Games with multiple endings are fairly common, with player choices and playstyles often being reflected in a final cutscene or ending slide. Even some of the most linear and story-focused games provide an opportunity to choose a conclusion in some form or another. When a game like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt bases endings on the player’s relationship with Ciri, it gives players a nice cap to the end of their journey.
14 Video Games with the Most Endings
As games give players more choices, these choices can potentially change the outcome of the story and, in some cases, lead to different endings.
But what about games that have direct sequels that don’t carry over choices from a previous entry? Oftentimes, developers will need to choose a single ending to draw from in order to continue the story. Sequels may use the previous entry’s golden path or true ending when there is one available, but some sequels follow up by iterating on the bleakest final act. Here are seven games where the canon ending was the worst outcome.
There will be MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS for the following games: Drakengard, Nier, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Shadow Hearts, Shadow Hearts 2, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Far Cry 5, Far Cry New Dawn, Metro 2033, and Fatal Frame. Skip any sections that you don’t want spoiled.
Drakengard
Mass Destruction of Two Worlds
Nearly all of Drakengard’s endings are dark in some form or another. Even the first ending, Ending A, carries a bittersweet tone, with Caim’s beloved dragon partner, Angelus, sacrificing herself to become a new seal and save the world. This ending is often considered the “good” ending and leads into Drakengard 2, but Drakengard 2’s status as a canon entry itself is a bit muddled, with multiple guidebooks and statements contradicting what fits where in the grand scheme of things.
However, despite multiple timelines and branches in all of Yoko Taro’s games, the most notable continuation comes from the game’s most horrific ending: Ending E. This ending in Drakengard leads directly to the world of Nier, and the events leading up to it are wild, with multiple main cast deaths and giant man-eating babies flying through the sky, and it is often considered one of the most bizarre endings in gaming.
The events lead the world into ruin, but Caim and Angelus are eventually able to attack the final boss (the Queen Beast), transporting themselves and this queen into modern-day Tokyo. After defeating the Queen Beast, Caim and Angelus are shot down by a fighter jet as the giant grotesquerie disintegrates into tiny particles.
It is these tiny particles that are the direct cause of White Chlorination Syndrome, which causes infected humans to either die or go berserk and attack others. This disease eventually leads to the fall of mankind and the story of Nier and Nier: Automata. While Ending E was initially conceived as a joke ending, it has taken on a life of its own, becoming an enduring event that has led to the creation of Yoko Taro’s most notable and successful games.
XCOM Has Failed
Initially conceived as an exact remake of the 1994 game of the same name, the 2012 strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown stands as one of the best reboots ever. There are only two types of endings in XCOM: Enemy Unknown; one sees humanity achieve victory over the alien invaders, defeating the Ethereals onboard the Temple Ship before the ship explodes just outside of Earth’s atmosphere, and the other ending is the one where you get a game over.
The bad ending is a direct result of the nations of Earth abandoning the XCOM project, submitting to the will of the invaders. It is from this ending that XCOM 2 was born. Following the dismantling of XCOM, the aliens have taken full control, subjugating the human populace for 20 years.
Now forced to operate from the shadows from a mobile base called the Avenger, XCOM must build popular support for their cause and expose the Aliens’ foul plans. Similar to XCOM: Enemy Unknown, players will need to research new technology and strike the Aliens at strategic locations, building up their forces before a final confrontation.
Great Games Where Your Decisions Truly Matter
The following games stand out for forcing players to make tough decisions that can drastically change the story.
Shadow Hearts
Yuri Survives, but the Cost Is High
In the 2001 RPG Shadow Hearts, the main character Yuri is plagued by entities known as the Four Masks, whose only concern is to cause pain and suffering to Yuri. Living within the graveyard of Yuri’s soul, these four entities take the malice of the demons that Yuri defeats and attempt to use it against him to avenge their fallen demonic brethren. If Yuri does not address the malice within his heart, the Masks will use it to summon their chosen assassin, Fox Face, to kill him in the real world.
At some point, Yuri succumbs to madness through a fusion with a demon, and the party must stop him. After this, his love interest, Alice, confronts Fox Face to reacquire Yuri’s soul, but must exchange her own to do so. If the player has engaged in a specific sequence of sidequests and conversations, Yuri can assist Alice in this task and avoid death for both of them.
However, the real ending is the bad one in which Alice confronts the masks and their summoned evil, Atman, alone. In this version, Alice is defeated by Atman within Yuri’s soul, leading to her own being sacrificed. While events play out the same in both versions, for the most part, Alice succumbs to her lost soul and dies in the bad ending.
