How Did It End Up Like This? The Rise and Fall of Denouements in Gaming

*Beware: Spoilers within*

“Video game endings are terrible.”

It’s a controversial statement but not far from being the truth. Now, I’m not talking about the end cinematic of a game, I’m talking about how the last mission, act or hour of a game completely sours the experience of games, classic or otherwise. We haven’t moved on from final boss battles that patronise the gamer with its attack patterns and general inability to challenge. Movies took the leap from simple moving pictures to sprawling epics; literature took absurd, one-dimensional revenge tragedy and transformed it into texts that are mentioned hundreds of years on. Gaming has taken a similar leap in to the unknown and this increased scope has yielded near-photorealistic visuals, snappy scriptwriting and genuine immersion in game worlds. So why do developers persist with nonsensical boss battles and rushed denouements?