The Top Ten Worst Game Endings

NowGamer follow up its recent Top Ten Best Game Endings shortlist with a look at the worst endings gaming has to offer.

[Javert]

This is gonna get a lot of complaints, I can't believe they said they almost put MGS4 on this list. If thats not fishing for hits I don't know what is.

[Reibooi]

Yeah totally agree with that. The fact that MGS4 was able to pull everything together and have a good ending that pretty much tied up all the plot threads was a damn incredible feat.

Sure the ending was long but that doesn't make it bad. I like long endings because it's like your reward for getting that far and you get to sit back relax and enjoy a good ending.

[creatchee]

I'm glad that they didn't include MGS4, but you have to admit that it was a long and drawn-out ending that stopped making sense after a while in order to tie up "loose" ends, Return of the King-style.

[Downtown boogey]

Had they included it, I would've gone crazy again for the unprecedented level of delusion repeatedly present here on N4G.

[pixelsword]

besides, has this kid never played Code Name: Tenka? That game was ahead of it's time because it was the first fully Polygonal 3D First Person Shooter for the original Playstation. Plus, with a morphable gun and the way the game opened up from a weak-looking shooter to a rather impressive game in it's day. Too bad it just had to crap itself in the end with the horrible ending.

Here are the cutscenes leading up to the ending:

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

and then the ending.

[mastiffchild]

Is it just me or does anyone wanting "closure" from an Activision franchise game that has a sequel as standard(every second year in MW's case) completely deluded? It will go on forever, like Lost, making lewss and lesss sense as you see more and more instances of deja-vu and ecycled edning bits. That is fact.

There can be no closure until Acti decide the game isn't selling enough and then your closure will be "series canned". It's the only ending I can see outside of a fan made effort, post last profitable entry, manfully trying to sort out what's an increasingly mental tale before the C&D orders land. See-take that as your closure Dave. It's the best you'll get, sadly, and still no one can give me any reason why we couldn't just kill Makarov during the No Russian mission-unless the ONLY reason the level ever existed was to shock the US media into a little free publicity for the already over hyped MW2-oh, the notoriety!

[ico92]

i really liked MGS 2's ending if anything its one of my favourite video game endings i loved Snakes Monologue it was a feel good ending ,im tierd of people constantly bashing MGS2 and calling it overrated its getting old once you play the game multiple times the story is really intelligent, complex and convoluted mabey but very interesting and unique there reallly isnt anything like it,
just because you can't understand a story doesnt make it bad ,and the final bombshell about the patriots right at the end was an amazing twist.

[Kos-Mos]

Totally agree. People who don`t like MGS`s story do not understand it. It`s just like people who don`t like Stanley Kubrics movies, but prefer Michael Bay`s movies.

High Intelligence vs. simplicity to make it short.

[booni3]

Fallout deserved it

[lost2]

i think is the game with the WORST ending ever

[miyakoS]

well I played Fallout 3 quite a few patches after release and I had Broken Steel (though I haven't had the time to go through that yet). Still, I rather enjoyed the Fallout 3 heroic ending in which the main character died (or so I thought before I woke up in the Citadel). But then I had done quite a few side quests so I was ready to get some closure to the game.

I don't really know how much the patches and Broken Steel changed the choices at the ending I played though, except for the Fawkes bit, which I thought was the lesser ending cause sending a super mutant to take the fall for the main character's own destiny just struck a wrong note somehow.

[HolyOrangeCows]

"I won!"

LOL, Link CD-I.

[vickers500]

"If thats not fishing for hits I don't know what is."

Yeah, because someone who has a different opinion than you is only doing it for hits.

/s

[kindi_boy]

Do you guys think this dude played Fable II?

[Cajun Chicken]

Haven: Call of the King has a diabolical ending.

[Inside_out]

If the game is good/great/fantastic...the ending is always bad...PERIOD...you never want it to end...you expect it's greatness will continue...common sense...when you like the ending it's usually because you've had enough, time to move on....

