What are your thoughts on multiple endings?

[Rad Party God]

Personally, I can't stand it.

I don't believe I've ever seen it done well. It always seems to boil down to one of three things:

A. You choose it at the very end, rendering it kind of worthless (See Deus Ex, Mass Effect 3, etc.)
B. The "Evil" ending versus the "Good" ending (see Fable, Infamous, etc.)
C. Just a bunch of really shitty endings because they have to account for everything you've done (see basically any multiple ending games)

In fact, I would love for someone to point out a game that did multiple endings well. Maybe they do exist somewhere but I sincerely doubt it.

I've even gone so far as to say that Mass Effect 3's ending would have been much better if they would have one solid ending. Instead, you get the worthless choice ending where it's pretty much the same thing no matter what you choose (and this is coming from someone who enjoying ME3's ending; I just pretend there was no choice and Shepard did what he have done).

Chrono Trigger has 13 endings and I think the DS and PS1 version have even more. They range from silly to bad to great and there even are like 2 or 3 "good" endings with varying degrees and they all wrap up pretty good, never leaving a bad mouth taste or a shitty "to be continued" message (except the PS1 version, wich lead to Chrono Cross).

I don't mind multiple endings in videogames, what I seriously can't stand are the "cliffhanger" endings, especially for those games planned as a trilogy but never manage to get past the first game.

 

[Vausch]

I guess it depends on how they're implemented. Good v. Evil endings, those I'm iffy about because good and evil are subjective. This is especially bad when there's only 2. New Vegas I thought did well, it showed how your actions helped each important individual you met (save for the Apocalypse people in the town, that was glitched so they could never do well).

It would be nice to see a system kinda like Fallout NV's one where there is no clear indication of Karma, and the choices made affect how the game is played along the way as well. Then the ending really has some impact because there could be dozens of combinations.

Now the ones I hate are the ones that require you to be all good or all evil to get the best stuff. Those have no excuse, you're just giving us a crap ending otherwise.

 

[Redd the Sock]

On the whole I don't hate them, but given the current length of games and number released that don't need to exist to ad repaly value as much anymore, but still need to exists to personalize story and gameplay. The obvious moral choice systems are lazy if not potentially contirdictory. New Game + endings a la Chrono Trigger also don't entirely count to me given some are gimicky and without plot, and you really are intended to see a "true" ending well before getting any of them.

Mass Effect 2 does alrgiht, but it does feel without overall consequence when in and of itself all you get are a few extra people on ship for a few seconds. Yet it still works best for me given the choices are obvious and natural. Silent Hill gets the idea right, but the triggers for what ending you get can be very obtuse and easially missed. Bioshock plants the element of consequence throughout the game, but it's so binary and manipulative. Fallout New Vegas probably does best overall.

 

[Gergar12_v1legacy]

The problem is for me most games have a one faction bias where if you don't side with that faction or if their is a grey faction you can't visit venders, and shops(Fallout), and the fact that their well always be one fairy tail, and one from a depressed guy.

 

[ARandomGuy]

C'mon no mention of Daggerfall? It had multiple endings yet they somehow managed to tie them all together in Daggerfall's successer Morrowwind. Multiple endings that lead to a sequel are fine in my book as long as the writers are clever enough to incorporate them in a good enough way. Like The Suffering or at least that's what I remember the name being where you could start off the second game of it from the ending that you got in the first game, or The Walking Dead where the game adapts to the choices that were done.

Although I have a severe hate against games that don't go with the previous game and force the player to start the second game with the best possible ending that could be attained in the previous game.

 

[Cannibal Johnson]

I like them, because It lets people choose the way they want things to end without another group of people complaining. For example, lets say there is a game with a depressing as shit ending, the people who like that stuff will like it but the people who wanted a brighter ending will have something to ***** about. Flip it around and make a happy ending, the people who wanted a depressing ending will start bitching. If a game has multiple endings that the player can choose. (Theoretically) People won't complain as much because if they didn't like that happy ending, they don't have to have it, they can choose their ending and vice versa. I don't like games with pre set endings because it makes me feel like my efforts are all for nothing if I don't get some sort of fallout or aftermath from my actions. I also don't like endings where my character dies for the same reason

 

[tippy2k2]

Spec Ops: The Line, brah.

