End Game

[Loony BoB]

FFXIII, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, FFXIII-2 and now Mass Effect 3 have all had their endings pointed out as not up to scratch in the past year or two. Do you think that, in general, the writing in games needs to improve? Are these representative of the way gaming is going, or are they exceptions to a more positive trend?

No spoilers, please. Just stick to opinion on where gaming is heading in general, not the individual games.

[Pike]

Sometimes I get the feeling that games are "trying too hard". They want so badly to be seen as a serious narrative form that they go overboard and it turns cheesy or silly or whatever. I'd like to think it's sort of a phase that they'll eventually grow out of and improve upon, especially as games become more of a respected medium.

[Quindiana Jones]

With the increase in players with internet access, and the simplicity of the downloads process, I feel that most developers aren't too worried about proper closure, because if they don't complete a game they can just release DLC and make more money. There's no incentive to create a self-contained story anymore. It's not just a matter of close in terms of the game ending, even with loose ends all tied up. Closure is just the feeling that you've done what you set out to do, it's complete. Whether or not the world created can continue from that point isn't important. FFIX has closure in a bittersweet sense, kind of like finishing the Lord of the Rings book, in that the journey has ended and the world will now just continue. It's a great way to end a game. So closure can be open-ended, I think. What's important is ensuring that the game feels finished, which game devs rarely bother with now.

[Shattered Dreamer]

A good storyline I fear has been the casualty of improving graphics & the increased emphasis on online multiplayer. DLC has also contributed to this problem but not as much as the other 2 points I feel.

I am actually racking my brains trying to think about recently released games with a good ending. Batman Arkham City had a decent ending that probably stands out above a lot of the "big releases" of the past few years.

Another point I think that needs to be made is that Final Fantasy games haven't had good endings since the PSX era. Every title in the series since has fallen down in the ending department in a big way.

[Slothy]

I think with Deus Ex:HR, it was more a case of the ending being rushed than anything else. I have no idea if it actually was, but I can't think of any other reason to essentially throw out the established gameplay at the very end of the game other than they were simply running out of time and had to get it done. The gradual tapering off of the HUB cities would also seem to support that conclusion.

Which is actually where I see a lot of big games ending up these days. Uncharted 1 and 2 actually suffered from this a great deal as well. Because they simply wrote the game as they went along, the final sections are by far the least interesting, and the final bosses were also underwhelming at best and annoying bullet sponges on the highest difficulty.

A lot more games fall into the category of ran out of time so the ending suffers as a result. And in large part I blame the sky high budgets and the difficulty in developing on present hardware. It is very hard to do a good amount of prototyping and playtesting, particularly when it's crunch time and you have under a year to finish the damn thing and have it on shelves. The only developers not really affected by this are either those who had a clear vision from the start and accomplished it relatively smoothly, or those with all of the time in the world to finish the game. But since not every developer is Valve, most don't have that luxury.

Some of it could also be that writing a satisfying ending requires a good writer, and frankly, many video game writers aren't that good. Even a lot of the stuff from companies known for making story and character driven games like Bioware and Bethesda I find completely underwhelming. Though admittedly, it's not always the writers fault. Many companies are getting better at having a writer involved from day 1 so things go smoothly there, but not all of them. And the ones that don't usually suffer the most for it.

[VeloZer0]

I think it is also that they just don't put the same amount of resources into the ending as other parts of the game. The fact is that the majority of people who play a game won't ever see the ending. This doesn't escape most game developers, they know that resources put into the ending won't reach as many people as resources put into other parts of the game.

[Loony BoB]

I think it is also that they just don't put the same amount of resources into the ending as other parts of the game. The fact is that the majority of people who play a game won't ever see the ending. This doesn't escape most game developers, they know that resources put into the ending won't reach as many people as resources put into other parts of the game.

Following that train of thought, do you think after prominent games have suffered from bad user reviews over the ending that they will adjust this balancing of resources? Or do you think it needs to be panned by critics before they pay more attention? ME3 is a good example for this - user reviews are at around 5.0/10 on metacritic, while critic reviews are at 94/100.

[Quindiana Jones]

User reviews of ME3 are skewed by trolls, but I think the point still stands. I think that users shouldn't praise games in their reviews. In my opinion, the critic reviews are for giving the game a cheeky handjob, whereas the user reviews should be used to draw attention to the bad points. As it is now, I would argue that it even needs to be exaggerated to ensure the message is properly understood.

I think a mark like 94/100 would require a game to be practically perfect in every way. That's why you can't trust critic reviews; they are always in favour of the people giving them money. Take Skyrim, which is still showering off the saliva of every games mag. The critic and user review were practically incoherent with glee. And while I agree that it is an absolutely fantastic game, I think it still only deserves an 8/8.5. Reviews need to get out of the mindset of "There was this bad thing, but this bit more than made up for it!". That doesn't help anybody. Praise the good bits, punish the bad bits. Do not mingle them or try to create a counterbalance. When a teacher tells little Timmy that this part wasn't very good, but the middle bit was incredible so it's okay, Timmy doesn't learn how to write properly. You should tell Timmy that the middle bit was terrific, but this part was very bad and needs to be improved.

