8 Powerful Video Game Endings You Had To Die To See

3. Shepard Dies - Mass Effect 2

We've all rinsed the hell out of Mass Effect 3's ending where Shepard sacrifices themselves to stop the Reaper invasion in a number of ways, but Mass Effect 2's "Suicide Mission" should be forever remembered as one of the coolest finales in gaming history.

Even better - in the name of experimenting with your old saves - was that even Shepard themselves could die.

Where Bioware coded a hidden set of qualifiers that designated who would live or die based on which roles you gave them in these closing scenes, Shepard too can also perish in the final cutscene if you played the entire game bad enough beforehand.

Forgoing all loyalty missions, giving the wrong tasks to the wrong people - this final scene plays out with Shepard making a leap to the Normandy for safety... only to fall to their death.

Brilliantly, this was a potential canon ending complete with credits until Mass Effect 3 literally couldn't carry it forward. All your other choices can be recognised by a "Dead Shepard" save file, but the game's only course of action is to let you make another Shepard and keep going.