10 Video Game True Endings That Insulted Players

For many, gaming is so much more than a fun pastime. It’s a passion; a way of life. It can even be a career. It makes perfect sense then, that many aren’t content with simply playing through a title in their spare time, watching the end credits and then moving on.

A lot of gamers are completionists by nature. They want to 100% games, nab every item, turn in every sidequest, see every single cutscene and dialogue option. Often, these activities offer nothing in terms of reward, but the feeling of squeezing a title of every possible drop of entertainment is reward enough for such players.

One thing gamers sometimes get for their troubles is an alternate or ‘true’ ending. As the name suggests, these often lend a bit more satisfying closure to proceedings, by revealing something more of the lore or adding a clever sequel hint (in a similar fashion to Marvel movies) for dedicated fans who put in the time to see things through.

Some true endings, sadly, offer little more than disappointment. Whether through a major anti-climax, a silly joke or simply not being worth the effort, these ones are good (bad) examples.

The original MediEvil told the tale of Sir. Daniel Fortesque of Gallowmere, a deceased knight famed for destroying the demonic hordes of the evil sorcerer Zarok.

Sir Dan doesn’t deserve this reputation at all, as he was actually rather cowardly and was killed in the first moments of the figh against Zarok’s forces. When the sorcerer returned and summoned an undead army, he awoke our ‘hero’ too, who pledged to vanquish the villain once and for all and earn the place he already holds in Gallowmere’s history.

At the end of the original game, he does so, finding a home in the Hall of Heroes in the title’s true ending.

MediEvil 2 is set five centuries later, seeing Dan inadvertently awoken (again) by a dastardly duo (Sir Palethorn and Jack the Ripper) building an undead army. Again, collecting every level’s Chalice unlocks the true ending, but this is quite a slog.

The reward? A brief scene in which Sir Dan and Kiya are whisked away from the comfortable afterlife they were hoping to share, in the time machine, to a reality where Palethorn has taken the place of Zarok in the original game.