The 12 Most WTF Video Game Endings That Left You Speechless

Between Pyramid Head, demon nurses, and the dreaded air raid siren, Silent Hill 2 has created nightmares for millions of gamers. In the game, James Sunderland receives a letter from his dead wife, prompting him to return to their "special place" in the town of Silent Hill. Once there, he encounters odd characters, terrifying monsters, and a gratuitous amount of fog.

The player can achieve several different endings after enduring hours of tormenting gameplay. For example, if they find the dog key, they'll meet the game's true antagonist - the brain behind the entire ordeal: a Shiba Inu named Mira. 

This mischievous little pup is not a good girl. In secret, she's manipulated everything about the town via a control panel in a hidden room. As James drops to his knees in utter despair, Mira approaches and licks his face. In the end, she's all bark and no bite.

After losing most of his squad in several violent encounters with Alma - a supernatural being with horrifying abilities - Michael Becket realizes he can only defeat her by sealing himself in a chamber which can amplify his psychic abilities.

At this point, the player assumes Becket's plan will work. It's the final mission in the game, so there's not much time left to defeat Alma. Unfortunately, Becket ends up sealed inside the chamber with Alma, who assaults him and impregnates herself. Later, Alma places his hand on her stomach; the player can hear a child saying, "Mommy." 

There's no lead-up to Becket's assault. Events before the finale are typical of action-packed first-person shooters. The final twist leaves the player in an uncomfortable daze.

The NBA 2K games often get a bad rap, as many people think they're shallow and only appeal to jocks and bros. However, 2K16 is an entirely different beast.

After playing through the tribulations of an up-and-coming basketball star named Freq in the game's MyCareer mode, the hero discovers his closest friend Vic has died in a car accident.

Vic's ghost appears before Freq, proceeding to read a letter he wrote before his death; it details his rough relationship with his father, his love for his mother, and his struggle with an existential crisis. 

For a game about playing basketball, a letter read by a dead friend appears strange, but Spike Lee wrote the story, so this (kind of) explains it.

Drakengard starts off like many Japanese RPGs: with a fantasy setting, cool dragons, and a character needing to avenge his family's death. The hero Caim fights alongside a red dragon to bring down the evil empire. While his primary mission is successful, he fails to protect the three Seals guarding the land against creatures called the Watchers.

Players familiar with fantasy RPGs have seen their fair share of grotesque demons, but nothing compares to the unsettling realization the Watchers are simply giant babies. A larger baby called Mother leads them, and opens a portal in the sky to modern-day Tokyo.

The player defeats Mother by playing a rhythm game. Immediately after, the Japanese Air Force shoots down Caim and his dragon, and the game ends with the heroes' bodies impaled on Tokyo Tower. While the player can potentially achieve other endings, who wouldn't want to get skewered by a 1,902-foot-tall Japanese building?

Most of the time, Braid follows the tried-and-true Mario formula with a few inventive twists, such as the protagonist Tim using time-manipulation powers to search for a princess. Tim tries to save her from a nondescript monster. This takes him through a series of puzzles framed to resemble a traditional platformer. 

When Tim reaches the last level, he sees the princess chased by a knight. Tim attempts to aid her escape, but when the duo reach the level's end, time begins to move backwards, and a drastically different story unfolds. 

After the reversal, the player sees the princess running from Tim and laying traps for him, implying Tim's the game's true monster. Moreover, the knight who initially seemed antagonistic ends up rescuing the princess. What starts as an innocent ode to classic platformers quickly turns into a confusing mess, leaving the player wondering why they pursued someone who, in retrospect, was evading them all along.

For gamers, there are few things more gut-wrenching than losing a saved file containing dozens of hours' worth of progress. The creators of NieR: Automata understand this, and actively lean into players' anxieties to create an insanely difficult moral choice. 

NieR: Automata has 26 possible endings - one for each letter of the alphabet - but only five are "true" endings. Endings A-D involve lots of jumping back and forth between characters, concluding the game with different perspectives. However, to achieve ending E, the player must finish a bullet hell mini-game, which is seemingly impossible to defeat without help.

Fortunately, the game allows other real-life players to join in and help. After the player beats the mini-game, they, too, can assist another random player through the game. While this may sound sweet, it comes with a price: complete deletion of the player's saved data. There's no way to double back on this choice; once the file is gone, it's gone.