predictable mention but honestly no other game's climax has enraptured me and moved me like Disco Elysium. it's beautiful.
....still need to play this
Heard some shady shit went down at the studio. I'll have to look into whether I should pirate it or not
Pirate it is the usual recommendation. Iirc profits will go to a bad dude who stiffed the workers. Been a while since I read that info though, so might be worth to read further.
I like the People Make Games investigation, but understandably no one's got time for that shit. It's like 2 hours long.
TL;DW: It's complicated, but I don't think it's right to say the workers got stiffed. A lot of people worked on the game, not just the three who were forced out (though those three were considered the core design team). At this point, though, what's left of ZA/UM is probably an empty office and half a dozen scrapped projects on hard drives. There's nothing left to support even if you side with the company. I say pirate it.
Edit: The good news is there are like 4 recently announced projects from multiple former Elysium devs that promise to carry on the spirit of the game.
People Make Games investigation TL;DW: It's complicated, but I don't think it's right to say the workers got stiffed.
??? Have you been living under a rock or something? That aged like milk over a year ago. Its just stinky cheese now.
Edit: The good news is there are like 4 recently announced projects from multiple former Elysium devs that promise to carry on the spirit of the game.
How did you not realize this when the documentary shits on Kurvis for trying to do this in the first place?
there is a noclip documentary coming out soon that will hopefully be better
??? Have you been living under a rock or something? That aged like milk over a year ago. Its just stinky cheese now.
Apparently I have? I pretty much stopped paying attention to this story since it seemed as thoroughly poked into as it was gonna get unless some upcoming lawsuits would change anything.
And it's been a while since I watched it, but I remember a bunch of the interviewed ZA/UM staff agreeing that Kurvitz and the other two were fucking things up a bit and needed to go. That doesn't mean I side with the fucking shareholders and new leadership. It just means it's not as simple as the investors screwing over all the workers.
But if you don't mind, I'd appreciate your perspective. I finally finished DE only this past summer, so I also missed this news unfolding in real time. I probably have some blind spots on the story.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
That pokemon game from 20 years ago where you beat all the gyms and go to the elite four and win the game and then its like PSYCHE theres an entire nother set of gym leaders and elite four get to it!
my tiny head exploded
Better yet, once you finish going back through Kanto, you have to climb a mountain and fight your character from the previous game
That was Gen II, gold silver and crystal! I wish they did it in following games.
Mgs2
This is the only answer
Snake's stock footage speech at the end changed my life
I like Earthbound and how the ending is a culmination of all the people you've met and helped coming together to help you
...Time, Dr. Freeman?
Is it really that time again? It seems as if you only just arrived. You've done a great deal in a small time... span. You've done so well, in fact, that I've received some interesting offers for your services. Ordinarily, I wouldn't contemplate them... but these are extraordinary times. Rather than offer you the illusion of free choice, I will take the liberty of choosing for you... if and when your time comes round again. I do apologize for what must seem to you an arbitrary imposition, Dr. Freeman. I trust it will all make sense to you in the course of... well... I'm really not at liberty to say. In the meantime... this is where I get off.
Hmm Disco Elysium obv. Also FFX and OG FF7 are great. Suikoden 2 also has an amazing ending if you get the best route.
gotta say RDR2.
Metal Gear Solid 1/2/3. I can't decide between them lol
2, they're close but 2's ending is a big part of why I'm posting here now
SOMA. The implications of the technology in that game are horrifying.
The game's basic conceit is you're a white dude from downtown Toronto who got a brain injury in a car accident, and you're going in for an experimental brain scan. Flash of light, and suddenly it's 100 years later and you're wandering around in a station with monsters in it.
spoiler
Your brain scan is the first ever successful one, and your scan has become part of the "dev kit" for anybody who wants to do brain scan science stuff. There have undoubtedly been thousands of copies of you spun up for people to experiment on, then just shut off. In this particular instance, the world has ended, humanity is extinct, and your mind has been transplanted into a diving suit with a dead woman in it. Have fun with the rest of the (even more fucked up) story!
Not sure if this counts but my favorite quest series in RuneScape is the cabe goblin quests.
You find out that there exists a new group of goblins that live under lumbridge castle called the Dorgushuun. You meet one of them, Zanik. She is very shy but curious about the world and it’s really heartwarming when she sees the sun for the first time.
Long story short you battle some of her traumas and even her own fate in the Chosen Commander quest (the whole series feels like a metaphor for both racism and religious trauma.) and she becomes hailed as a hero to the Dorgushuun. Yeah, Jagex then fucked with the story and added unnecessary sequels that ruined that happy ending and turned it into a Zanik torture porn, but I’m just hoping that The Chosen Commander comes to OSRS and it ends on a 100% happy note again.
