If at that point you didn't want to send a big fuck you to both the FIB guys and the rich asshole then you hadn't been paying attention at all to the story.

Of course I did, but option C was not 'kill the FIB and Devon.' I honestly thought that Franklin would die during option C.

Regardless, you agree that there was one correct choice. And that's really what bugs me about the game's final mission.

If I hadn't seen te quick look beforehand and knew that Jeff finished the game with all three alive, I think I still would have chosen C. Labeling the choice "Deathwish," it could be inferred that it might result in Franklin's death. Honestly, I found Franklin the least interesting of the characters by far and would have gladly sacrificed him for the others. I'm glad he's still alive, though. It sucks that you regret your choice, but that's life. Maybe you should have given it more thought? Or perhaps saved before the decision?

Went with death wish because Franklin genuinely did not want to kill his friends.

Sucks to here that the characters actually stay dead. That C option gives the players some awesome scenes with the whole switching thing.

I chose option C fully expecting Franklin to die and I was ready to hate myself for picking that option(but I had to because fuck Haines and fuck Weston). When they all survived I figured that all three options would have them surviving, just with different story sequences leading up the assassinations. It kinda sucks to hear that people can get fucked over in the post-game by picking the "wrong" choice.

The C ending was everything I wanted. Man pushing that car over the hillside left me with the biggest grin on my face.

I chose C but didnt come to the realization that if i chose A or B i would of permanently lost a character until now, that does seem kind of messed up that you can loose a whole set of Stranger and Freaks missions, especially Trevors. But it did telegraph what your choice will lead to, and that C would pretty much be the "happy" ending and would be what Franklin would do.

Consquences in video games? OMG!

I mean fuck. the choice was A.) Kill Trevor B.) Kill Michael C.) "Deathwish" by resisting everyones demands as a united team. Uh DUH.

I mean its kinda stupid to pick the option "Kill Trevor" and then get mad that Trevors dead...

He's not mad that Trevor's killed in that ending. It's that getting that ending (or killing Michael instead) effectively blocks the player from 100% completion.

If getting 100% completion was that important to him then he shouldnt have picked to KILL one of the characters he still had activities for.

I chose option C I couldn't bring myself to kill Micheal or Trevor, but I'm glad I did.

Option C all the way, wouldn't have been able to kill one of them.

@epyk: thats why I saved before the last mission so I can reload and do all 3

You can probably still 100% the game since it doesn't actually requires 100% completion. What needs to be done vs what is available seems pretty generous.

Exactly. And it's so easy for people who picked option C to say 'DUH KILL THE BAD GUYS, NOT YOUR FRIENDS, IDIOT.'

Option C WAS NOT '"Deathwish" by resisting everyones demands as a united team'. It was "Deathwish."

I, like many others, thought Franklin would die in option C. And that's why I feel cheated.

Yeah if you listenend if you didn't kill neither the hit would be on you. I was wary that it might of been Franklin who might of died with option C. but Franklin is one of those dudes who will back his homies, such as Lamar.

@epyk: 'Deathwish' was kind of the only way they could phrase it to leave some tension for option C.

I didn't know what would happen if I picked option C, but I sure as hell knew I wasn't going to do what they told me to do.

Yeah, I chose C. I mean, unless you realllly hate Michael/Trevor's guts, why would you go for A or B?

The ending was decent. I feel like A or B would've went against Franklin's character. And I would not have taken Franklin over Trevor or Michael.

Oh sure, but Deathwish was you not listening to the assholes and warning both your buddies. Thus getting everyoen to work together. Did i think someone was going to die? Sure, i did, i figured it'd either be franklin or random based on how i did the mission. But i sure as fuck wasn't going to be the FIB or that douchebag billionaires bitch.

Are you sure it locks you out from getting 100%? Maybe rock star takes into account your choice and gives you a higher percentage if one of the characters die

Oh man, when they make that hit list I thought "all right ,this is gonna be another 3rd of the game where I do missions, set up hits, etc. to get all these guys. And nope...bang bang bang one by one they're all gone.

I just did this mission and chose "Deathwish". I thought that might imply that Franklin would die, which would be a shame because he was my favorite character, but I chose it anyway because it made the most sense from a narrative perspective. Franklin doesn't turn his back on his homies, and I felt like he probably would risk death rather than have to turn traitor.

The majority of feedback is telling me that I played the game incorrectly, and that I'm an idiot for choosing anything but C. My punishment is missing out on most of Trevor's S&F.

Is that fair for a game to do? That's an honest question, I'd like to hear some opinions.

I only wish I could have hit Steve before his camera man stopped rolling footage, I just couldn't get a clear shot on him. He is easily the character I've hated the most in gaming this year, maybe ever.

@chaser324 said:

I think Lamar at certain points would disagree on that ;P

@epyk: So I have a question, are you not able to play as Trevor at all now? I was wondering how they would handle the deaths of characters for the post game free roaming. Seems a bit harsh if you can't :S

Well, he doesn't turn a back on his mentors who don't get themselves set up repeatedly

Of course it's fair, a game with choices should have real consequences. If you blow up Megaton in Fallout 3 you're shit out of luck if you wanna do anything that's left in there. If you kill Wrex in Mass Effect, you won't see him for two games, choices with real weight are awesome.

I honestly dont know how "Deathwish" could be taken as anything other "fuck that, kill Weston and Haines."

I thought about the decision, if I kill Michael Devon is happy FIB is not happy. If I kill Trevor FIB is happy Devon is not happy. The FIB and Devon were going to fuck up everyone even after killing one of them. It was a total bad decision leaving everyone with nothing. While death wish is all or nothing. Id rather have a chance at all than guarantee nothing.

