10 Ambiguous Video Game Endings You're Getting Totally Wrong
3. Shadow Of The Colossus
The Ending: Our hero, Wander, is suddenly weak and weary, with cloudy eyes and horns sprouting from his head. He turns into a shadowy beast and fights off some hunters, who manage to seal him away with a magical spell before escaping. Mono, the girl who has been asleep for the entire game, then wakes up and picks up a horned baby.
What You Missed: There's a lot you might have missed here. Essentially, in destroying the colossi throughout the game, you were actually liberating an ancient evil being named Dormin, who appeared to be a helpful guiding presence earlier on in your adventure. He manifests as the shadowy creature at the end and is sealed away once again.
The horned baby is Wander. Some part of him survived as a baby and you had to have played Ico to truly understand everything about the ending. In Ico, children are also born with horns, so it turns out that they were the descendants of Wander.
Mono, meanwhile, lives forever and grows bitter over time, going on to become the villainous Queen of Ico.