Do you enjoy multiple game endings?

You know, I voted for one ending, but now that I think about it, I kinda wish I hadn't. Generally speaking, I think most games with multiple endings don't really do enough to make the differences between the endings actually matter. But I do like games that have choices in them (Mass Effect, Fallout, Witcher, etc), and when it's done well in those types of games, I do like it.

But when it's the type of game with no or little choice until the very end, I don't like that.

I haven't played Nier, so I won't comment on that.

Depends on the quality of the endings, doesn't it?

When it's a game where the endings are an integral part of the experience, such as the Zero Escape, inFAMOUS, Mass Effect and other similar games, I think multiple endings can be really great. However, when games that aren't like that throw in possible "bad ends" or things that aren't the "true end" I tend to get annoyed.

This. Deus Ex HR was terrible. Mass Effect 3 wasn't the best. Different cutscenes at the end really isn't enough to do it.

@mooseymcman: Well Nier handles it really well in that every boss fight has additional cutscenes, dialog and character backstory. That wolf you were fighting before that was simply growling is now subtitled and you can see he's saying "please stop just leave us alone stop killing us, what have we ever done to you" and it adds a ton of perspective. On the other hand the first time you play the game you're sort of confused about a lot of this stuff. Mass Effect sort of lets you see the entire story up to a point and then it branches - and that is fine with me for the most part. While I do like choice, I do prefer a single strong narrative.

I like when multiple endings are different because of my actions. Nier's multiple endings all show the same ending but with different context for what's going on. That could all have been covered by one ending, maybe two, but it certainly doesn't need four.

@humanity: I was going to say I prefer single narratives, but then I remembered that MGS is about the only series I could think of without story choice (never mind MGS with its two endings) that I really like the story stuff of.

@mooseymcman: By the way congrats on being prominently featured on this weeks The Point. Internet fame comes at a cost though..

@zevvion: While that is a valid stance it isn't really pertinent to this particular question. If I asked do you prefer multiple items on a menu or just one dish, I'm asking about your opinion regarding the idea of choice being offered. We are never privy to the quality of our choices until we make them.

@humanity: He's used a couple of my tweets before, I think. At least once before. It's not hard, you just have to reply in a timely manner and have something pertinent to say.

I prefer one ending, if only because I'm not left wondering about what the other endings were or if I got the "best" ending.

Although something in between - like Mass Effect 2, where there's only one general ending but your actions determine who makes it there alive - can be really effective.

The question didn't seem hypothetical to me as your argument makes it seem. Yes, I do like the idea of choice and multiple endings in theory. In reality, it hasn't turned out great for me ever, as of yet. The answer I gave was encompassing reality and theory both, as I think would be appropriate. A bit of nuance, I guess.

Multiple beginnings, one ending. Dragon Age: Origins had it right.

I want a game in which everything you do and everything you don't do has an effect on the story. No one ever sees the exact same game twice.

All of the pieces are being developed separately. People are working on procedural geography, foliage, erosion, animals, humans, facial expressions, voices, locomotion, music, architecture, city planning, etc. Once all of the components are advanced enough, very small teams will be able to quickly guide the creation of worlds which make even the most fleshed-out experiences which currently exist feel constricting in comparison. Every room of every building will be furnished. Every person in the city will have a unique face. That's only the beginning. That just gets us more traditional linear and/or branching stories without requiring the massive budgets.

The hard part will be dynamically adapting an overall story arc which believably interprets and reacts to the player's every action... and then selecting story beats to drive it forward... and then turning those into actual events in the game which the AI can act out with procedural dialogue and emotional cues... and directing the scenes with an appealing composition... and layering music over the scenes which fits the desired tone moment to moment. Eventually, everything is going to come together for the ultimate open worlduniverse experience.

Now, if you'll excuse me... *fap fap fap fap fap fap*

I voted for one cohesive ending, but I think if it's handled well, having multiple endings can be really good. Although, I think a game that has different endings runs the risk of not being holistic. In any case, I don't think I've ever played a game that made me want to replay it because it had different endings. I think branching paths (e.g. the second act in The Witcher 2) give me the most incentive to replay a game.

No, not really. I'm not really that much of a fan when it comes to moral choice stuff either... and that usually leads to different endings. There area handful of games where I'm sure I liked multiple endings, but the thought of seeing all the endings in say Heavy Rain or Beyond is a huge turn off.

