8 Powerful Video Game Endings You Had To Die To See

4. Dying For The Cause - Fallout 3 (Original Ending)

It might be Bethesda's darling now; their entry into the Fallout canon that upended how Fallout games were even made; boosting the franchise into mainstream territory, but Fallout 3's reputation was worse than dirt in 2008, when players realised the final choice in the game wasn't a choice at all.

Kinda like the Mass Effect 3 of its day to some, Fallout 3 ends with your Lone Wanderer needing to access a radiated room where one specific switch will purify the water supply, and save the populace.

The problem? All that radiation. Which wouldn't be a glaring issue, other than clearly this will kill your character, and Super Mutant Fawkes is standing right there.

Being Fawkes is immune to radiation and you CAN talk to him, this was an obvious plot path the developers just didn't take. Fawkes gives you some BS about it being your "destiny" to die while flipping the switch, and if you wanted to finish Fallout 3, you were doing so in a bodybag.

Half a year later Bethesda offered DLC that changed this crucial scene and let you send Fawkes in instead.

The catch? It was paid DLC, because of course it was.