Summary
After playing a game for hours, it can be a relief to see how it ends. Usually, it’s a happy ending that sees the heroes save the day, though even the sad endings can be worth the effort if they wrap things up well; especially if it’s the only ending available. However, some games offeralternate endings, depending on how the game was played.
These can be even better than the happy ending, or they can be considerably worse. Then there are some that can be so disturbing they’ll encourage the player to do better next time or try a much cozier game. These are just some of themost disturbing alternate endings in video games, ranging from majorly melancholy to grisly and gruesome.
It might be easier to list the things inDrakengardthat aren’t disturbing, as everyone and everything in the game is twisted in one way or another. Particularly Endings D and E, where Seere ends up using his golem to crush his possessed sister, Manah. Up to that point, she was the main villain, but she was only doing the bidding of the Watchers. With their vessel dead, they decide to take care of things themselves.
The Watchers take the form of giant babies with teeth called Grotesqueries, who bestow an ironic death on the child-eating elf Arioch and force the child-touching priest Leonard to blow himself up to save the others. Ending D at least sees these beings get sealed off by Seere. Ending E forces the player to take out their mother, the Queen Beast, in modern-day Tokyo via a rhythm-action game. It’s less disturbing andmore of a deliberate troll, as the game has to be beaten 100% to get this wonky conclusion.
TheFalloutfranchise may have changed genres, but it still retains some features from the original game, like offering multiple endings for each key quest, with each depending on the player’s actions. Their Vault Dweller could be a boon to what’s left of humanity, their ultimate doom, or any varying shade of gray in between those extremes. Though few games in the series’ have conclusions as chilling asFallout 1’s “Dipping” ending.
If the player succumbs to the super mutants’ torture, they’ll give up the location of their Vault and “agree”’ to join the Master’s ranks as a super mutant. To do that, they’re wrapped up like a mummy and dipped into a vat full of the Forced Evolutionary Virus. This ensures they’re doomed to become one of the Master’s mutated drones for life, while the Vault’s security footage will show their friends getting murdered one by one as the oncoming hordes take over the facility.
8Haunting Ground
Cruelty To Dogs Leads To A Cruel Fate
With Capcom giving love to some of their under-appreciated fighters, likeProject Justice, survival horror fans are hopingHaunting Groundwill get some of that love too. Born out ofResident Evil 4’s development, the game saw Fiona attempt to escape a castle’s dungeon and avoid its different, grim residents with the help of a dog named Hewie. Fiona can only do so much, so befriending Hewie can meanthe difference between life and death.
However, death might be preferable to the game’s worst conclusion. Usually, Hewie would save Fiona from the game’s third villain, Riccardo, who is essentially her uncle. He and her late father were clones, and he plans on using Fiona to be reborn as an immortal. If the player leaves Hewie for dead in the Chaos Forest, Fiona will be defenseless against Riccardo. What he does isn’t shown, but the grim ending shows Fiona has become heavily pregnant and left in a demented, laughing state.
People often wonder what would happen if their dream developers got to collaborate on a project. Usually, it’s a damp squib, other times it’s weird (Hideo Kojima and Suda 51 made an audio drama based onSnatchercalledSdatcher), and sometimes it lives up to the hype. Like whenFinal Fantasycreator Hironobu Sakaguchi teamed withDragon Quest’s Yuji Horiiand Akira Toriyama to makeChrono Trigger. It was a time-traveling RPG where Chrono and company had to stop the dreaded beast Lavos from destroying the world in 1999.
The game offered multiple endings, each with its own unique plot twists. The simplest one to get is to fail against Lavos himself, who’ll spew fire across the land until the globe turns gray and lifeless. The icing on the cake comes from the ominous text: “But…the future refused to change,” followed by Lavos’ monstrous cry. Until the player learns how to avert fate, the planet and its people will always be doomed.
TheShin Megami Tenseigames aren’t a barrel of laughs, so it’s no surprise its spin-off,Persona,can get grim too. It’s possible to end things happily, though it’s also possible to, say, doom the protagonist’s friends and family by helping the bad guy inPersona 4, turn everyone into the God of Control’s pawns inPersona 5, or sleep forever in an illusion inPersona 5 Royal. Still, things could be worse;Persona 3forces the player tomake a cataclysmic choice.