They actually do matter in there because all that happens in the end is about you, the player, and not what you did to the world of the game

I keep hearing this recommendation. I love FPS's and maybe it's about time I pay attention to the hype and get this game (even if Yahtzee spoiled a bit in his review...)

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Its hard to say

Games with only 1 ending, you beat it...might as well trade it in right away, cause its a dead game after that.

And yet the same never happens with books. I like a single ending. It makes it seem like a more comprehensive story. Most multiple endings feel like those shitty "Make your own story!" books where you turn to a specific page. If youre going to let me pick my ending give me total choice of what i get to do. Dont make the generic "Good, evil, neutral" options. Make each ending engaging and balanced and to make it make sense. Dishonored, while it falls into the three moralities trap, felt SO GOOD in two playthroughs.

Minor spoilers but the reason it worked is because the characters changed depending on your play. On a low chaos nice playthrough characters got on well and joked with eachother. On an evil playthrough tempers flared and arguments broke out right from the offset between the characters about my actions. The impressionable "Daughter" character became cold and aloof when she saw i was a murderer rather than friendly when i was a moral person. Insults were carefully hidden in every conversation. It felt real and natural that the ending went the way it did, that the entire characters personalities fitted with the ending. Not a basic "Its all the same except the ending" bullcrap you sometimes see which is pretty jarring because you see 99% the same actions but totally different endings which doesnt make a lot of sense.

I think that in most games single endings make for a better story because it gives a more focussed ending. There tend to be too many loose ends with multiple endings because the developers basically have to write different stories unless they change JUST the ending which kind of sucks.

 

[YCRanger]

The biggest failure though would have to be Heavy Rain. Watch Zero Punctuation about it and assume that I agree 100% with Yahtzee because...Well, I really do agree 100% with Yahtzee when it comes to that game and the ending.

I talked to like 5 friends and we all had different endings, some radically so. I thought it was done particularly well as all the endings were interesting and left significantly different tones for the end. To me it was the best example of an organic multiple ending scenario as all the different endings make sense in the context of the story. I'm finishing my first playthrough of Dragon Age Origins and I'm interested to see how that works out

 

[Studsmack]

Upon thinking about it for a good minute or so after reading the first couple of posts, I would say that if done in a very particular way, then I really like multiple endings.

I think that the way "multiple endings" have been done in some games such as ME3 and Deus Ex:HR aren't particularly strong ways to execute the idea of having multiple endings.

I feel like the best way that the whole idea of "multiple endings" has been approached is when the differences are reflected mainly in the characters as opposed to some world/universe changing event that happens at the end.

Spoiler: Mass Effect 2 spoilers. Just to be polite.

This is why I felt that ME2's "multiple endings" was absolutely fantastic. Sure you can say that "technically" it was mainly your squad assignments at the end that determined the ending, but at least it took into account whether you did the side-missions to acquire loyalty. The overall ending of the game pretty much remained the same except for the ending where Shepard dies. However, the thing that changes is the lives of the characters that you've traveled with. This allows for a feeling of actually having an effect on the game you just played, yet the fact that the effects are mostly personal allow one the developer a fair amount of freedom in a potential sequel.

I agree with this. It is significantly harder to impact the players with world changes than it is to affect players over changes in the characters themselves. The idea of Mass Effect 2 supporting characters being at the mercy of player choice rings much more powerful than most dynamic endings I've had come across in gaming.

 

[Dfskelleton]

Once again, it depends how well they're executed. Spec Ops: The Line, Silent Hill 2 and the original Deus Ex all had brilliant instances of multiple endings, because there was no "good" or "bad" ending. In Silent Hill and Spec Ops, it was more of a difference between depressing and bittersweet, whereas Deus Ex had a variety of pros and cons for each ending you could choose.

