10 Beautiful Video Game Endings That Made Us Cry

Nier Automata is an almost obscenely complex game, with layers and layers to every story beat, and ending. You should experience it yourself, so much of the ending will not be spoiled here. But suffice it to say, at the end of the game, 2B and 9S seemingly die once more, like the other endings. But right before the credits, you are presented with a pop-up menu asking a simple question:

"Do you admit there is no meaning to this world?"

Hitting no will take you to a bizarre take on the game's hacking minigame where you must literally fight the end credits.

It's easily the hardest hacking fight in the game, but every time you die, you are presented with the choice to give up or not. If you decide to keep going, you are given another life... by another player. Somewhere out there in the real world, another player has given you the chance to try for the best ending again. And should you make it to the end, you are given the same choice:

Delete your save file, EVERYTHING you've done up until now, to give another random player out there - whom you will never know - another shot at the best ending.

It is the ultimate act of empathy a video game can ask of a player. And sure enough, saying yes deletes everything. But not before showing a bunch of Pods coming to save 2B and 9S one last time, to let them experience, for however long until their artificial bodies give out, true peace for the first time.