7 Rushed Video Game Endings That Ruined Everything
Get ready to fight Sauro- oh.
Making a video game is hard. What was once doable for a lone nerd in a basement now requires a team of dozens of people and a group of corporate backers. And while corporate backers can be understanding and reasonable, they still have expectations when it comes to the amount of time and money development can take.
The most likely victim in a scramble to put a cap on a game is the ending. Inherently coming last in both the development cycle and on the priority list of the directors, grand visions about how a game wraps up will oftentimes be either abridged or made to conform to the rest of the game, in an effort lessen the difficulty of production.
Sometimes, this doesn't make a huge difference in the player experience. Sometimes... it does.
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7. Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II
KOTOR II itself was brilliant, as Obsidian Entertainment built upon Bioware's original KOTOR. The story was even better, focusing on a shell-shocked Jedi known as “The Exile”, who formed bonds with his/her squad that ran so deeply they resonated through the Force itself. The game intertwined those two aspects brilliantly, rewarding deeper connections with empowered teammates to the point where they can obtain Force powers through their friendship Exile.
In a game all about emotional investment with the protagonist's party, one would expect there to be a level of closure for them, right? ...Right?
Wrong, says LucasArts!
In an interview with Eurogamer, lead designer Chris Avellone flatly acknowledged that the game was shipped out in an unfinished state. "There would have been substantial penalties had we not have made that date," he said. While some of the fault lies with Obsidian which, according to Avellone, wasted time and resources on unimportant segments of the game, the “why” is ultimately irrelevant.
KOTOR 2, a game driven by its story on every level, ends with a 10-minute-long conversation with the primary antagonist, who goes through a PowerPoint presentation about what will happen to your squad in the next few years.
It just stinks.