Least satsifying game endings?

[Zeraki]

inFamous: Second Son is the most recent offender I've experienced.

It was a fun game, but wow it seriously paled in comparison to its fantastic predecessor.

The game design and writing felt incredibly lazy, and the new touchpad gimmicks were more of a detriment than anything else. It's also incredibly short compared to inFamous 2.

I was actually surprised when I started the final mission, because I wasn't expecting the game to be over that early. Hell, I didn't even realize I was on the final mission until the final boss battle started. The whole experience felt very rushed.

When you compare it to what came before, all it really has going for it are the pretty visuals.

 

[Lightknight]

Halo 2. The ending was basically "HEY GUYS WERE MAKING A HALO 3 WOOOOOOO" and nothing else. It was just a cliffhanger, and you knew there was going to be a Halo 3.

That's a good one to mention. I remember it being completely anti-climatic for that reason.

I'm going to mention Red Dead Redemption.

Spoiler

You die while your family escapes then your son grows up without a father and ends up following the same wondering path the father fought so hard to prevent him from having to take.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

As for unsatisfying game endings...

Magical Starsign:
Ugh...Even leaving aside the fact that it goes from a goofy, fun, hilarious romp through the galaxy to a depressing as hell game after the halfway point (There is a goddamn SUICIDE on screen at one point for !@#$s sake!), the ending was a piece of crap.

Great! We finally found our teacher! ........Who is slowly being converted into gummy candy, and she's so far gone she can't make it. She sacrifices her last bit of life to help us wake up the giant moth that will kill the solar system so we can kill it...and then instead of going back to school, or even sticking together as a team, the whole band of friends splits up to do their own thing. >_> Really?

-
Sonic Chronicles (the DS RPG)
UUUGGHHHHH!

Ok, leaving aside how the game goes from "shows some promise" to "utter shit" after the halfway point, the ending...ugh...

"Yay! We beat the bad guy...OH NOES! The Dimensional Prison we're in is about to collapse! Quick! Back to our world! (dooming all the life forms in the prison, but who cares, right?). Yay! we're back in...OH NOES! Eggman took over the world while we were gone and shot us down and....TO BE CONTINUED! "

Tails even pops in in the credits (all done via 4th wall breaking dialogue, might I add), RIGHT after that and goes "Wow, looks like we're REALLY in a pickle! I can't wait to see how we get out of this in the next game! "

There was no next game. It didn't even deserve one. >: (

There are probably a ton more I've hated, but those are the only ones that really come to mind at the moment.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Halo 2. The ending was basically "HEY GUYS WERE MAKING A HALO 3 WOOOOOOO" and nothing else. It was just a cliffhanger, and you knew there was going to be a Halo 3.

Since you beat me to this one, I'm going to mention how in Halo 3 you aren't given a proper final boss. 343 is kind of a thing that I would expect as a joke, Easter-egg kind of a boss. Halo has never been good at bosses in general...honestly I would only count Tartarus and the Prophet of Regret as being actual bosses in the original trilogy...but why couldn't we fight The Flood of Charity? Why did Truth have to be killed off in a cutscene?! The biggest injustice is how The Gravemind was largely ignored when it came to gameplay...a direct confrontation may not have been a great idea when it comes to the established lore but it would have made for an actual boss fight.

 

[funkyjiveturkey]

Rage

what a let-down that was. Finally storm the gates of the stronghold of the enemy we learned very little about or why we should be fighting them, then after fending off a few cracked out borg smeagles with a minigun you get a bunch of metal shelters popping up out of the ground and then roll credits.

I could also give special mention to FarCry: Vengeance for the wii but we all know that game was a steaming pile in every sense of the word. The ending however was basically the main character telling the villian and his love interest who betrayed him that he's taking his ball and going home. Basically just saying "fuck this, i'm out".

 

[Ham Blitz]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I can't be arsed to explain or spoil it

Now that you mention it, the exact ending was kind of meh. Some of the stuff you can achieve in the final level is cool, and the final boss isn't terrible, but then just that ending. I will have to agree with our on this.

Also, Borderlands. The final boss was a joke and didn't drop anything worth keeping. I guess you get to have a small slice of the disappointment that your characters are experiencing at that moment.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas

Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 isn't much more exciting. I mean, you get closure, sort of but then again I never really cared and the main bad guy's motivation is extremely stupid (that or I missed something)

Kingdoms of Amalur
There be plot here

You know, I completely forgot about that final fight until reading this. I beat the game but literally about 25% through the game (you know, when you've experienced every different of non boss enemy there will be [so many re-skins]) I stopped caring about side quests, and most everything in the world stopped being entertaining to me. I powered through it, since the concept of the plot was cool, sadly the implementation didn't wow me (as with most of that game).
in on
Also, I will agree on Fable III. That post big plot twist time (I think the talk with your brother right after the revolution was a decent enough plot twist) was all just disappointing. It was kind of fun to be king, but I had loads of money so any "sacrifices" I had to take for being good I could mostly shrug off (I did spend a bit off time blacksmithing for money at one point though) and take the hit to my wallet. Then that final fight with the super deadly evil darkness creatures that you met once for a short period of time in a cave on the other side of the world was ridiculously easy.
I think this is the most people I have quoted in one post.