What makes this all the more impressive is that this is Runescape, the funny medieval cookie clicker where a lot of the quests end up being fun medieval saturday morning cartoon silliness. I would pay to see some single-player RPG of the RuneScape series. Keep the writers but have the gameplay done by Square Enix or something, it being a web mmo unfortunately adds some limits to the storytelling
the Black Ops 2 ending where Menendez wins
PS. also obligatory Disco Elysium mention, it was real after all
FreeSpace 2 has this incredible build-up about the nature of the alien threat, starting out as just a secondary antagonist, and then increasing and increasing in threat, until you as the player come face to face with the reality of an unstoppable apocalyptic threat that you can only ever really run away from. I think it works so well because the game really is a power fantasy for most of it's run, with the player regularly overcoming seemingly impossible odds (the solo bombing run against the gargantuan Sathanas juggernaut is a standout)... but the ending levels just have the wheels coming off the bus, and the climax comes whether you survive it or not. Pretty good for a wing commander clone.
As someone playing FF7 Rebirth, the original has been on my mind a lot, so I'm going to say that one: FF7. It had an ambiguous ending that I've come to appreciate more the older I get, and I think has been made slightly worse as they continue to release more expansions to the world and story.
I used to love it, but I now think it would've been better for the story if Advent Children (the sequel movie) hadn't been released at all. Maybe just Tifa and Cloud's fight scenes as tech demos and that's it.
Super Metroid, Mega Man Zero 4, Outer Wilds
I still think no ending from any Zelda game surpasses the one from A Link to the Past (SNES). it invites the player to consider that their heart and mind will determine how their wish is granted and then shows what that means, with all the places of the world returning to peaceful balance, all the wrongs of the world, no matter how small, being righted, and the great hero's power being returned to a hidden place deep in the forest where it will rest "forever".
it felt like the world really was saved, finally and for always. not this temporary and iterative resurfacing of evil and good in conflict that has become standard since. rather, the hero in aLttP fixed what had gone wrong long before they were ever born, so long before that its story had been lost to legend while the world slowly decayed into chaos until it became too much to ignore for anyone with any capacity to resist.
the other games felt like unavoidable fate and cyclical conflict. I liked them, but not as much.
: "Sayonara... Shadow... The Hedgehog."
Xenoblades 3
CoD Cold War where you detonate the nukes.
Serious answer Disco Elysium, The Outer Wilds, Dark Souls 3: Ringed City DLC, and The Witcher 3 DLCs (not a huge fan of the base game).
Final Fantasy 6. That shit was groundbreaking for the time.
Chrono Trigger. 15 endings!
Limbo of the Lost, naturally.
Seeing the life force of the planet sprout out like grassroots to come together to heal the planet when the Holy band aid was making Metor worse. Seeing the hypercapitalism in ruins after being taken back by nature 500 years later as the planet healed.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
The promise ending in SIGNALIS is easily the most memorable video game ending I've ever seen. IMO it turned a 9/10 game into an 11/10 game because they fucking WENT THERE.
System Shock 2
"The cybernetic implants I gave you were merely toys. If I just desired, I could improve you, transform you into something more efficient. Join me human and we can rule together."
"Nah."
Gunfire
Prey (2017)
I worked this one out before it happened so it probably didn't hit me as hard as it would've if it had been a complete surprise but I do love how they interrogate you over the choices you made during the game.
Slave Knight Gael from DS3's DLC
This fight is such a beautiful, emotional climax to Dark Souls as a series, even bringing Dark Souls bosses back in Elden Ring: Nightreign can't spoil it.
Homeworld Cataclysm/Emergence
I know it's stock hero's journey stuff, but Kith Somtaw coming to the rescue and being hailed as "the beast killers" after the game starts with them not even being acknowledged when they help fight off some pirates.
BOI Repentance DLC
I actually burst into tears the first time I defeated The Beast and it sets up another bleak ending, only for Isaac's dad to interrupt it and help him change it.
"You're the one writing it, it doesn't have to end this way."
These ones'll probably be mentioned in other comments:
Disco Elysium
Ending E of Nier Automata
The showdown with Dagoth Ur at the end of Morrowind's main questline.
Bonus - game ending that's memorable but not necessarily good:
Silent Hill Homecoming - first time I played this game, I stumbled into the UFO ending (which is way easier to get than in other Silent Hills). The PC port was a janky mess and I almost didn't make it to the end due softlocks here and there lead me to losing a lot of progress only for the game to end with an out of nowhere UFO abduction completely destroyed all the pathos of the story.
Homeworld: Cataclysm mentioned.
Probably my favorite out of all the Homeworld games. Also the soundtrack is great
Zeroranger, Off, Persona 3, Trails in the Sly the 3rd, FFXIV Shadowbringers
Lots of great endings here, I wanna shout out the developers of the messenger, and sea of stars for some really good endings. The messenger fakes you out at least once.
Sea of stars has a decent normal ending but the 100% ending is really excellent.
In Super Mario Bros 2 (US) you discover it was all a dream. This blew my mind and I've never seen this used before or since. Incredible writing.
I occasionally plug weird old freeware games I used to play in threads like this - Iji is a product of its era, but it also feels like it was ahead of its time the way the dev subverted the "alien invasion" trope. Ending theme is also a banger.
Also Cave Story is a classic.
Braid has one of the best ending levels ever.
OG Portal (it was good before it got memed into the Earth's core) for introducing me to Jonathan Coulton.
Undertale
More recently, I liked Nine Sols.
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
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