This is the ending from which Shadow Hearts Covenant continues, with Yuri vowing to protect people in Alice’s stead. In a strange twist, Shadow Hearts: Covenant canonizes both endings of the original Shadow Hearts, with the ending of Covenant showing Yuri traveling into the past and getting a chance to save Alice. The Shadow Hearts games are among some of the best RPGs on the PlayStation 2, so it’s a shame that they’ve fallen under the radar for so long and been left by the wayside in the process.
Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain
Kain’s Not the Guy to Make the Sacrifice Play
In Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, the vampire Kain is set upon a journey where he must restore the Pillars of Nosgoth to save the land. After having restored eight of the nine pillars by defeating their respective guardians, Kain comes to realize that he himself is the final pillar guardian and that the only way to restore the Pillar of Balance is by sacrificing himself.
While Blood Omen offers the player a choice in this matter, the real ending is the one in which Kain refuses the sacrifice, which instead dooms Nosgoth to eternal decay; Kain’s refusal causes the pillars to collapse, opening the land up to continued corruption. The next entry, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, operates from this decision, with the events of the sequel taking place nearly 1500 years after the first Blood Omen—now with Kain as the ruler of this desolate wasteland.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)
Far Cry 5
You’ll Need More Than Two Graves for Revenge
Far Cry 5 has you play as The Deputy, a customizable character sent to Hope County, Montana, to help serve an arrest warrant on preacher Joseph Seed. After the initial confrontation seems to go off without a hitch, the cult that Joseph leads retaliates and attacks the police.
Thrust into a conflict with the Eden’s Gate cult, The Deputy faces off with Joseph one final time at the end of the game and is given a choice: resist or walk away. If you walk away from the confrontation, Joseph lets The Deputy and their friends go unharmed, with the group planning to bring in the National Guard to assist against the cult. Resisting the cult, however, leads to all The Deputy’s friends being turned against the player, forcing a gunfight against both the Eden’s Gate cult and the friends.
After this confrontation, nuclear bombs go off in the distance, destroying Hope County; all of the Deputy’s friends are killed during the course of the retreat, with only The Deputy and Joseph Seed remaining safe within the bunker. This explosive ending is the one that the next game, Far Cry New Dawn, follows.
Taking place 17 years after the events of Far Cry 5, New Dawn sees the return of Joseph Seed as a major character, with Joseph leading a new organization known as New Eden. In this entry, the player character, the Security Captain, forms an alliance against the Highwaymen with Joseph, rather than facing him. At the end of Far Cry New Dawn, the player can decide Joseph’s fate, once and for all.
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Fatal Frame
Mafuyu Stays Behind to Help
Counted among the very best horror games on the PS2, Fatal Frame spawned a franchise that has captured the attention of horror gamers for the last few decades. The way endings work in Fatal Frame is a bit different than the other games on this list, as it has nothing to do with an endgame choice and is solely determined by the selected difficulty. Beating the game on Nightmare difficulty will grant players an ending where both Miku and Mafuyu escape the ordeal unharmed after Miku purifies the hostile spirit Kirie.
However, this difficulty and subsequent ending are only available after having beaten the game; the Xbox version only requires having seen the normal ending, while the PS2 version requires completing all 20 Mission Mode levels. Despite all the extra effort needed to unlock this good ending, the ending that the sequels follow is actually the normal ending, which ends on a bit of a darker turn, comparatively.
In the normal ending, events unfold quite similarly: Miku purifies Kirie with the repaired mirror, and Mafuyu is released. Things diverge afterwards, with Mafuyu choosing to stay behind in the collapsing cavern in order to provide comfort and support to Kirie in her task of preventing calamity. This ending ties directly into future games, with the events of Fatal Frame 3 directly referencing Mafuyu’s decision, and Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water also requiring this ending to have transpired.
Metro 2033
The Dark Ones are Dead
Metro 2033
- Released
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March 16, 2010
- ESRB
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M // Blood, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs, Violence
Set 20 years after a global nuclear holocaust, Metro 2033 takes place within a now-desolate Moscow, which has become populated by murderous mutants and is heavily irradiated. Supplies are scarce in the metro, especially below ground, with multiple factions fighting over limited resources such as food, water, and other supplies.
The surface has been made home by those aforementioned mutants, who have adapted to the radiation and tough living conditions; among those mutants are the Dark Ones—mysterious entities that can communicate telepathically with humans. If the player does a requisite number of kind acts throughout the game, they are given a choice to spare the Dark Ones.
However, the canon ending of the game follows that of the book it is based upon, with the player watching from afar as the Dark Ones are eradicated by a missile strike. The game ends with a shot of Artyom’s face as the Earth burns once more. The direct sequel, Metro: Last Light, once again follows Artyom, who now regrets the decision to kill the dark ones, having come to realize they only ever wanted peace.
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