However, there are always those like Human Revolution and Bioshock. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love both of those games, especially Bioshock, but in terms of multiple endings...
The endings to Human Revolution just felt so anticlimactic and stale compared to the rest of the game, while Bioshocks endings were just so ridiculously polarized.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of multiple endings, I'd like to bring up an old game I've been playing on and off; Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within.
Being a fan of the original 2 games (AKA the Scissorman plot arc), I decided to play this one out of morbid curiosity, despite the horrible things I have heard about it.
Not wanting to get too off subject, I'll get to the point: The game proudly boasts "13 different endings!", but about 10 of them are just your character dying at different points in the game.

 

[Zelcor]

Three Words: Star Fox Command.

9 endings each completely different from the others all offering insights into the future of the series and being able to play as different sets of characters other than the SF team was pretty fun. That and each playthrough based on the endings was a completely different set of enemies and missions.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I don't believe I've ever seen it done well. It always seems to boil down to one of three things:

A. You choose it at the very end, rendering it kind of worthless (See Deus Ex, Mass Effect 3, etc.)
B. The "Evil" ending versus the "Good" ending (see Fable, Infamous, etc.)
C. Just a bunch of really shitty endings because they have to account for everything you've done (see basically any multiple ending games)

In fact, I would love for someone to point out a game that did multiple endings well. Maybe they do exist somewhere but I sincerely doubt it.

Well, these for starters:

*Ahem*
Chrono Trigger, Catherine, Chrono Cross, Deus Ex, Dragon Age, Heavy Rain, Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Parasite Eve II, Resident Evil, Shadow of Destiny, Star Ocean II

Although, from that list, I can only personally vouch for Chrono Trigger, Catherine, Chrono Cross, Dragon Age, Heavy Rain, Parasite Eve II, and KOTOR.

To that list, I'll add the following:

Fate/Stay Night (yes, a visual novel - it counts, damn it)
Parasite Eve 1 (only two endings, but still)
Nier
Silent Hill 1, 2, and 3.
Planescape: Torment

None of these games use moral choice systems, and none of these games have "shitty endings that account for everything you've done" - except maybe Dragon Age: Origins, if you're feeling mean. As to the first, some of these games have endings based on key items in your inventory. Some on hidden point systems. And some on dialogue choices made near the end of the game.

In one case (Chrono Cross), the endings depend on when you kill the final boss - you can choose to fight the final boss in the first thirty seconds of the game, and doing so gets you a different ending than if you wait until the end of the game. My favorite ending - my "best" ending - can only be gotten by fighting the final boss during a specific time in the middle of the game.

Nier, meanwhile, has a different ending each time you replay it (up to four times). You don't do anything differently, but other characters around you react differently each time, resulting in four different possible scenarios. The fourth ending also deletes your save files.

So yeah - tons of games did multiple endings well. Most of them are PS1 or PS2 era games, I'm noticing, with a only couple of titles earlier or later.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Games with only 1 ending, you beat it...might as well trade it in right away, cause its a dead game after that.

I have never understood this mentality.

My favorite game, Xenogears, has only one ending. I have played it through to the end nearly a dozen times.

I don't expect the story to be different - I wouldn't want it to be. It's a well written story with good characters and a crazy interesting mythology that has me going to Wikipedia to do research on gnosticism to get a richer experience out of the game. And then playing it again.

I can understand returning a BAD game after one play through. A game with a boring story or crappy characters or something. But I'd be returning it because it was a bad game.

Do you people (who only replay games for multiple endings) not reread books? Do you see a movie once and go "well, never need to see that again"?

 

[Zenn3k]

Games with only 1 ending, you beat it...might as well trade it in right away, cause its a dead game after that.

I have never understood this mentality.

My favorite game, Xenogears, has only one ending. I have played it through to the end nearly a dozen times.

I don't expect the story to be different - I wouldn't want it to be. It's a well written story with good characters and a crazy interesting mythology that has me going to Wikipedia to do research on gnosticism to get a richer experience out of the game. And then playing it again.

I can understand returning a BAD game after one play through. A game with a boring story or crappy characters or something. But I'd be returning it because it was a bad game.

