Don't really understand your point with the endings. You're implying that both Shadow of Mordor and Banner Saga were rushed by their publishers which lead to unsatisfying conclusion, but that's A) not how game development works (you don't start developing the game at the beginning and then work towards the end) B) not exactly true for Banner Saga considering it's the first part of a three part game (so of course it was going to have an unsatisfying ending) and Versus Evil, Banner Saga's publisher, doesn't have the same relationship with their clients as, say, EA, as they more focus on the marketing aspect of publishing (although they could have been a factor in the decision to split the game up in thirds, though that was just a financial reality for the game).

Good list though. Sad to see that you didn't get more out of this year. I thought it was a pretty good year overall, but to each their own.

I don't know that I entirely agree with your assessment. While I absolutely understand that beginning-to-end development is almost never done in game development (not least because i'm a game developer myself, and i'm currently working on a game!), the reality is that work is usually done by order of priority, and I don't have a doubt in my mind that the Shadow of Mordor team had plans beyond "a less-than-a-minute-long Quick Time Event sequence" for their ending, that they weren't able to follow through with due to a need to focus on the game's framework and the early-game stuff (which, logically, far more players would see compared to the game's ending), and a limited amount of time to wrap up development. Shadow of Mordor is, in many terms, an incredibly polished, intuitive experience, and I trust that the devs had more in mind than the finished product in terms of the ending sequence.

The Banner Saga is more debatable, and likely comes down more to "we see ourselves a deadline that we want to meet" (which makes sense based on the financially strenuous development), or "we're too far into development to add too much to the ending", than it does to "our publishers are forcing us to release the game", so i'll concede that. However, I don't agree with the notion that the first entry of a trilogy inherently has an unsatisfying conclusion; do I really need to list the many, many, many examples of trilogies (in within games and in other mediums) in which the first entry has a perfectly serviceable, satisfying ending? Mass Effect? Dead Space? BioShock (if you count Infinite as part of the trilogy)? The Witcher?

It just sticks out to me that, considering how polished and complete both those experiences are for the most part, both of them seem to have ending sequences that do nothing to satisfy me as a player, and go by far too quickly. Hopefully that clarifies to you what I was thinking about when I made that comment!

I definitely agree with you that the ending of a game has significantly lower priority than, say, fleshing out the main systems of the game or making sure the first few hours are engaging for the exact reasons you stated. I apologize for making too big of an assumption that you weren't familiar with the basics of the game development process, though it's kind of my default when talking to people on video game playing sites like Giant Bomb instead of development sites.

Though a rushed game does not exactly equal a bad ending or vice versa (as there are many, many factors other than just time/money that can make any aspect of a game bad if you don't give the developers the benefit of the doubt), it's definitely an easy sacrifice to move development resources away from if you don't have the time... so I can see why you would make that connection.

I wrote a big long note about my thoughts on this, saying that it's unfair to compare a trilogy, with each entry crafted to stand on its own, to a single game cut into three pieces well into development. I somehow forgot until nearly posting this that Banner Saga was split into three parts before the Kickstarter even launched. So... yeah. I don't know what to say about that. A lot of the problems in story structure that come from surgically cutting up a story into smaller parts (such as unsatisfying conclusions) can't really be explained away as easily if it was done that early in development.

I still wouldn't quite call it a trilogy though. I'm sure if they had the resources, Stoic would have released The Banner Saga as a single game, as the game is clearly meant to be a single experience. It's pretty clear in this industry that you only go the episodic content route if you're embracing the format (Telltale) or out of necessity.

And, yeah, your reply helped clarify your thoughts pretty well! I do understand your disappointment for a game having an unsatisfying ending. It's something that tends to happen quite a lot in games! ha ha ha. But I'm hoping that your Banner Saga troubles are just temporary inconveniences, with the disappointing end of Chapter 1 being pretty much null once you can just roll right into Chapter 2 & 3.

@devoureroftime: I get what you're saying, and I also am hoping The Banner Saga offers up a satisfying conclusion down the line. There's an interesting discussion to be had over whether the "A single long story with unsatisfying cuts between each third" model works in games as opposed to film or TV. I feel like maybe the amount of time and effort that goes into getting to the end of the game means that the conclusion really should be able to stand on its own. It's not just about absorbing material for a couple of hours and then having to wait for the next part; the medium really forces you to EARN that ending, and when the ending is hardly an ending at all, it's more disappointing.