10 Obscure Video Game Endings You've Never Seen

Lara Croft gets seriously blood-thirsty in this unused Tomb Raider ending.

By Jack Pooley /

It's of course not uncommon for video games to have multiple endings - considering the highly interactive nature of the medium, it makes total sense that players would receive different outcomes depending on how they played.

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But not all endings are necessarily meant to be seen by the majority of players, or in some cases, really any players at all.

These 10 video game endings rank among the most peculiar and unexpected in the medium's history, from endings you can only unlock if you really screw things up, to those hidden deep within the game's code, and some that are oddly specific joke endings you'd struggle to find on your own.

But the Internet being what it is, these secret, left-field endings eventually made their way online for all to savour.

Ultimately it's enough to make you wonder just how many hidden endings might still be cloistered away in some of your favourite games, just waiting to be discovered by an enterprising player.

For now, though, these are the 10 most fascinatingly obscure video game endings you've probably never seen - and certainly not "the hard way," at least...

10. Lan Di Murders Ryo - Shenmue

As incredible as the original Shenmue is, it doesn't exactly offer much in the way of an ending, concluding with Ryo taking a boat to Hong Kong in pursuit of his father's killer Lan Di, setting the stage for the sequel.

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But players who excessively dawdle their way through the game can actually get a more "concrete", if bleak, ending to Ryo's story.

You can unlock this secret, bad ending by failing to reach the end of the game and leaving Yokosuka by April 15, 1987 - that's more than four months after Ryo's revenge quest begins.

This will trigger a cutscene where Ryo wakes up from a dream and is confronted by Lan Di at his home. The scene ends with Lan Di asking for the phoenix mirror and then punching Ryo, presumably fatally, triggering a Game Over.

Depressingly over the course of three games this is the most "final" outcome we've had to Ryo's story, and it's looking increasingly unlikely it'll ever be properly wrapped up as creator Yu Suzuki originally intended.

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