On December 31st, the player has two options: Spare Ryoji and face the might of Nyx, who’s destined to destroy all life, or kill Ryoji, lose all memory of Nyx, and live out their final days peacefully with their friends. Killing him doesn’t sound so bad, as everyone gets to graduate and party. It’s suggested that Aigis still remembers, but she cannot get her friends to remember her, let alone save humanity. They spend their last moments singing karaoke before Nyx comes and ends both the game and all life on Earth.
TheDead Risinggames also offer multiple endings, with the best ones requiring careful time management and a lot of patience. There were bad endings if players had an absolute disaster of a run, yet they were usually more tongue-in-cheek. Like Frank’s buddy pithily remarking on his death before he also becomes zombie chow inDead Rising 1,or Nick Ramos getting his just deserts if he tries to abandon everyone inDead Rising 3.
Dead Rising 2took things in a sadder direction as, on top of everything else, Chuck Greene has to give his daughter Katey regular doses of Zombrex, or she’ll die. If the player fails this and everything else, a grief-stricken Chuck will be left in the safe house, holding Katey’s backpack. Left inconsolable, he lets himself be eaten alive when the zombies overrun his refuge. Everyone dies, the place is firebombed, and Greene takes the fall for the outbreak.
Harvesteris a strange game filled with strange people. Steve Mason finds himself stranded in the Texas town of Harvest in 1953, where he can’t remember past a certain point, but everyone treats him like a regular, making him do one chore or another. Through these tasks and others, the player can help Steve realize the truth. The town is actually a virtual reality simulation run by a cult called The Order of the Harvest Moon. The only real people in it are himself and Stephanie, another kidnapped victim.
The simulation was meant to warp Steve’s mind and turn him into the cult’s personal serial killer. By the end, the player can choose to kill Stephanie, where Steve will murder her brutally, then take to the road in the real world to kill more. Or, they can spare Stephanie, and the two will live out the rest of their days in VR…while the cult renders their real selves brain-dead. It’s hard to tell which ending is meant to be the “bad” one.
Silent Hillis famous for its unhappy endings, whether it’s the first game and Harry Mason’s dying vision, or his daughter Heather becoming possessed inSilent Hill 3. The later games had their twists and turns, though they were rarely on par with the original trilogy thanks to one issue or several. Still,Silent Hill 4: The Roomstands out for its particularly dark bad ending. If the player ignores their haunted apartment and leaves Eileen to die, Henry willfinish Walter Sullivan offbut will fail to stop the 21 Sacraments.
Through this ritual, Walter thought he could wake his “mother,” who he was told resides in the apartment he was abandoned in as a child. He killed himself as part of it and came back as a ghost to get the other kills the ritual needed. By abandoning Eileen, Henry becomes the final sacrifice required. All the other key characters die off-screen, and the remaining residents of the apartment block start suffering chest pains. Nothing can stop Walter and his “mother” from bringing in a new world of darkness now.
Usually, the best endings in theSilent Hillgames are canon, like inSH1and3.Silent Hill 2and its remake are different, as James' father inSH4mentions that his son went to the titular town, and then disappeared. This suggests that one of 2 possible endings really happened. The most likely one is “In Water,” where James reflects on his actions. He tried to be a nice guy, but he couldn’t overcome the guilt of killing his wife, Mary, as he had her body wrapped up in the back of his car all along.
Unable to come to terms with what he did, he drives into Toluca Lake and drowns. On the other hand, “Rebirth” sees James delve into the lore of the town. He thinks the Old Gods could bring Mary back to life if he follows their arcane rituals. He moves her body into a boat and rows to an island, where his fate is left unknown. Whatever happened, he never made it back home after entering Silent Hill. Chances are he was better off drowning in the lake than rowing across it.
It’s not every day that a game gives players the choice to have a bad ending, then punishes them for every playthrough after that; or at least until they do some save data fiddling to fix it. By killing every monster in every area ofUndertale, the other characters will be increasingly scared of Frisk, the player character. The bosses will get harder, with Sans proving to be the toughest of them all. By besting him, Frisk will have murdered all but a few lucky escapees,completing the Genocide route.
Flowey kills Asgore to curry their favor, only to get the worst death of all. However, any celebration is cut short, as doing this revives Chara, the fallen human. They’ll compel the player to erase the world and render the game unplayable. Well, not without a 10-minute wait, where Chara will offer the option to continue in exchange for the player’s soul. They will then taint every other ending with their presence. If the player didn’t want Toriel, Papyrus, Sand, and the others dead, they wouldn’t have killed them in the first place.
