Top Ten Worst Endings in the Last 5 Years

In gaming today, stories are a huge part of the experience, and the ending means a lot after your hours of effort to reach your final goal. However, sometimes your graft is not worth the results. Koku Gamer brings you the ‘Top Ten Worst Endings in the Last 5 Years’, to celebrate (or commiserate) the most recent disappointments in gaming. Remember, this is about endings, so expect spoilers!

(note that this is a countdown, it starts at 10 and goes down to the worst ending)

It still hurts. After waiting for the release of possibly the most anticipated game of the year, it was over much too quickly. Like a couple of games on this list, it suffers from WTROMG syndrome (where’s the rest of my game). Halo 2 ended before it really got started, and gamers were outraged when the credits started to roll at what seemed like a halfway point. After the sprawling epic that was Halo: Combat Evolved, many like me felt short changed. On a side note, our famous writer Dylan S. whole heartedly disagrees with this opinion — however, we all ignore Dylan, so Halo 2 still made it on the list.

Considered by many to be one of the greatest games of the current generation, Bioshock enthralled many gamers with its grim 1950’s underwater utopia. More importantly Bioshock drew gamers into the world of Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontane, while discovering the events that led to Raptures demise. After discovering the truth about Altus and his catch phrase of ‘Would you kindly’, you find yourself on a path to fight the clever bugger in the final showdown. Upon completing the game you are shown one of three endings based on your morality — unfortunately all three sucked. Not only was the final boss battle completely out of line with the rest of the games theme, but both endings left the player feeling a little empty inside. Get cancer and die or take over the world with freaks that now magically obey you. Oh and don’t forget, you find nuclear weapons all of a sudden. Bioshock 2 is in the cards now; let’s hope they can finish this game off with as much style as they began with.

Dun dun dun, you’re the bad guys!!! Oh how that game wasted away at the end. The original ‘Gears of War’ didn’t exactly have the best ending, but it did leave you with a sense of achievement. You beat Raam (a cool boss), you blew up the bad guys, they’re not dead, cue sequel. The second game, on the other hand, just left you with a bad taste in your mouth, after what was a decidedly solid title. The final section in the game had you fight a boss that you simply couldn’t lose to, only to be rewarded with a cinematic that essentially mirrors Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Gears 2 deserved better. At least a boss fight worthy of Raam would have softened the blow.

You fight though possibly still the prettiest game on the market on high spec, through Korean soldiers, alien beings and giant robot death ships, only to be treated again, to a WTROMG situation. Your Commanding officer flies off in a chopper after going quite mad, you fight it out with an epic boss that looks like something from Warhammer 40k, your squad mate shouts for you to join him, you fly off towards the island to epic music and then the screen fades. It ends just as it got you really excited to be in the plot for the first time. Crysis Warhead seemed like it might alleviate that problem but no, we got to play as someone else during the exact same events. Crysis still hasn’t got a true sequel, making this ending a little bit worse every day.

My hate for this game can be seen clearly throughout the website. As a huge Resi fan, this game took what I loved and raped it, yes raped it. For the most part I can let it go, they can always do better next time (Though, thanks to the mass media and public liking it, I doubt I’ll ever see that day come). However something they can never take back was the destruction of the devious Albert Wesker. Wesker was the genius behind the scenes in all the Resident Evil games, collecting viruses to one day bring back Umbrella (as mentioned in Resi 4). Now, he is reduced to a raving lunatic with a plan that makes about as much sense as an ice cream sunblind. Not only that, but the end boss was a mess, with every player I’ve spoken to dying repeatedly, only to defeat the boss through trial and error. Resident Evil 5’s ending sums up my feeling of the entire game perfectly — badly executed.

A real WTROMG moment. Any Final Fantasy that ends with a ‘to be continued’ moment deserves to be on this list. FF12 ends on a blatant hold for the Nintendo DS’ Revenant Wings to continue the story, and it angered me and countless other gamers. The plot was pretty short anyway, but it felt like we only got half a Final Fantasy. Not much more can be said for this one other than if they do this in FF13 or Versus, Sqaure-Enix will have definitely lost my vote.

A poor game that actually started well, ended badly too. Satan is coming back and there is jack sh*t you can do, apart from make a choice. The female protagonist is going to be the host of Lucifer’s return; you can shoot her in the head, or leave her to her fate due to your emotional inability to pull the trigger. Leave her and the inevitable happens. You then sort of wander off, abruptly ending the game. Shoot her, and you commit an unforgiveable sin, thus making you the host. Great list of choices for something I had no control over there guys.

The ultimate WTROMG moment, KOTOR2 left you stunned as no real resolution came from anything you did in the game. Even today without a sequel, the game leaves you wondering what happened to the second half of one of the great original Xbox titles. After facing your mentor in a fated battle to discover the fate and location of Darth Revan, you get next to no explanation (and in hindsight Reven’s fate sounds a lot like the plot of Mass Effect) and fly off into the distance expecting more game play only to face the rolling credits. All was forgiven with the joy that was Mass Effect and the news of KOTOR: Online, but a final part in the trilogy would not go amiss, Bioware.

Your dead, you have %*#, you fight aliens in a massive super powered battle, the QTE lasts forever (Shenmue skillz!) and then you are treated to a depressing ending to what started as a fantastic game with a sci-fi edge. What happened half way through this game is anyone’s guess, but it was not in line with the opening feel of the game, and left gamers confused and lost when the game ended.

Dead Rising was one of the most enjoyable ‘mess about’ games ever, and if you could contain your playful side, there was actually a plot to get on with. However, after the bonus 24 hour level you could earn from doing the original 72 hour campaign, you find yourself in a hand to hand combat fight on top of a tank surrounded by zombies. Epic as that sounds, the result to this battle is much less than satisfying. The camera pans out and fades to black, leaving the whole situation completely unfinished, only to then present you with a text explanation to your escape and deeds after the final battle. You feel jipped, crushed, after working so hard to get to this point, only to be given a paragraph of text to verify your conquest. Worst ending ever….at least in the last 5 years.

Honorable mentions go to Half-life 2, Prince of Persia (recent), and Fallout 3 for having crappy endings resolved quickly by added content. Also to Fable 2, which just made it out of the top 10. If you wonder why there is a lack of Ps3 exclusives on the list, it’s due to the fact there aren’t that many, and the endings are not that bad (Give them credit — when Sony puts out an exclusive, it’s usually pretty polished). Think we missed something that deserves to replace something on this list? Even think that an ending we called out is not actually that bad? Post below and let us know what you think.