Oh, also Dark Void, but that entire game was was pretty much unsatisfying, all under 6 hours of of it.
Man, I just keep remembering more as I am about to finish. Now, Aliens: Colonial Marines, besides being a terrible game, had the dullest fight with a queen I have ever seen. Just run back and forth between safe spots to hit a button a few times and boom, game won.

 

[DishonoredElderSouls]

Fallout 3, while a good game, had a pretty absurd original ending. It's redeemed by Broken Steel, but the thing is that it shouldn't have to be redeemed in the first place. Of course, Bethesda seemed to understand the concepts of the original games in how the protagonist ultimately disappeared and became legend, but it was really poorly handled, especially considering the format and genre of this particular game.

Following the wasteland theme, Rage just a whole is probably one of the shoddiest and most rushed games I've played of the 7th generation, alongside BioShock Infinite. The difference, however, is that Rage didn't even give you the satisfaction of any sort of memorable characters or climactic ending. The game completely lacked any human element or compelling reason to play it other than the semi-unique gunplay.

TES V: Skyrim's main quest was also, as a whole, absolutely pitiful and underwhelming. The final missions had you running between High Hrothgar and Whiterun so many times that the next twenty minutes or so of my game devolved to fast traveling and conversation menus. You're destined to fight Alduin, you kill Alduin, the end.

There are more, but I'm gonna have to come back and edit this post later.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Good god yes, Borderlands. All that talk about What Lies in The Vault which can only be opened every god knows how many hundreds of years and all you get is a couple of regular trinkets out of it. What an anticlimax.

And then the game says "And now - do it all again with harder enemies! Yay!" - whoosh - back to the start. That takes Anticlimax and then tries to sell you a sweet long-term warranty immediately afterwards. I did not have the heart to open another little box full of golden money.

The only thing that saved the ending for me was the DLC, which I had saved for last. It KINDA continues the story and leaves you with just a teeny bit more closure.

 

[sageoftruth]

The one I remember best is Donkey Kong Land for the Game Boy.

"Congratulations" (End Credits).

Yep. That's the ending. Not even a picture with the characters posing in it. Just the word "Congratulations" immediately followed by the end credits. A real letdown, considering how hard the game was for me to finish back then.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

The one I remember best is Donkey Kong Land for the Game Boy.

"Congratulations" (End Credits).

Yep. That's the ending. Not even a picture with the characters posing in it. Just the word "Congratulations" immediately followed by the end credits. A real letdown, considering how hard the game was for me to finish back then.

Ugh..that game is still hard to finish these days. Mostly due to a ton of technical flaws.

So yeah, it's even more disappointing. :s

 

[sageoftruth]

The one I remember best is Donkey Kong Land for the Game Boy.

"Congratulations" (End Credits).

Yep. That's the ending. Not even a picture with the characters posing in it. Just the word "Congratulations" immediately followed by the end credits. A real letdown, considering how hard the game was for me to finish back then.

Ugh..that game is still hard to finish these days. Mostly due to a ton of technical flaws.

So yeah, it's even more disappointing. :s

For sure. Especially among this thread's list of games that actually have endings.

 

[GabeZhul]

TES V: Skyrim's main quest was also, as a whole, absolutely pitiful and underwhelming. The final missions had you running between High Hrothgar and Whiterun so many times that the next twenty minutes or so of my game devolved to fast traveling and conversation menus. You're destined to fight Alduin, you kill Alduin, the end.

To be fair, Skyrim is about exploration, exploitation and extermination, not ex-... -tremely good writing? Yeah, let's go with that.

What I mean by that is that when it comes to storytelling, it is all about lore and immersion and not so much about plot and spectacle. I admit that the game's writing in those aspects was pretty bad (and also pretty illogical at times *cough*gettingappointedarchmageevenifyoucanbarelycastanyspells*cough*), but it is one of those flaws one can skim over because TES never ever posed as a serious plot-driven series.

Also, I personally thought the wading through Sovngarde and the final battle was pretty awesome, but then again I am a big fan of TES lore, so just presenting me with the opportunity to see Sovngarde was enough.

 

[Catfood220]

Farcry 3:

You spend the entire game killing everything that moves in an attempt to get your friends back. You meet a woman (can't remember her name) who drugs you and tries to convince you of your birth right and get you to stay with her. After murdering everyone, she drugs you again and gives you a choice whether to kill you friends or not. Well woman, seeing as I spent the entire game trying to get them back, no, I'm not going to kill my friends. I was thinking of staying with you, you are far more interesting than my whiney entitled girlfriend. However my whiney entitled girlfriend has not tried to get me to kill my friends, so I'm going with her. Then the woman dies and you get a voice over saying that he was probably going to be alright when he gets back to the real world.