Reviews should be used to tell developers that their bad decisions should be brought up to the level of their good ones, not to tell them that their mistakes are acceptable as long as the rest is okay.

[Del Murder]

I didn't think FFXIII's ending was really that bad. It was certainly no worse than the rest of it. It had that one huge cop-out moment but otherwise I liked it.

FFXIII-2, on the other hand, felt like SE spit in our face. There's no excuse to have an ending like that. This isn't a movie where we can sit for two hours and then be ready for the next one, a game with 30 hours of your life invested in it deserves a bit more closure than that.

I haven't played ME3 so I can't comment, but aren't the endings of the ME games totally dependent on the choices you make in the game and who survives until the end?

In general, I don't think game endings or game writing is in trouble. Back in the day, 'Congratulations for saving the world', followed by the end credits was enough. We've come a long way since then. Game writing is still pretty good, see the Batman, ME, or Uncharted games. Even Skyward Sword has some of the best writing in a Zelda game I've seen in a while. Only SE has been disappointing, but that's because they set the bar so high for themselves. They are really trying to hard to make a splash when all they really need to do is make something good.

[Slothy]

I haven't played ME3 so I can't comment, but aren't the endings of the ME games totally dependent on the choices you make in the game and who survives until the end?

Based on everything I've heard (having not played it and having no intention to to be honest) (SPOILER)your choices have nothing to do with the ending in ME3. They basically pull a Deus Ex and make you choose between a few options. Which sounds like a huge slap in the face to be honest for a series where your choices are supposed to matter.

[Crop]

I think with Deus Ex:HR, it was more a case of the ending being rushed than anything else. I have no idea if it actually was, but I can't think of any other reason to essentially throw out the established gameplay at the very end of the game other than they were simply running out of time and had to get it done. The gradual tapering off of the HUB cities would also seem to support that conclusion.

I think this was the case. I did read somewhere that (SPOILER)Monteral, where the Picus centre is was also supposed to be an area that you could explore but they were running short on time and had to cut it.
It was disappointing, the endings were god awful compared to the rest of the brilliant game.

[Sephex]

Like most views in the gaming world, it's not as bad as critics make it out to be, but a bigger problem than optimists are willing to admit.

Despite a few set backs, writing in video games has been improving. Even the most lamest ending in modern gaming is far better than a single screen that misspells congratulations or some other positive message.

Of course, I am not giving writers a free pass based on that notion, but I feel far too many people fail to see how far gaming has come because of some issues here and there. Hell, I am a person that will cry foul when I feel like the writing in a game isn't up to par, but I'm not going to kid myself and claim that, "WORST WRITING EVER!!!!"

Bah, I am going in circles. Long story short, you take the good and the bad and hope things improve over time. Otherwise, break into the biz and show people who's boss.

[I Don't Need A Name]

You take all these points and then you compare to games like the CoD series. The developers for them seem to put all of their resources into the last level...but that's probably because you get to it within 3 hours of playing the game..

[Psychotic]

Why can't I have an ending where I save the world, get the girl, my dead friends come back to life and we all have a foam party? Or perhaps the heroes perform a medley with the villains and they all have one of those stage bows at the end.

Red Dead Redemption is the only recent game that has a great ending that I can think of. Makes you go "HELL YEAH" and "" at the same time. And that song. I think MGS3 has the other incredible ending I can think of.

[Wolf Kanno]

Honestly, I think most games have terrible endings, it's only the few exceptional ones that actually have really great endings. For instance, I wouldn't place any of the FFs in the category of having a great ending, maybe good, but not great. Most of them are either too flashy and don't answer anything, and the ones that do try to give closure are kind of boring.

I do think it's a bit unnerving how we've kind of had a surge of games that end with a "sequel hook" which I feel Del pretty much expressed my thoughts on, though I would add it's fine if the game developer is up front about the fact they plan on making sequels about it.

As for writing in games, I think my own beef with the quality of writing nowadays comes more from the developers dropping the ball on how to integrate story and gameplay. Certainly, they've come a long way since the days of the 16-bit era when Japanese companies really started to push character development and narrative, or the Western PC RPGs and Adventure games. Yet, I still just find it kind of odd that so many people hold onto the idea of approaching the story like a film instead of fusing it with the new medium. Granted not all of this is successful, this idea of fusion did spawn quick time events but I personally never saw why people revile them so much but then again, I never bothered playing RE4 but I felt Shenmue did them rather well when it first introduced the concept.

Despite the game having a terrible plot and some awful dialogue and the very ending cutscene being overly dramatic and cheesy while it retcon the hell out of the original FFVII, the way Crisis Core fused the gameplay and story for the final battle was incredibly well done and did create a powerful emotional moment for the player, it's just a shame it's followed up by more cheese which kind of killed the moment for me.

I think the other issue is that most writers don't know how to end things, or worse, they try to be clever and avant garde and try to create some kind of profound ending that doesn't answer anything and feels kind of out of place from the rest of the story. You know, a Gainax Ending. While such endings are not always bad, I do feel they are incredibly hard to pull off, especially if you're trying to do this to a story that's pretty straightforward (I'm looking at you FFVIII) up until the ending.