Depends on the game really. Games with moral choices and story-dictating decisions should obviously have multiple endings, and game series such as Silent Hill simply wouldn't be Silent Hill without a bevy of weird endings to end up with at the end.

Though if there was one notable flaw with multiple endings, it's that if it gets itself a sequel, there's a chance that your own ending (or at least the ending you preferred) may turn out to be the 'non-canon' ending, which can devalue the weight of your choices. Dragon Age is a perfect example, though that's more so regarding certain choices rather the ending itself given that there's only actually the one.

Or you instead have Mass Effect, where the games will indeed acknowledge your decisions, but then... do nothing with them.

@gunstarred said:

Just because there are multiple endings doesn't mean you have to watch them all, though. In fact games like Heavy Rain are the perfect example where having multiple endings is a benefit. Because of how wildly different so many playthroughs can end up in that game, it thusly makes your own ending feel more personal.

You know what's fun? Games that have cryptic conditions for achieving different endings. In the way that you might not even realize that there were variants, but discovering them is really mysterious and interesting. Like a Silent Hill, or even Dark Souls.

nope

I did enjoy getting all the bad endings in Radiant Historia, but it's not something I do with every game.

To elaborate more, I've just never understood the point of them. I mean, more often than not, you have one ending that feels like the " true " ending, and then an asshole ending that no one could possibly like. It's even more dumb when the game gets a sequel that just chooses one of the endings to continue upon. Like, what's the point of that original game even having multiple endings then? What a waste resources.

That said, I really wouldn't care if even Mass Effect 4 only had one ending. I'm never gonna play through it again to get another one anyway. I did with Nier, but only because the endings actually give you more insight into the world and characters instead of just " what if... " scenarios. And you also don't have to play through the whole game again to get them. Also, if you did all the side quests on your first run, getting the other endings is really easy and quick.

I just find it really silly whenever multiple endings are made out to be a huge thing on the back of the box. I just couldn't care less about them. Never have, never will.

At least on paper I think both can work. This is that old linearity vs. freedom thing and the upshot is it really depends what kind of game you're trying to make. A single ending can provide a more focused closing cohesive with the rest of the game and the level of control it can give the writers potentially means a higher quality ending. This kind of ending can be particularly important if the writers are trying to convey certain themes or messages. Multiple endings on the other hand really embrace what a video game is, let you exercise agency over the story, and have the game feel like its responding to your specifc actions which is particularly valuable when you can't really get that in any other medium. Multiple endings are definitely harder to create though, and I think we've all seen a lot of games over the years where those endings didn't fit the story, felt tacked-on, or the means to attain each ending were shallow, unfair, or ambiguous.

I'd like them more if they weren't all split up into "the real/true/good ending" and a bunch of shitty incomplete ones.

@zevvion: I wasn't trying to mock you or anything like that and I wasn't trying to bring Plato into the conversation either. Saying "depends on the ending" seems silly because it doesn't answer the simple premise of the thread, and it's obvious that between bad multiple endings and good multiple endings(in terms of quality) what your choice would be.

Not necessarily, as there's of course ''choose your own adventure'' style of books. But I otherwise still agree that multiple endings are important for the sake of allowing players more freedom of interactivity, which is supposed to be a primary appeal of video games. It's kind of a shame really to see the majority prefer to have a single ending.

We need a ending to a game. Where a main character figures out ''who's the master?'', and unlock a hidden power that resides within him call the glow. Which will increase his strength and endurance, he'll be so badass that he can catch bullets with his teeth. It'll be like the movie The Last Dragon all over again.

Anyway to aswer the thread question it depends on the game.

When I was younger and a game had to last me a while, then sure. Silent Hill and Resident Evil 2 were some of my favorite PS(1) games. Games like Suikoden and the FF's also were amazing games solely because of good length, not to mention they were enjoyable in several playthroughs building on the knowledge of previous tries. These days I have close to 1 TB of installed PC games I've yet to play for more than 1 hour, a ton of console games I've yet to finish etc. I just can't imagine playing non-mp games trough multiple times.

