The Three Titles That Have Awful Final Sequences
To play an excellent video game is an experience that stays with you for a whole lifetime. An engaging story, a fun multiplayer experience, and awesome graphics can make titles legendary. Sometimes we remember a video game series for other reasons, such as developers butchering the final sequences. Here are the top 3 offenders.
Video games are gifts that keep on giving. If you’ve been a gamer for a long time, you will know that some of the best titles will give you a fuzzy, warm feeling whenever you remember them. Games played in childhood carry strong feelings of nostalgia with them. Do you remember the first time you experienced the top titles on a Gameboy, PlayStation, or PC? Some AAA video games were so good they even had a significant impact on our culture. World of Warcraft is a case in point. One could lose themselves in a unique digital realm for days upon end, completing quests, making friends, and taking in the incredible game design. When it comes to the factors that make a video game great, answers may vary wildly. Some people love single-player games, others will exclusively play multiplayer games that are provided mostly by dedicated server hosting. For some gamers it is all about the graphics, others only care for titles that have an extremely fun gameplay aspect to them, such as opportunity to get real money. However, an incredible video game narrative always ties a game together. If the overall story is superb, one can turn a blind eye to some of the shortcomings. Rarely are games perfect. Some get the story part so wrong, that it becomes memorable in itself. How hard can you butcher the end of a game? These three games went all out, going down in video game history on what developers should avoid.
The Three Worst Video Game Endings
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
The Assassin’s Creed series has become incredibly popular due to its immersive gameplay, blood-filled fights, and beautiful gameplay design that is true to various historic periods. However, over time, the storylines of the series seem to have declined rather drastically. Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag is an example of that. Lots of people were intrigued by the whole premise of the game. Who doesn’t want to raid the seas, roam through Caribbean islands, and chase down pirates? The video game gameplay kept enthusiasts excited throughout the missions, but the story arch was quite a letdown.
As common with the Assassin’s Creed series, the game featured a double storyline. One was set in a modern future where the protagonist solves mini-puzzles to keep re-entering his reincarnational memories. The other line was one in which he lived out his pirate adventures. The modern part was hit and miss, but one gets used to that when playing AC. As for the actual pirate play – there were seeds of hope scattered throughout the beginning of the gameplay. An anticipatory excitement was there throughout the early missions, yet the second half of the game made it clear that things were getting anti-climactic. Edward Kenway, the pirate one plays, ends up in pretty much the same place where he started. He simply ends up having better costumes and a family. Good for him, not so much for the character arch. Unlike the assassins Connor and Ezio from previous titles, Edward did not evolve much, if at all. One could say the developers leaned a little too much on what the action-filled gameplay of the series established previously, and the storyline took a backseat. To be fair, the video game’s content looked gorgeous. Still, there is little redemption for a grand studio running with a storyline that was barely enough to carry the game.
Borderlands
At the finale of great video games, boss fights ensue, one gains a special item or unlocks something that ties the story together. In Borderlands, the whole game is based around having to find a key that unlocks The Vault. It gets portrayed as an amazing chamber that is filled with all kinds of secrets and riches. The whole journey in the game consists in searching for that one special key. One would think that at the end, you’d get the grand payoff. Well, surprise, surprise. In the end, one finds out that The Vault can not be opened.
In a sane storyline, this would be an intriguing point at the middle of the story. Some plot twist would prompt you to seek another solution, understand that the answer was in plain sight all along, or something else would happen that carries the mission forward. Borderlands chose to take the most stupid option possible. After more than ten hours of open-world gameplay, nothing got resolved, and it ended up being as anti-climactic as it could have gotten. Essentially, that rendered the whole game adventure pointless. Borderlands sure went down in history as an epic failure of video games. Funnily enough, even the game developers admitted that the game did not reach expectations, even though that is putting it mildly.
The Stanley Parable
The Stanley Parable is not exactly a game that can be considered normal. It does not have one end, but more than ten of them. All of the endings have varying degrees of ridiculousness to them. A few of them are somewhat entertaining, others are preposterous, and a few are just dreadful. One could believe that the endings consisted of inside joke material or that the creators were trying to be clever. However, the indie game company Galactic Café has a history of being extremely deliberate in its efforts. There is little chance the endings weren’t well thought out to be what they are.
For example, the “coward” option results in you closing a door at the very start of the game. That concludes the game for you, and no real effort is required on your part. Another end is the “heaven” option. Upon choosing it, you end up someplace where you keep pressing colorful buttons. One can try to draw borderline philosophical conclusions at this artful closure to reap some sort of satisfaction, but it didn’t work for us. What tops this choice is the “divine art” ending. After choosing that option, you end up pressing two buttons in the presence of a crying baby and a dog that keeps barking for hours. Those who endured the procedure in the name of science say that the dog keeps barking for four hours straight. After that, you get a short presentation that features a black brick and an inspirationally toned text. The Stanley Parable is an odd, bewildering experience. If you find joy in it, then that is great, but for most people, the average video game endings simply seem like cheap shock value or washed-up riddles that don’t hit the mark.
We hope that you enjoyed our little trip down video game history road. These three titles are great for learning what should be avoided when making a game. That is not to say that the gameplay experiences are not worth the effort. The titles are mostly just disappointing at their final stages. You could still enjoy playing through the games, but don’t expect some satisfying story arch. Few game titles nail it all, but when they do, it is a pretty glorious experience. What are your favorite titles and video game worlds to roam around in? What games did you find memorable for the wrong reasons? We would love to know your thoughts. Please leave your comments down below!
Robert Griffith is a content and essay writer. He is collaborating with local magazines and newspapers. Robert is interested in topics such as marketing and history.