Besides I love Trevor,Michael and Franklin how could I choose any to die. Also narratively it didn't make sense to me. This is all befor I think "I wonder if you'd lose the character in the post game too."

You made your decision you wanted Trevor dead, you got it. Sad your locked our of some stuff since there is a stranger and freaks mission for trevor that only activate after the main mission is done and man is it a doozy!

Find an old save and try and salvage it, yes the game gave you the choice to screw your self up but you're the one that picked it.

For that reason, I chose C, I knew they will F it up somehow, also, I could care less if all of them died during option C. Even though I really liked the game, there are a lot of bad moments in terms of writing and characterization for all of them. There is a lot of discussion about the writing, characters and especially the ending which I did not like at all (besides the a b c thing). For that kinnda crazy road, the way it ended was horrible imo.

I did the exact same thing. I also really wanted to 100% the game but I feel cheated now and I'm probably not even going to do the remaining missions with Michael and Frank.

I totally respect a game that takes it's story seriously and puts real weight on player choices, but in a game like this having a mission at the VERY end of the game that doesn't have any lasting story consequences (cause the story is over) and just makes it so you can't do a bunch of side content feels really cheap.

And then not giving you anyway to go back to before the last mission or to get access to that content in some way seems like really bad design to me. It's pretty off putting. Next time I'm playing a Rockstar game and I'm presented with a choice (only at the end of the game; I'm fine with losing content if it is in service of a dynamic story throughout the game) I'm gonna have to go to the internet a look up which is the 'correct' choice. That isn't fun and subtracts from the experience.

If you pay attention during the scene it's pretty clear that "death wish" doesn't mean Franklin's gonna die. Just means the odds are stacked WAAAAAAY against our lovable trio.

I think people are kind of missing the point of the post. The frustrating thing about the ending, and even as someone who picked Option C I say this, is that it's cheap. It's cheap to give the player this morally grey dilemma, and then decide to make a canonically all-around good-in-every-way ending out of one of those choices. Jeez guys, think about how much time the average player is spending just on the main plot. Like, at least a couple days of solid gameplay. Yet the ending, the bow that wraps up the whole product, rests on a flimsy moral choice which is less a moral choice and more a "can you figure out the right answer?" It's weird, and I find it kind of lazy.

@lackingsaint: When two of the three choices are straight up kill one of the main characters, and the third isn't it isn't that difficult to figure out. Someone made a poll here about which choice everyone picked and it was in the high 90%s of people who picked C.

When every other choice involved implies the death of two of the main characters, it's not hard to figure that the third option (which is named Deathwish) implies the death of the third. I can totally understand someone being hesitant to choose Deathwish over Kill Trevor; if you convinced yourself Deathwish meant the death of Franklin, it's easy to justify choosing to kill the violent, borderline-irredeemable Trevor.

I picked C only because I peaked at the pole for what everyone else picked. Otherwise I would have probably killed Trevor.

Why?

Well, because I interpreted Option C: Deathwish, as all three characters dying, and having to do any post story stuff from an earlier save. Which would be crazy, but Rockstar lives in a bubble and I would not put it past them. Turns out I was way off, and so I am not surprised others are confused about the ending either.

Perhaps it could be taken as the rest of the game will pan out like the film "Deathwish" and you were the Chuck Bronson character.

Yeah, I thought C would have killed Franlin at first too. Ultimately, though, I thought it was worth the risk if all of them survived.

I picked Option C not really caring about how it ended, so long as I wasn't being asked to kill Michael or Trevor.

Edit: Also, I watched the two other endings afterward and thought they were both garbage. I wouldn't replay the ending for those.

What I found odd was how Lester reacted to Franklins predicament, advising Franklin to kill them both. Was he just pissed off at the guys?

Option C was the biggest risk as it gave no hint at who if any would die and my assumption was Franklin but it's not like I was going to choose the other two options as it was very clear what those were so I took the gamble with C. It sucks for anyone who chose either A or B and I find it odd that Rockstar would make this a choice given that these are playable characters to use after the story is complete and killing one off robs the player.

I watched both A and B on YouTube and wow what a total buzzkill. I'd honestly feel bad for anyone that picked either one as in C you get pumped, it's you and your homies against everyone, while the others are so completely depressing making you really feel like you're no better than all those assholes manipulating you throughout the story.

While I don't think C has enough oompf for an ending to a game of this scope - I was expecting a really great transition to music and credits - it's still a really nice feel good ending to the story of three guys that managed to somehow become genuine friends in a town a crooks and phonies.

Yea i chose C as i couldnt kill those guys, and my franklin was down to go down for his homies.

but yea, in the dialogue right before you make that choice, he does foreshadow that if you dont make a choice they are going to send the FIB after you

option C was easily one of the most satisfying endings to a game in a while.

How do you figure? I've gotta say of every game i've played so far this year, this had by far the most disappointing ending. Going around over the course of a single ~5 minute mission and just easily gunning down every loose thread in the game just seems so lazy and unearned, and then nothing is resolved at the end. Trevor hasn't changed one bit, Michael has barely changed, Franklin has like got a new house and now he's cool with Lamarr again? Thematically nothing comes back around or is really explored, I barely had any sense that i'd gone on a real journey with these characters. In contrast, The Last of Us and Fire Emblem: Awakening both did a wonderful job of making the final victory feel earned and giving you a conclusion that really sticks. GTAV just felt like they needed to end the game.

This.

Edit: Damn, you've nailed my issues with the story ending as well. They make all the noises of there being character growth but buggered if I could see it.