10 Powerful Video Game Endings That Gave You Chills

4. The Last Of Us

All throughout The Last of Us, I think just about every player was expecting someone to die. Joel and Ellie's relationship seemed doomed from the start, and with the discussion being around how emotional its climax was, the focus was laser sharp on figuring out which of the two were going to bite the dust.

But the ending of Naughty Dog's opus is so powerful because neither of them die. In this world, dying is easy, and it's surviving (and living) that's difficult. In the end, that's what Joel decides to do, killing an entire facility filled with the "good guys" in order to preserve the connection and relationship he's struck up with his surrogate daughter.

Not only that, but when Ellie asks Joel what happened, he lies, telling her a fantasy so their future isn't built on the blood of other people. What delivers the chills, though, is that Ellie knows full well she's being lied to, but accepts it anyway, choosing to live by delivering a final "okay" before the screen cuts to black.

What happens next is left to the player to imagine (at least until the second game drops), and it's that ambiguity - the shade of grey everything in the game is painted with - that makes it so resonant.