[mcnablejr]

I loved haven. the ending is ridiculous, obviously there was a planned sequel./

[Cajun Chicken]

Yeah, Haven's up there with the Jaks for me.

[Christopher]

Don't agree with the Fallout 3 assessment. Just because there's no closure as to the fate of man (we already know about Mom & Dad, which is what we went out looking for) doesn't mean it's not a good ending. Personally, I liked it because it wasn't an all happy ending and playing it the first time and ending up with the choice to save the people or screw them over while I was fairly certain doomed to death... it was kind of hard for me to do the right thing.

Also, point of contention, the eulogy is done by the Narrator, voiced by Ron Perlman.

[Tempist]

Well... to be honest, if you didn't play the game without the DLC/expansion stuff, the ending was not enjoyable. The fact that the game just up and ends at that point instead of letting you play on really made fans of Fallout 1&2 mad.

You basically spend 30-50 hours playing a character for the game to just end on you, unlike Oblivion where you can keep going.

[Christopher]

I can understand that argument, but I still wouldn't put it on a top ten list of worst endings. I believe the end is appropriate and I even ended it early myself without knowing it would end and stopped playing until the DLC came out. I could have loaded up my last save and looked for more to do, but the ending seemed very appropriate with the concept of a post-apocalyptic 'savior' who goes out looking for answers to his past, doesn't really get what he wants for answers, and ends up sacrificing him/herself for the good of the world.

/agree with ya for a valid point and the manner in which it was delivered.

[miyakoS]

yeah I rather enjoyed Fallout 3's ending. The way it went out with a bang made the main story alot more enjoyable to me than Oblivion. The main character makes life bearable for the people in the DC area, even if s/he ultimately changes nothing whatever about the fate of man...

I really don't understand what people have against the ending unless they charged into the main story without exploring several side quests and such

[BeaArthur]

I actually don't agree with a lot of the games on this list. I liked the Ending to KOTOR 2. Fallout 3, although kind of bleak had a very good ending. Halo 2's ending did kind of suck though. Not so much that it ended in a cliff hanger but the fact that it's so abrupt.

[Kingdom Come]

Terrible List...Nuff Said.
How can they put Gears of War 2 on this list? The after Credits section was brilliant, adding the mystery created throughout both games as to Adam Fenix's connection to the Locust race and his mysterious dissapearance.

[Greysturm]

Its an Mgs ripoff and the before credits ending wasnt anything of note, some would even say lackluster.

[TheoreticalParticle]

It's not because it's an MGS ripoff. It's because there's so little story spread out through the game that trying to make a cliffhanger is a freaking joke. If you combine the story for the first two games and put them into one, you still have a pathetic amount of story for ONE game, and you've got CliffyB acting like he just put together some epic novel.

The list is mostly terrible. Just like the ending to Gears and Gears 2. They pick some of the right games to complain about, but there's no coherence to any of their complaints.

[ThanatosDMC]

Adam boned the Queen and Marcus is their son... that's the only explanation.

[mastiffchild]

When I saw the article headline the first game ending I thought of was Gears2. From the similarity to the first game's end to the most disappointing final boss encounter ion living memory and the hammy as all hell Adam monologue it as al;l a massive let down after what had been a generally great game. I get the Gears1.5 criticisms, though, and they should really have avoided making the ending so samey if they wished to avoid more of that particular gripe.

It's a great game but I think it deserves the dubious honour of being included here for that trite and al to familiar tosh they tacked on at the arse end of what had been, up to then, a genuinely exciting adrenaline rush of a game. I STILL get annoyed thinking about that last Boss "fight" sequence to this day as I just felt it was SO underwhelming and seemed it came from Cliff's big book of lazy assed devlopment.

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

but it could have ended in the middle of the game and the story would not have advanced any less. I felt like I took a subway ride to the ending of the game with the Brumak battle. Both Gears 2 and MGS2 belong on this list. There may be far worse games endings though.

