9 Most Disappointing Video Game Finales

By Jess McDonell / October 31, 2023

A good video game finale might not make or break a series, necessarily, but as the final impression you’re left with upon wrapping up the story, it’s pretty darn important.

While some video games manage to end on the perfect note, with a satisfying tying up of narrative threads and meaningful payoff in the development of their characters and plotlines, some are, well, not so great. Whether they petered out rather than concluded with a bang, left too much unresolved, or appeared to betray the motivations and goals of their central character, these game endings were kind of the worst.

For now, let’s commiserate on these unsatisfying endings, crappy closings, routine roundups, and depressing denouements so they hurt a little less.

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9. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - Metal Gear Solid

If you’ve played this one chances are you knew it was going to be awarded with an entry on this not so illustrious list so let’s just get it out of the way now.

After an enormously compelling saga peppered with memorable twists, fantastic characters, incredible set-pieces, and more Snakes than you can shake a stick at, fans were understandably hyped for Metal Gear’s epic conclusion that was The Phantom Pain.

Now, things don’t get off to a bad start here. The story is unusual but not alarmingly so, especially since Metal Gear aficionados are always prepared for things to get a little kooky. Or a lot kooky. That isn’t the problem. What is the problem is the end of the game which reeks of the relationship breakdown between creator Hideo Kojima and publisher Konami.

After culminating in an exciting face-off between Skull Face and Venom Snake things just sort of… peter off.

There is a lot of game left but most of what you’ll be doing is repeating the missions you’ve already done and by the end there are more than a few plot threads hanging and nothing quite comes together. To put it bluntly, ‘unfinished’ and ‘unsatisfying’ are only the tip of the iceberg to the disappointment fans experienced when reaching the end of this seminal video game series.