10 Video Game Endings That Totally Trolled Players

Of all the gory, deeply metal ways that Doom II could have ended, id’s choice was probably the last thing players ever expected.

It wasn’t so much the invasion of Earth that rankled. That was pretty much par for the course, with the kind of day that the Doom marine was having. The worst part was the final boss, a spot usually reserved for the biggest, angriest, hungriest, toothiest demon of all. What did players get, after all that anticipation? A demonic wall and John Romero’s head on a stick, that’s what.

That’s right. the so-called Icon of Sin is the game’s final boss, an immobile and horrific image that ‘attacks’ only by spawning a multitude of creatures. To kill it (so to speak), the player actually has to deal enough damage to the thing that lays behind it (though it’s entirely invisible without clipping and players wouldn’t know it was there): Romero’s head.

In normal circumstances, it’s positioned so that it can only be harmed by splash damage from the rocket launcher, which is why the hit to the Icon of Sin’s ‘brain’ actually kills it.

Pulling this sort of trick as the final boss surely left scores of Doom fans feeling… some kind of way.