@yummylee: Well I'd argue that being able to choose your own ending is still being given agency in the story and is the game reacting to your actions, but yeah, sometimes this whole thing runs a lot deeper than others. Like I said in that post the implementation of these endings has been shallow in a lot of cases.

I've always liked games with multiple endings since if they were really good like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic I had no issues with playing them again to see the other ending. For me at least it depends on how much I enjoyed the playing the game and if getting to the alternate ending would change the narrative of the story.

It can be rewarding but it's usually not done well enough so I'd say that, in general, I prefer one satisfying ending rather than 5 shallow ones (of which one will inevitably be picked as the 'canon' ending anyway for sequel purposes).

I'll try to reformulate: I like the idea of multiple endings, but so far I haven't come across a game that does them well enough for me to actually enjoy it more than a singular ending at this point.

I like multiple endings if it's done WELL.

I like a lot of niche JRPGs, and these games are the absolute WORST when it comes to multiple endings. Generally there's a bad, neutral, good, and TRUE ending. Getting the first three endings is usually pretty straight forward, but then the true ending usually requires INSANELY specific things to do, and there is absolutely no way you could do it without a guide. What's the damn point if you need a guide?!

I know it's a dead horse, but the original endings for Mass Effect 3 were another type I HATED. The implications for each choice was huge, but you never saw the result, and consequently, there was absolutely no difference between the endings.

Dragon Age: Origins comes to mind as good type. Dragon Age: Origins actually tells you the consequence of ALL of your choices in the game, good or bad, and it's really fun to see how it changes. Hell, the ending prior to the text screens is different based on a multitude of factors as well. How in the world Bioware managed to pull THIS off, and then blow it when it came to Mass Effect is mind boggling to me.

It ultimately depends on the game, but I'm usually down for alternate endings if they are done well. I think a good example would be something like what Black Ops 2 or Heavy Rain did - at a certain point your decisions matter and if you do something different, there might be things or characters in the game that you have never even seen and will directly influence your endings. I think that is pretty cool because it gives the (illusion, at least) that things are random and that you actually have a choice. I think more games should be doing that, if anything just to add more depth.

Obviously this isn't going to work in every game, but in general I think more decisions and more possibilities for endings is always a good thing. The cool thing is that now with YouTube, you don't have to play the entire game again to see an ending or what different choices to make - just watch a video and soak it all in. It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned.

I've been playing a lot of Visual Novels lately, and multiple endings are kind of at the core of that experience. I've been enjoying them, granted, I've been skipping a whole lot of text.

That's a really good point. I think for that sort of thing to work, they need to stop doing non-cannon endings and just let that be your ending and bring that over to the next game - where it goes from there depends, but they need to allow some variance. Like you said, for this to work, your decisions need to matter, not just get thrown out at the last minute for sake of the overall story. That kind of makes the whole branching process a complete waste of time.

I like the idea of giving the player at least some feeling of agency over the narrative in a game but I haven't played many games that actually implement the idea of multiple endings really well. Most endings are either in the Bioshock mold, where you have two opposed endings that are either totally good or totally bad, or some kind of mad lib where everything is largely the same except for a few small details or names.

999 is the only game I can think of, that I've played, that makes the idea of multiple endings meaningful. Obviously it's a lot to ask of writers to meaningfully accommodate a player's choices and still maintain a coherent narrative. Any game trying to define itself by having multiple endings needs to totally commit to that idea for it to be successful. Otherwise it's just a throw in for people who want to go through a game a second time.

Having to play through an entire RPG to get a different ending sucks. Them saying that The Witcher 3 will have like 27 endings is making me nervous. I don't want to have to play through a game 27 times...There better not be any trophies attached to all the endings that would just be ridiculous.

What games have had multiple endings and did so in a good and interesting way?

Ah! I liked the ending in the first Fallout game, does that count as multiple endings?

I enjoy multiple endings as a way of showing me the impact of my choices upon the world. I hate when a game has something resembling a "True Ending" or "Good" and "Bad" Endings. That just feels like being punished for not playing the way they wanted you to.

@yummylee: I believe the only point where they contradicted certain players choices in Dragon Age 2 was with Leliana being alive. I've always been under the impression that this will be explained in the third one. They've already established an in game precedent for characters coming back to life with Wynne, and Leliana's got all those connections with the Maker, so they could easily do something with that.