10 Video Games That Made You PAY EXTRA For The Ending

Entries 1-9 are included for free, but you'll need to pay $5 for number 10.

Kingdom hearts 3
Square Enix

Imagine watching TV - maybe you've been a fan of Supernatural since the first season? After watching the climactic final episode of season fifteen - the Winchester brothers stand there, facing down God, himself. Then credits roll and an ad for the Supernatural Finale Pay-Per-View Episode rolls on the bottom of the screen. For just $15 you get to watch the final battle unfold!

That's kind of what we're looking at here, but even worse - you've already paid thirty, forty...maybe sixty dollars or more for a video game. You've played for dozens of goddamn hours. What's that? The game just kind of ends on a cliffhanger. Oh, is there a sequel? Nope, but for $10 you can fight the real final boss and get a two-minute cut scene that actually gives closure.

This is a fairly new kind of situation, really. Imagine if you had beaten the first Metroid and had pay another $5 to see Samus take her helmet off, or you beat Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation and Snake punches Liquid off the edge of Rex. Ten bucks for the Otacon ending, ten more for the Meryl ending.

Come scream with us at these enraging cases of games that locked the ending behind a cash-grab.

10. Asura's Wrath

Kingdom hearts 3
Capcom

Of course we had to start this list with arguably the most famous example of a game locking the ending behind a paywall. In Asura's Wrath the main character is betrayed by his friends and allies, has his wife fridged, and his daughter is kidnapped. He is beaten and resurrected a few times, before finally ending the cycle by defeating the real final boss.

Or did he?

Yeah, that's kind of how it ends - the real final boss is defeated, but left on a bit of a cliffhanger as to whether or not he's actually beaten. There's a lot of death and destruction, but the main character has his daughter back and the help of his old friend and rival.

But wait, for a mere $6.99 you can learn that you were being manipulated the whole time as a test and the real-real final boss re-kidnaps your daughter (oh how original) and you tear a hole through space-time to defeat the God of Creation. Cue an epilogue set millions of years in the future.

Story goes that the game was supposed to have a sequel, but it sold like garbage so they decided to just pump out a DLC ending for a few bucks.

Contributor
Contributor

Author of Escort (Eternal Press, 2015), co-founder of Nic3Ntertainment, and developer behind The Sickle Upon Sekigahara (2020). Currently freelancing as a game developer and history consultant. Also tends to travel the eastern U.S. doing courses on History, Writing, and Japanese Poetry. You can find his portfolio at www.richardcshaffer.com.