[ReBurn]

That article needs to be on the Top Ten Most Poorly Formatted Articles list. Wow.

[Tempist]

website limitation. Maybe n4g should boycott them until they get a better format going.

[jony_dols]

Worst final boss ever. worst storyline ever and worst ending ever.

[GodsHand]

Has this guy even played Fallout 3? Three Dog (Radio DJ) is voiced by Erik Todd Dellums. The guy talking in the begining of the game, and after is Ron Perlman (Hell Boy guy). And what's wrong with the ending, you either die, and or you don't depending on your actions, and with the BS (Broken Steel) expansion, you still live, to fight another day. I thought it was pretty funny infecting the water supply with the modified FEV, seeing people die from drinking water, and your self if you drank enough. Oh well, everyone is enitiled to their opinion, except maybe he should do some research on who did the voice.

[RagTagBnd445]

KOTOR 2's ending leaved me so disappointed, MW2 was also quite bad, never tried WET.

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

Bad? Why? Because it didn't end with you taking out the badguy in a shootout where no emotional connection was made? That would have been much better. :) Maybe people wouldn't complain if developers would just put generic endings back in games and never take risks with new ideas.

[Greysturm]

MW2 is really a low point on endings. The story was tense and interesting then they made a switch and never took the time to do a decent exposition of the motives beyond a half assed speech at the end and a pretty lousy attempt at recreating the final secuence from MW1 and judging by the infinity ward fiasco its a terible conclusion to the modern warfare series since it added no further insights into soap and mactavish or a clear resolution of conflict.

[TheoreticalParticle]

Dead on again. MW2's ending was a load of crap, but it was a fitting conclusion for how awful the story in that game was.

You're going after some old guy. There are two of you who are younger and in better shape. You go over a waterfall, he gets shot down in a freaking helicopter explosion, and doesn't bail out.

You find him and trail him, yet he's in much better condition than you are. Your character falls for the oldest trick in the book. And then he proceeds to beat the crap out of yet ANOTHER younger, enraged soldier WHO GETS THE DROP ON HIM.

It's straight out of a Michael Bay movie. The only way it could have been more over the top is if the knife somehow exploded in Lance Henriksen's face.

And to agree with the OP, lord was KOTOR 2's ending bad. The author of the article doesn't mention this, but the 15-second cutscene is preceded by you somehow losing all your teammates in trip to the final battle, and then you can learn about what happens to them IN SPEECH after you finish off the last boss. You have 5-10 second clips of dialogue tell you what happens to each of your companions you've been playing the game as for some 30 hours. The thing is, people did digging on the ROM, and found all this extra voice recorded for that section, but it apparently got cut because Bioware rushed the game out the door. (Why none of this is mentioned in the article? I don't know.)

[RedDevils]

I think LeonSKennedy4Life is MW2 fanboy hahaa, so you guys better be careful of what you saying :P

[dgroundwater]

This author misses the point of WET I think.

"she comes across a freaky looking woman who looks like she step out of a sci-fimovie. She only cropped up about two-thirds through the campaign so it’s also unclear who she is or what she wants."

First of all, this villain shows up around the 2nd mission. Also, WET is supposed to be a b-movie experience with odd and offensive characters. Why should character development or detail really matter. He is aware 90% of this game is shredding people apart in slow motion?

[SuperStrokey1123]

Im kinda surprised that borderlands didnt make it, great game but terrible ending lol.

[Tony-A]

I must be the only one who doesn't think Halo 2's ending was THAT bad. I kinda enjoyed it (although not as much as the Halo 3 ending, which I thought was better) And as for "almost" putting MGS4 on the list......

A story stretching twenty years long was tied in one AAA title COMPLETELY. They managed to close up pretty much any question one might have had, which is tough to do even in a trilogy, let alone a 20-year old story.

[BannedForNineYears]

Pictures aren't aligned properly. -_-

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

So...two of my favorite endings EVER made it onto this list. Haha.