Thanks game, that was really worth it.

Dead Space 2:

You defeat the final boss and Isaac is sitting in The Sprawl while the self destruct counts down, resigned to his fate. I liked where this was going, I still think that Isaac shouldn't have been in the third game. The woman you met along the way (again I forget her name) comes back in the shuttle that she escaped in earlier in the game and saves your arse. The game cuts to Isaac sitting in the cockpit of the shuttle and in a scene that mirrors the ending to the first game, he looks across and instead of seeing zombie Nicole like he did at the end of the first game, he sees the other woman. Game over. What? Ok, I suppose that was a happy ending and Isaac's story is now done surely.

Also, any game that ends on a cliff hanger without any chance of it being resolved. And also, "Thank you Mario, now start again for a new challenge".

Oh well, I suppose its the journey that's important more than the destination.

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

Mafia 2... Shit was just getting real and then out of nowhere, credits.
I stood there confused for a minute before I flipped the desk in rage.

 

[ABLb0y]

Outlast: The whole last level was kind of pants, but

Spoiler

after all the effort you put into finding the truth and all the danger you've faced you get possessed and shot (possibly fatally) by SWAT and the weird ghost thing is released to destroy the world.

The end.

I honestly can't decide whether I hate

Spoiler

The hero dies

or 'It was all a dream' more as an ending...

 

[josemlopes]

Well, since the first Borderlands has already been mentioned, I think I'll go with...

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas

There's a pretty lackluster battle, the bad guy that you'd been chasing gets away, and the last line of dialogue from the main character is, "We gotta see this through, this ain't over by a long shot!"

Fade to black screen with "TO BE CONTINUED" written across it.

Fuck you too, R6V.

EDIT:
Also, INB4 Half-Life 2: Episode 2.

It managed to be a lot better then the R6V2 ending.

"We are all tacticool and shit, silencers on, lets take those fuckers out with our superior tactical skills, oh wait, they have an attack helicopter and we have to fight it in an open tennis courtyard with our rifles and SMGs, and I am alone for some reason, just a dude against an attack helicopter"

Its just doesnt fit in the game at all.

 

[jdogtwodolla]

No more heroes
It ended in a purposely convoluted way that I was really hoping they would address in the sequel. But then game 2 came out the ending only became worse.

Infamous second son (The good ending)
It's just like the rest of the game, quick with no explanation along the way. Delsin lets out all the imprisoned conduits and the story basically says conduits and humanity "decided to live happily ever after". Humanity is just gonna be cool with all conduits because one conduit wasn't a dick to one city? I guess no other conduit is emotionally fucked after coming out of prison. Y'know, just how the other three you meet definitely aren't.

Also, the antagonists attitude does not mesh with her motivation. She wants to save all conduits, So she gathers them all up, and she tortures them. Never explained why but she does. She also gets a few of them "mission ready", although we are never told what that mission is or why after they're trained for it she just decides to try putting them in a hole.

 

[jamail77]

This is tough. I've played WAY more good games than bad ones and even more games with good endings (if overall bad games) than games with bad endings. Can I include Metroid: Other M? The whole plot was terrible though it was the character development moreso that really stood out in its terribleness. The ending wasn't really any worse however. I'm not sure if I can count that because how could it satisfy me following the story's terrible framework? I was already prepared for something stupid. I bought it solely because the gameplay seemed fun honestly.

I really liked the Star Wars Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series. Jedi Knight: Jedi Knight Academy had some fun new improvements but the story was severely lacking, writing maybe moreso, and characters? Minus Luke and Kyle Katarn forget about it. The games were more about the mythology and Kyle Katarn's "cool rogue" personality than about writing, but they all came together well. Like Metroid, this is more about the entire game's story lacking vs the majority of games listed in this thread, in which the ending seems to be particularly annoying in a game that had an entertaining story to lead up to it. To be fair, Academy's ending probably was subpar to the rest of the story. The story had its moments and I enjoyed killing Rosh when playing Dark Side. Anyone who's played knows he was a pretty terrible character who had 0 real reason to do what he did. Of course, the sequence to kill him is terrible, relies too much on evil overcoming you BS trope that Star Wars popularized. Despite my love of Star Wars, that trope is so frustrating.

There is probably a game I've played that more fits in line with the majority examples here, but I can't think of it at the moment.

 

[fhmy]

Virtue's Last Reward, especially after 999's pretty satisfying ending. I was getting pretty hyped for a climactic segment in the Nevada base but then it skipped right to the epilogue (cliffhanger).

It was the same confusion I felt when I got the coffin ending on my first run in the first game, but this time it was for the true ending. That's not the kind of emotion you want to evoke for the ending of your game.

 

[COMaestro]

I'm going to have to go with Dishonored. The story was always heavy handed and totally predictable, but to have it wrap up with just some text, slideshow and voiceover was pretty crappy.

And to be honest, I was a bit disappointed in the ending to Shadow of the Colossus. It wasn't the worst ever by any means, but I was expecting something other than what it was.