The 10 Most Unsatisfying Game Endings In History

The narrative-driven action series Mass Effect teaches you that choices matter... Until they don't. In Mass Effect 3, every choice a player makes before the final decision is ultimately rendered meaningless when they're presented with three conclusive scenarios - none of which answered fan questions or even seemed to relate to the storyline that players spent some 40+ hours tailoring.

You are Talion, a ranger of Gondor with wraith-like abilities on a dark quest to avenge the murder of your family. Against impossible odds, you hound the Black Hand of Sauron and finally get to the tower for that epic boss battle, only to be met with a mediocre fight and a confusingly short ending. Talk about disappointing. 

Distilling the vast experience of Borderlands into a single goal isn't too hard: find the vault. As such, you would think that the discovery of the vault at the end of your perilous journey would be the most epic moment in gaming history. But, uh, that's simply not the case. Says designer Paul Helquist, "The ending of the game, for better or worse, didn't paint us into any corners." It also didn't satisfy any player expectations, unless the Borderland devs have some way of pushing updates for a 200-year-long cliffhanger. 

In a game where choices matter, you would think the choices would be a little more rooted in reality. With Fable II, you get the dubious honor of making decisions with flat-out ridiculous consequences. This, as you might imagine, does little to make the ending satisfying for players. 

The narrative game Life is Strange puts you in the shoes of Max, a high school photography student who one day attains the ability to manipulate time. Over the course of five episodes, you're tasked with fitting into a new school, reuniting with an old friend, uncovering who is behind a series of sexual assaults on campus, and saving the town from total destruction.

Choices matter in this game, leading ultimately to two possible endings. Unfortunately, both endings leave a lot to be desired, especially so when one of the endings is about as plain and flavorless as it gets. Driving off into the sunset? Really? 

If you're developing an open world game, it's tough to give it an ending - after all, you want players to keep consuming content. Games like Fallout 3 are meant for replay, but not if you give the game an ending that renders it impossible to play in the world you've spent so much time crafting with your choices. The critical reception of Fallout 3's ending created a lot of pressure for devs to beef up Fallout 4 (but that's another story of mismanaged narrative potential).