10 Genius Trick Cliffhangers In Video Games

You would think a prequel, by its very nature, cannot end on a cliffhanger. The nature of a cliffhanger is that the audience doesn't know what's coming next, and prequels are meant to explain what came before and why they mattered. So it's fascinating that Birth By Sleep, a prequel to the entire Kingdom Hearts series, managed to pull it off. This is mainly due to it focusing on characters we'd never seen before, and the cliffhanger centering around where they've gone to by the time the first game rolls around. 

BBS follows Terra, Aqua, and Ventus - three students learning the art of the Keyblade - as they are unknowingly made part of Master Xehanort's plan to accumulate power for himself. Throughout this tragic tale, the three struggle to maintain their bond, as question after question piles up. In the end, however, they do come together to stop Xehanort, meeting him at the Keyblade graveyard to stop him from taking power. 

And they lose. Badly.

Oh sure, they delay Xehanort long enough so that Sora can come in clutch a few years later, but the game ends with Ventus in a coma, Terra reduced to one of Xehanort's mindless servants, and Aqua lost in the realm of darkness.

After spending so many hours with these characters, and growing to love them just as much as Sora, ending on a cliffhanger like this was a masterful move.