Recently released Steam game Dark Matter released for $15 has a totally abrupt ending, shown in the video above, that I find hilarious and that has made people who bought the game pretty frustrated because of how amazing it is.

The game can apparently be finished in 4.5 hours according to the NeoGAF thread and the developers of the game had this to say when commenting about its unfinished state:

Hello, just to answer all these questions.

No, the full story is indeed not complete yet because originally we wanted a longer game (12-16 hours) but couldnt finish it completely due to time and money (and Kickstarter failing). So, we choose to go with a 6-8 hour game instead to bring something out to the world and show everyone the world of Dark Matter. We are going to change the "to be continued" text to something else, to make sure this will be the end of the game as is in a clear msg to everyone...

Apparently it's an incomplete game in general:

It's just plain insulting that the developers keep insisting the game is complete. This is NOT a complete game, not in terms of story OR gameplay. Obviously the story is incomplete, that much is clear from the completely random and out of left field ending. However, I also hear that there are numerous gameplay elements that were introduced throughout the game's development and even playable during the TUTORIAL that are never used in the game. It actually introduces you to cool stuff and builds you up to use it later but that never comes!

Well, that text screen is just about the most inelegant way to end your game. There's nothing wrong with short games, but throwing up a text screen at a random point that declares "THIS is exactly where we ran out money" will not leave a good taste in anyone's mouth.

I believe that there was a boss fight a little before that point. The developers should have spent one more day of labor chopping OUT the last few minutes of exploration after that boss. Throw up a text screen of what the protagonist has done and might do in a future episode, then roll some credits. At least that would engender some sense of accomplishment for the player.

Just throwing that screen at a random door, and dumping back to the menu, communicates that the creators have abandoned their game and feel no pride in it. They need to put up a better front for people to support their future projects.

That is amazing

Tasteless.

I also want to point out that on the steam page, that this isn't even a greenlight game, this is a game Valve looked at, and said, "Hell Yah, this is something we really think has quality, and depth, we will just jump you to the head of the line, fuck that jumpkick; dropjump; jumpdrop? whatever the hell game, dark matter is where its at."

That was the most amazingly shitty thing I have seen so far.

Haha, so clearly not one of the developers bothered to take any sort of...PR or communications class in university/college, otherwise they might have realized that (while honest?) their chosen method of ending the game is just about the worst one possible.

You don't even have to turn the into early access or a beta or anything. Simply making it episodic and hoping that the sales of the first "episode" are enough to fund the next part probably would've been sufficient (though obviously whenever you do that, there's a chance that people only buy the first episode then they bail on it). Still, at least people wouldn't be having this hilariously adverse reaction to your kinda alright game.

That's hilarious.

I'm pretty sure scaling a game down because you didn't get your kickstarter money is a different thing than "Cutting it in half and leaving it with a block of text to signify the exact moment your team ran out of resources". Regardless, still sort of hilarious.

Hilarious. Remember guys, don't impulse buy games off of Steam. It seems like anyone can get a game up on their store these days.

That's fantastic. What a piece of shit. I picked it up and it immediately regretted the decision when I finished the tutorial and got the achievement titled 'Good Girl'. I haven't played it since.

I don't see anything heinously wrong with this. 4-5 hours ain't bad, and not every game has to put its emphasis on story or delivering a satisfactory conclusion. It's just super weird that they would have a story at all in the first place if they were going to end it like this. They could at least have had a fade effect leading to the final screen instead of a smash cut.

That guy needs some media training.

@notdavid:

Though true, this game in particular opens up with a big story-based cutscene and gives the impression that story is a big deal.

This may be a worse ending then this games ending!

@notdavid: How is there nothing wrong with this? There is clearly an emphasis on story and atmosphere in this game, and to rob people of a proper ending (Or at the very least, a boss fight or SOMETHING) is a dick move.

It's like if you're reading a novel, and the prose is really well constructed, and you could tell that the author put a lot of love and work into crafting the story. Then you get to the final chapter, and it's two sentences that read: "Then the hero fought the bad guy. The hero won. The end." Except this game doesn't even go THAT far.

Hilarious or no, I have to remember to never buy anything from InterWave. It's kind of funny, but now I can't trust that anything they ever sell won't just 'end' a couple hours in because of 'reasons'.

I thought it looked sort of like Shadow Complex - glad I didn't pick it up now. Thanks for posting this :)

Wow! That probably is the most abrupt and blunt ending that I've ever seen, and the developer's explanation is pretty unsatisfactory.

It's a bit of a shame, too. That video is the first I've ever seen of Dark Matter, and on the surface, it definitely looks like a solid "Metdoidvania" game.

Hilarious! Even watching the video and expecting it to end abruptly I was taken by surprise.

Just before that the game looked pretty cool though.

I disagree that it isn't heinously wrong, I mean, it's not Big Rigs incomplete, but it absolutely is incomplete. The developers have mentioned themselves that they had more in planned and they actually intended to make it 12-16 hours long; a lot of it seems like bitterness over a failed Kickstarter.

Anyway, they have released something that is demonstrably incomplete to digital distributors without even mentioning its incompleteness or putting in on Steam Early Access or labeling it as being the first episode of a series. Any of those things would have softened the blow. Basically, I would say the opposite of your post is true; just stopping at an arbitrary point without any prior indication that you're reaching the end is probably the

Don't impulse buy games more than $5 off of Steam is more like it.

Dude's reaction is priceless, though.

Very retro, I can dig it.

@mb said:

I love how he can't even articulate his thoughts, he just keeps saying "What the hell was that?" a few times.

I was kind of hoping a blank screen with the words "Rocks fall, everyone dies" was going to pop up.

Oh my god, that's amazing! Now I kinda want to play this.

Haha, that was even worse than I had expected.

Spiritual successor to Frog Fractions?

Well, I think I know what's winning a lot of Worst Ending of 2013 awards now.

That's completely crazy.

Selling the game as if it were complete and having clearly not been finished is disgusting and really shows that these developers don't respect anyone who buys their game. Looks like they just wanted to throw it out the door and make money.

I don't know about you, but if I spent months/years working on a game and was looking to actually have a career in the games industry, I would put the time in on my own dime to come up with something more than a text screen saying you died. The ending clearly ruined the game for the player in that video, and it makes me want to never buy anything made by these people ever.

Hilarious how they couldn't even put in a simple image of an explosion or anything really.

Or at least some freaking music

Like a minute of 'the fuck' followed by 'pls like/subscribe my video'. The fact that he still does a casual end of video spiel makes it somehow better.

@bisonhero: Well, I, um... hm.

Yeah, there's no excuse for his. If you can make a 6-8 hour 3D shooter that's as competent as that looks, then you have the means to make a decent ending for your game. Even if they wanted or needed the ending to come in the form of a text dump, there are far better ways to do it than how it was done here.

Ha, "You have reached the end of the game," straight up.

Eat it, pretentious indie experiences. THIS is how you tell the player it's over, and provoke meaningful discussion about your game afterward.