8 Scrapped Endings That Almost Ruined Great Video Games

8. Multiple Endings Were Dropped For One Great One - Mafia II

Mafia II is such an underrated game. At the time it was criticised for not having a bunch of activities to engage with in its open world, but that was never what the first two games were about. The sandboxes were always there to drive the story, rather than give players the freedom to do whatever they wanted.

However, the developers of the second (and best) game apparently did envision players having a little more agency than what they eventually got, at least when it came to the ending. When building the sequel, the idea was for there to be four different resolutions depending on the player's actions, potentially even including one where you could save Joe, who in the main game is surprisingly taken away to be whacked in a final twist.

When play-testing was underway though, the devs apparently realised that players were actively seeking out one of the endings, and rather than lumping them with three "ok" finales, they opted to axe them all for a single canon one that more fittingly tied up the characters and themes.

Though these alternates would have been cool to see, it's undeniable that Mafia II's single ending was the correct one to go with.