Gears of War 2 left me in silence. It was amazing! Screw this guy and the rest of you losers who knocked Gears 2 for actually connecting you to the characters. Gears of War was one of the most repetitive games I've ever played. Gears 2 was constantly switching it up...and had dialogue that made me love the characters.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has an amazing ending also. The only difference between that and the first one is the slow motion. What is this guy smoking? It was a brilliant ending! You all hated it because it was so popular though. I understand. It's ok to stop enjoying something because you think you're too cool for it. :) Makes the rest of us feel better about our decisions. The campaign was amazing in general! I'll never understand how some people didn't like it.

[TheBand1t]

Believe it or not, some of us don't hate popular games. We hate popular games with unwarranted popularity.

NSMB Wii? Awesome game that is popular. Love it to death. Hate MW2.

[djfullshred]

I agree that the FO3 ending sucked, mainly because an open world game that has tons of stuff to do outside of the main quest should not have an ending that kills off the player character. I didn't see it coming, and was pissed that the game could not continue after that mission.

Honerable mention Far Cry 2...the story was pretty weak, and made no sense why your character agrees with his protaganist to go on a suicide pact mission at the end. WTF?

[Cernunnos]

Wow... Someone actually completed that insanely boring game that is FC2?

[ALFAxD_CENTAURO]

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (for Consoles) ending.

[bigtrucknd]

Any game that I spend 60 dollars on and ends in 8 or less hours is a bad ending.

[Umbrella Corp]

I wont lie.I just brought Metal Gear Solid 4,yeah I know why not sooner -___-
Anyways when I beat it I couldnt help but shed a few tears.All the pain that Snake went through...his final mission to set the world right....than when I saw him put the gun in his mouth I wanted to physically stop him,and with Raiden making up with his wife and seeing his son it showed me he is not just a killing machine he is still a human.It was an amazing game with a epic ending.

[ALFAxD_CENTAURO]

Why don't you edit that for the people who wants to play MGS4 and don't know what nothing about it.

[pilotpistolpete]

The game is over two years old, kinda past the "spoiler alert" phase.

Why don't we just stay ho-hum on the whole Mario/Bowser conflict from SMB3?

[djfullshred]

lol, I think if anyone is worried about spoilers, they shouldn't read an article & posts about "game endings"

[foxxy]

Just saw Alan wake ending yesterday it should be on the list me and my freind wasn't feeling it slapped all those people who payed 60$ in the face cause it didn't answer anything and it was like you need to buy the second one to find out what happens alan is the dullest main chracter to ever be in a video game and for a writer you never understand anything he says something at end that your like faceplam this game is stupid sorry if I'm bashing just being honest.

[evolution54]

Fable II! That game has got to be one of the most disappointing endings for a game of that caliber. It literally felt like a slap in the face. There wasn't even a final boss! How lame was that?

[akaFullMetal]

assassins creed had a horrible ending.

[AEtherbane]

The fact they they added a CDI games makes me think.. Did any of those games have a good ending? Im pretty sure every CSI game has worse endings than Gears, Halo, Wet and the others listed.

[PS360PCROCKS]

MW2 and Gears 2 take the cake. I never even played MW2 actually, til a month ago I tried it at a friends, somehow I played the last level and it was retarded. Same stupid slow motion crap from the first one. It was cool the first time, the 2nd time I was just left saying really? The SAME ending?

[HopSkotch]

Let's be honest...the only reason fallout 3 ending sucked...is because it had an ending. Oh and did anyone even play COD MW2 single player? lol

[Cernunnos]

Well the single player was certainly better than the horrible multiplayer. And the FO3 ending was pretty bad...

[Cernunnos]

Wow... He really didn't understand the MGS2 ending at all. Way to fail...

