Video games are meant to be fun, and for the most part, they are. But every once in a while, a developer decides to tug (or yank) at our heartstrings and give players an ending that falls somewhere between bittersweet and devastating.
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Here’s to the games that left us emotional, distraught, and possibly in tears. It probably goes without saying, but here’s an obligatory Spoiler Alert for the rest of this article. We fully discuss and break down the endings to these games, so get your tissues ready.
Seriously, major spoilers ahead! You have been warned!
10Bioshock Infinite
Would you kindly… die?
TheBioshockfranchise has perhaps the most iconic plot twists in the history of gaming, andBioshock Infiniteis no exception. The reveal that the evil and bigoted dictator Comstock and our heroic main character Booker Dewitt are, in fact, the same person, really threw us for a loop.
In combination with the reveal that we also are Elizabeth’s real father and sold her to Comstock to pay off gambling debts, the (current) reality of the situation and Booker’s actions start to weigh extremely heavily. And then, to top it all off, we watch our hero die at the hands of Elizabeth, murdering her father and only friend in order to save the multiverse from his evil deeds.
9Spec Ops: The Line
The nightmare isn’t real
Spec Ops: The Linegets more and more brutal as the campaign pushes forward, with our lead character Walker committing multiple atrocities in the pursuit of stopping one Colonel Konrad, who has been communicating with Walker while trying to overtake Dubai. But in the game’s finale, it is revealed that Konrad is actually dead, and has been for a while now.
Walker has been subconsciously altering his own view of reality, telling himself that Konrad is alive to justify his horrific actions, leading him to continue committing them. Our main character is not a hero but a full-blown war criminal, having attacked, injured, and killed hundreds of civilians.
8Prey (2017)
You just got Matrix’d!
Arkane’s 2017 stealth-horror gamePreyis a mind-bending roller coaster, following amnesiac Morgan Yu through Talos I, a labyrinthian space station full of psychic, shape-shifting aliens (called Typhon) hiding in plain sight. There are multiple endings to the game, but the general outcome remains pretty much the same: it is revealed that you are not Morgan Yu at all, but a member of the Typhon species that has been implanted with Morgan’s memories by his older brother Alex. The entire experience has been a simulation.
The choices you made in the game are now being used in an experiment assessing the aliens' ability to empathize with humans, with the real events on Talos I occurred years ago. The real Morgan Yu failed to stop the Typhon from escaping the station, and since then, Earth has been completely invaded and nearly destroyed by the Typhon. Alex will either choose to kill you, or give you freedom (which, in turn, allows you the choice to shake his hand, or murder everybody in the room with you).
The ending before the beginning of the ending
Red Dead Redemption 2is a big game, and gives ample opportunity for the player to take their time and experience everything the world has to offer. By the time the third act of the game is reached, we had spent countless hours with the lovable rogue Arthur Morgan, making the reveal of his tuberculosis diagnosis all the more heart-wrenching.
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While there are multiple endings to the game, all of them end in Arthur’s unfortunate demise, whether it be sacrificing himself to save John Marston and his family, or ending up stabbed to death at the hands of Micah in an act of brutal revenge. The tale of Arthur’s untimely end, in combination with the collapse of his family and betrayal by his loved ones, is a tear-jerker for the ages.
6Professor Layton: The Unwound Future
My heart will go on
TheProfessor Laytongames have always hadwell-crafted mysteriesfor their plots, but it wasn’t untilThe Unwound Futurethat we really saw Layton involved in a deeply emotional core story. And in this installment, the story he winds up in is a true heart-breaker.
Ten years ago, the puzzle-solving professor lost his girlfriend, Claire, in an accidental explosion, killing her.The Unwound Futurefollows Layton time-travelling between different periods, accompanied by Claire’s “twin sister” solving the mystery of her death. The game ends with the reveal that the “twin” is actually Claire, who is temporarily appearing in the future and is about to return to the moment where she dies, leading to a tearful goodbye before her demise.
The sequel makes it sting that much more
By the end ofRed Dead Redemption 2, we can’t help but root for the antihero-misfit John Marston. Returning to the firstRed Dead Redemption, the player is that much more invested in John, his family, and his backstory, leading to an even harder left hook of an ending.
After killing the members of his former gang as a bounty hunter for the government, the infamously dark ending ofRed Dead Redemptionsees John Marston stepping out of a pair of barn doors to find an army of Pinkertons with guns aimed, opening fire on John. John leaves behind a wife and child, who vows to follow in his footsteps and kill the man responsible for his father’s death.
4The Last Of Us Part II
Joel is still dead.
The Last of Us Part IIinfamously manipulates the player’s emotions with no limits on the table, starting with the brutal death of the first game’s main character Joel. After Ellie watches him die, the warpath she carves through hundreds of other survivors to take revenge on Joel’s killers results in the loss of even more of her loved ones.
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Seeing Ellie’s loss of what could have been a peaceful life with a child and partner, as well as seeing the perspective of his killer, Abby, is heartbreaking. In the final sequence, Ellie’s recognition that she and Joel both knew how much they loved each other at the end of their time together, is one of gaming’s most sob-worthy finales.
Saying WTF through the tears
The follow-up to the indie classicLimbois an equally dark and depressing affair, and the ending is as insane as it is sad. With our lead character traversing through a dystopian world of mind-controlled zombies, the tragic finale takes a wild turn from the simple platforming of the rest of the game.
Upon finding a large mass of what appears to be human bodies conjoined into a giant blob of flesh, the main character attempts to free it, quickly being sucked into the blob and being absorbed into the mass. The player takes control of the abomination, escaping imprisonment and leaving behind the rest of society to be brainwashed and controlled.
2Halo: Reach
Players go intoReachknowing perfectly well what the fate of this ragtag crew of Spartans is, with the opening shot of the player’s helmet lying in ruins, a bullet hole through the visor. But even then, watching this crew of heroes grow closer together, and then each brutally die in the hopes of saving each other and the fate of humanity, is still heart-wrenching.
The inherent irony surrounding each death makes each one sting even worse, whether it be the always knife-wielding Emile dying in a melee battle or the incredibly smart Kat’s death from a bullet shot in her brain. But, nothing will ever top the drama of the final mission of the game, in which our character Noble 6 is the last Spartan alive on the planet, left alone to fend off the alien invasion with the impossible goal to simply “survive”.
The ending ofThe Walking Dead: Season Oneis, frankly, brutal. Not only must we watch our main character Lee Everett die after following him through the apocalypse, but we also have to see Clementine, a helpless child, witness his death, realize the death of her parents, and escape a horde of walkers on her own.
The pain of the tragedy seen in this finale, and the trauma experienced by the lovable and naive sidekick Clementine, are unmatched in any other game. Seeing an 8-year-old child have to go through all of this, with the additional option of having her shoot Lee to prevent him from turning, is the saddest ending that we have ever seen in a video game to this day.
