsettling murder spree.
Some might find theclimactic fight unsatisfyingbecauseEllie spares Abby instead of killing her, but it’s a powerful moment that best demonstratesthe futility of Ellie’s quest for vengeance and how much she has thrown awayjust to get the closure that will never come.
To make things more depressing,Ellie abandoned her pastoral life withDinaand their son, JJ, because she couldn’t heal from the trauma of Joel’s death and also thanks toTommy’s obsession with vengeance.When Ellie finally returns to their farm, we find out that Dina did make good on her threat that she would pack up andleave Ellieif she continued her quest for revenge.
The game ends with Ellie finding their home abandoned and picking up her guitar, only to realize thatshe can no longer play it because of her injuries.
Say all you want aboutThe Last of Us 2, butthe game excels at creating strong stories thatevoke uncomfortable emotionsthat we rarely want to confront.The Last of Us 2left me feeling hollow when I beat the game, sitting in silence for minutes when the title screen changed to the sound of lapping waves and a beach with a deserted boat.
1NieR Automata
It’s Like I’m Carrying The W[E]ight Of The World
NieR: Automata
NieR: Automatais perhaps Yoko Taro’s greatest work, as it has an amazing soundtrack, beautiful visuals, and iconic characters like 2B and 9S.
Aside from being one of thebest hack-and-slash games, it also has a philosophical story thatforces you to think about the meaning of life in a world that inherently has none. With five official endings from A to E,each gets progressively more and more tragic and emotional.
Ending Eoccurs immediately after Ending D, with 9S and A2 both dying from fatal wounds. As the credits roll, A2 and 9S’s pods talk about deleting all the data you’ve worked hard for, breaking the fourth wall to address you, the player:“Do you still wish for them to survive?”
Ending E then begins,putting you in the same shoot ‘em up bullet hell as9S’s hacking mini-game,shooting credits and surviving the sequence as it gets progressively more impossible, until other players come to your rescue, sacrificing their data to help you carry on.
This moment becomes an absolute tearjerker when you realize that the choir and the singers of the backing track aresinging in all three languages of the previous endings:English, Japanese, and the fictional Chaos language.
Getting through this ending without tearing up is virtually impossible.The game invokes a deep sense of togetherness and community as it asks you if you want to delete your saved data to help a stranger in need,all the while sending them words of encouragement.
Sacrificing everything you’ve worked so hard to build just to save someone you’ll never meet is the pinnacle of bittersweet. I actually remember sobbing after finishing Ending E. I’ll never forget it.
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