10 Genius Trick Cliffhangers In Video Games
3. Half-Life 2
It isn't shocking that Half-Life has forever left itself on an unsatisfying cliffhanger, seeing as how that's been the series' bread and butter from the start. But the cliffhanger in the original Half-Life 2 was at least meant to leave the player unsatisfied. This puts it quite a ways ahead of the follow-up ending that the franchise left players on a decade ago.
The end of Half-Life 2 sees Gordon and Alyx raiding the Citadel to take down Breen and remove the Combine's seat of power. Despite literally all of the odds being against them, they manage to blow the reactor at the core of the Citadel sky-high. Just a shame then that they don't have enough time to get out.
But right at the moment of detonation, The G-Man stops time and extracts Gordon, saying that he's received some interesting offers for Gordon's services. He traps Gordon in the same limbo state he was stuck in between 1 and 2, before literally leaving the game through the back door.
It's abrupt, unsatisfying, and a little bit infuriating, just like the more infamous cliffhanger that would come later. But here it works, because it demonstrates the kind of power that the G-Man has over Gordon, and leaves you wondering how such a being can be fought.