9 Most Disappointing Video Game Finales

4. Desmond’s Story - Assassin’s Creed 3

Assassin’s Creed is a series riddled with dense lore, interconnected timelines, and a conflict spanning multiple historical eras and colourful protagonists. It’s also a series that doesn’t always stick the landing.

Falling firmly into that last category is Connor’s outing in Assassin’s Creed 3. Though the game was generally very well received for its narrative, gameplay mechanics, and well-realised setting, things fell apart for a lot of fans by the end. In the wildly anticlimactic ending your entire character journey between two compelling protagonists ends with Connor’s revenge journey concluding in killing his sworn nemesis Charles Lee in a tavern and Desmond dying in a way that can only be described as “because reasons”. He’s forced to choose between giving his life to protect the world or, well, doom it altogether. This opened up possibilities for where the franchise could go from this point on but for fans deeply invested in the story and Desmond’s character development so far, it felt like a betrayal.

The game’s original ending would have had Desmond and Lucy defeat Abstergo but when AC 2 was a hit more games were planned and it was decided the series wouldn’t be a trilogy after all.

While this is great because we got more AC games for better and worse depending on the title, it left us with a wildly unsatisfying ending. At least when AC3 came out, there’s a little more to it in the recent games but that would push us too far into spoiler territory.