#ONE DOG STORY GAME ENDINGS SERIES#
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - which, coincidentally, remains the best game in the series - has a pretty straightforward plot, but makes up for this simplicity by building a complex, nuanced relationship between the Prince and his lone companion/love interest Farah. Sure, we’ve seen this same sort of sacrifice trope in countless stories before, but that shouldn’t discount how effectively Super Metroid used the device to stand out from the pack.
The Metroid larva ends up sacrificing itself to save Samus and the bounty hunter channels the larva’s last gift of energy into a final attack that destroys Mother Brain. The build-up to the final battle with Mother Brain is intense and the battle itself is arguably one of the greatest in gaming, not only from a design perspective, but in its emotional payoff too. The game itself is pretty much 2D action-platforming perfection, but what helps Super Metroid stand out is how this relationship between Samus and the Metroid larva takes center stage for the game’s final act. Take the SNES classic Super Metroid for example, which builds itself around a simple but effective mother/child relationship involving series heroine Samus Aran and a Metroid larva that imprints on Samus and believes her to be its mother. The wonderful thing about video games is that they don’t need a traditional narrative to tell a compelling story. There’s also an alternate ending that can be unlocked if you find all the hidden light orbs in the game, but I feel like the original ending is ultimately stronger because of how open to interpretation it is. And the final shot is beautifully haunting. Then, out of nowhere, the tables turn and you’re rampaging through a facility as a huge, grotesque blob, which not only switches up the gameplay in an interesting way, but also helps bring home some of the the game’s running themes and motifs like oppression, control, and body horror.
When I say that Inside has one of the best endings in gaming, I’m not just talking about its ambiguous final moments but rather it’s entire last act, which has to be one of the most shocking switch-ups I’ve ever experienced in a game.įor most of the game, you play as a vulnerable young boy who constantly has to evade attacks from all sorts of threats, adding up to a gameplay experience that feels like a more refined and ambitious version of Playdead’s first game, Limbo. One of the most recent entries on this list, Playdead’s sophomore effort Inside was one of the best games to come out in 2016 and its ending in particular prompted some intense debate and discussion. If you want to avoid having any endings SPOILED for yourself, proceed with caution as I discuss each game’s ending in full. Still, there are some endings that just stick with you and stand out from the crowd, with the following 15 games concluding their stories with some of the best endings in the medium. Of course, no matter what medium you’re telling a story in, it’s difficult to write a good ending and this is true in gaming, where the majority of players never even get to the finale to see whether it’s any good or not.
Some developers have started to realize that because of their interactive nature, games can deliver different kinds of stories that just aren’t possible in movies, TV, or even books, as you’re never actually in control of the characters in any of those mediums. That being said, games are starting to catch up. When it comes to storytelling, there’s no doubt that video games still lag behind film and television, as the majority of games still feel like levels stitched together by cutscenes rather than a cohesive whole.
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