Do you people (who only replay games for multiple endings) not reread books? Do you see a movie once and go "well, never need to see that again"?

I'll measure it up with watching a movie, since I'm not much into books.

I can lay back, put my feet up, and enjoy a movie I've seen 500 times before, thats no problem.

However, playing through a game again, when I know the plot, know the choices, know the outcomes...just doesn't do it for me. It feels tedious. If I REALLY enjoyed it, I can play through it a couple more times, but eventually, it dies for me.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I'll measure it up with watching a movie, since I'm not much into books.

Not into books? **lip quiver**

I can lay back, put my feet up, and enjoy a movie I've seen 500 times before, thats no problem.

However, playing through a game again, when I know the plot, know the choices, know the outcomes...just doesn't do it for me. It feels tedious. If I REALLY enjoyed it, I can play through it a couple more times, but eventually, it dies for me.

... what if a game has no choices in the first place?

I get that in some (recent) games, where you're constantly asked to make binary choices, that once you've chosen the Good and Bad options, there isn't much left. This is why I generally don't play (or play and sell) titles like that - because the writing sucks.

However, a game like - say - Xenogears has no choices. The story is always the same, your characters always do the same things. A replay - aside from individual combats and perhaps accessory choices - will be identical to the previous one. Since the player is never called upon to make choices, there is no "choice burnout" - you just sit back and enjoy.

How is that different than watching the same movie 500 times?

 

[Zenn3k]

I'll measure it up with watching a movie, since I'm not much into books.

Not into books? **lip quiver**

I can lay back, put my feet up, and enjoy a movie I've seen 500 times before, thats no problem.

However, playing through a game again, when I know the plot, know the choices, know the outcomes...just doesn't do it for me. It feels tedious. If I REALLY enjoyed it, I can play through it a couple more times, but eventually, it dies for me.

... what if a game has no choices in the first place?

I get that in some (recent) games, where you're constantly asked to make binary choices, that once you've chosen the Good and Bad options, there isn't much left. This is why I generally don't play (or play and sell) titles like that - because the writing sucks.

However, a game like - say - Xenogears has no choices. The story is always the same, your characters always do the same things. A replay - aside from individual combats and perhaps accessory choices - will be identical to the previous one. Since the player is never called upon to make choices, there is no "choice burnout" - you just sit back and enjoy.

How is that different than watching the same movie 500 times?

I get it, I see where you're coming from, and if you can play Xenogears dozens of times...dude, enjoy it, lol.

I'm just can't, usually, do that. As for books, yeah, I'm too ADD for books, I'm bored long before I finish them, then I put them down and never pick them back up.

If that made your lip quiver, you're gonna be really upset when I tell you I never finished Xenogears, the plot started to get all crazy at some point during the game, I went "what the fu..." and never played it again, I don't even remember where, it was years ago, shortly around its release. I should try and find a copy to play one of these days, give it a 2nd try 10 years later, will probably understand it more this time.

 

[lacktheknack]

To everyone saying "The endings never acknowledge my actions":

Play Geneforge. ALL OF IT. NAO.

OT: It depends how they're done.

Proper multiple-endings: Geneforge is a good example. It takes your actions and every major decision you make factors into the ending. Used lots of canisters? Ending drastically changed. Killed off crucial figures? Changed ending. Didn't do much at all, but opted to end the game straightaway? There's an ending for that, too. Killed absolutely EVERYTHING that violates the in-game culture laws? Completely different ending for that.

Good vs. Evil Endings: These are irritating, but at least they usually consider your previous actions.

Last-Second Multiple Endings: See Mass Effect 3, and the calm reasoned debates that were had about that one. (These are bad, mmmmkay?)

Earn Your Multiple Endings: see the Silent Hill games. The alternate endings are just for fun, and based entirely off of in-game stats. These are fun, but not a draw.

Pan Canon Ending: Only Daggerfall has done this, as far as I can tell.

All of the multiple endings are canon.

All of them.

No, this isn't physically possible.

No, it doesn't make a lick of sense.

Yes, it is utterly hilarious to read about.

Don't do this, OK?