[DarkSpawnClone]

i agree heavily with fallout 3,i was enjoying it so much(except for the horrible shooting mechanics)then i got to the ending and i hated it i wanted more then that ended to soon for me after all that hard work,just didn't feel all that great of a game after that to me, never played it again after

[dalehitchy]

why has bioshock not been mentioned.The problem with all these games is that they were great only to be let down by a completly rushed endng. the twist towards the ending of bioshock as great... but the actually ending.. felt so rushed.... a 1 min clip then done

[Figboy]

and while there are certainly some bad ones out there, i grew up in a generation where your only "ending" was "Congratulations, A Winner is You!"

so to have a game with an actual ending like the MGS series have, is fricking FANTASTIC!

MGS4's ending, i thought, was great, even if it did go on for too long. they wrapped up 20 years of franchise history in one game. that's pretty impressive.

in either case, this list was better than most of the "top this or that" lists we get.

at least we can agree that most of those endings were terrible. i don't think people really understand how HARD it is to end something in a satisfactory way.

in most storytelling, the audience EXPECTS good to triumph over evil, but there are only really so many ways to accomplish that in a story, ESPECIALLY when the plots are as simple as they tend to be in gaming/movies/tv, etc.

MGS is a very complex game, and it has a rather unique set of endings for each of the four main games in the series (with, in my opinion, MGS3's ending being the best in the entire series, simply perfectly executed), in that they don't follow traditional endings, and often go well beyond just character/story conclusion.

anyway, i love a good game ending. some of my favorites are Chrono Trigger's multiple endings, Shadow of Destiny's multiple endings, Beyond Good and Evil, Shadow of the Colossus, Metal Gear Solid 3 and 4, Second Sight, God of War Trilogy (each game's endings were very satisfying), and Ico's ending. there are a few more, but those are the ones that i really enjoy and can recall vividly.

[Colonel-Killzone]

Mgs2 ???? That ending was amazing it was suppose to make you want more.

[mochi]

i think god of war 3 is worst

[StrikerZ3ro112]

The worst ending of all time belongs to Pariah, you spend about 10 hours playing through the game and when you get to the end there is no boss, no epic battle. You are treated to a cutscene in which your character shoots himself in the head and your love interest that you are trying to save the whole game explodes into pieces.

*cue credits*

goddam that was messed up.

[Gamer luv]

Interesting how different people have different taste in endings.

For instance i really liked the MGS2 ending, the twist in the story is what does it for me and found it satisfying enough.

I also liked actualy liked Halo 2's ending, setting up the scene for the next installment, isnt that what the writer of this article says an ending should do? Well thats what it does..

Gears of War 2, again i enjoyed the ending, hyping up the next game after a great play throughout

I agree with FallOut 3 however, me, my brother and a friend put hours an hours into that game and then was like WTF this is it!!?

And like Leon says above, Modern Warfare 2's ending i thought was amazing, i understand there seems to be all this hate with anything regarding call of duty now days, you need to cut it some slack.

All in all i dont think its a very good list of bad endings, i mean there are fu***ng hundreds of crap games out there and your teling me Halo, Gears, MGS, Fallout 3 all made it on this list of only 10 games?
Dont make me laugh.

I do understand though the author needed to put this big hitters on this list otherwise there would be no point in reading it.

[Xeall]

Resi 5? or perhaps the dreamcast original version of Resi:code V?

Resi 5 was such a bad ending and considering you talk about similarities to previous games being a downer, this one takes the cake.

Big bad guy, too strong to kill, fetch rocket launcher, BOOM, done.

Code V did have this scene, but then just ended without any resolution at all.

Run to plane, fly off, swear revenge, done.

Thank god for the expansion to that ending in the PS2 version (and GC) later.

OH Devil may cry 2 and Crysis were both poor.

And although I'm gonna be called for trolling on this one Alan Wake. I wont ruin it, but the ending is cliched and dissapointing. Like FF12 (another one) you can tell there is a sequel story coming and the developers just didn't bother making the game a whole. Alan Wake is still a damn good game, just leaves on a low.