10 Video Games That Almost Had The Perfect Ending (But Ruined It)
A swing and a miss.
Though it typically only accounts for a small portion of a video game, nailing the ending is absolutely paramount.
Get it right and it places a cherry on top of a fantastic gaming experience, but screw it up and it can colour a player's entire time with the game in a new, unfavourable light.
It's clearly enormously challenging to do narrative justice to a medium that invites player choice and often involves an epic, sprawling scope encompassing dozens of hours of play-time, and so it's little surprise how many games miss the mark.
But even more frustrating than an out-and-out bad ending is one which very nearly arrives at the conclusion fans wanted to see, but takes a sharp left-turn towards something else entirely.
Whether a result of budgetary or scheduling constraints, creative bankruptcy, or sheer laziness, these 10 games all had the perfect ending within their sights, only to ditch it for a more cynical, corny, or straight-up disappointing one.
These endings didn't necessarily ruin the game outright, but each nevertheless left fans exasperated at how close they got to greatness...
10. Snake Kills "Big Boss"...But We Don't See It - Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
There are many, many reasons to be upset about how Metal Gear Solid V ended, not least that the game was clearly unfinished and an entire final chapter of the game was scrapped deep into production.
But a lot of fans' issues with MGSV could've been forgiven were the game's climactic plot twist executed better. Players who slog it out to unlock the final cutscene will learn that Venom Snake was not in fact Big Boss, but a brainwashed doppelganger installed in his place all along.
The clear implication is that Venom Snake is the legendary Big Boss figure who was killed by Solid Snake way back in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, thereby explaining how the real Big Boss was still able to materialise in Metal Gear Solid 4.
And while it's a neat idea, the follow-through isn't quite there. Hideo Kojima typically isn't one to shy away from fan service, so the fact that MGSV didn't end with Metal Gear 2's iconic Outer Heaven boss fight playing out from Venom Snake's perspective is an unforgivably missed opportunity.
It's highly likely Kojima did indeed have bigger plans for MGSV's game-changing twist, but per the strict deadlines imposed upon him by Konami, we ended up with only an underwhelming snippet of the entire picture.