10 Bleakest Video Game Endings of All Time

Video games offer a multitude of different emotions and experiences, aiming to immerse the player in creative worlds through imaginative systems. Titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Red Dead Redemption 2 are some of the most critically acclaimed, but sometimes a game is so good that players can’t help but feel sad when they beat it and it is all over.

However, some games evoke a different kind of sadness when they end, and that is because the conclusion is a bleak twist of despair and depression. This list will rank the ten bleakest video game endings based on writing, how shocking it is, tragic nature, despair, the narrative arc and conclusion, how well it fits, and how sad it made players. There is nothing worse than playing a life-changing video game only to feel empty at the end, but that just proves they got the intended experience. Please be advised that this list will contain heavy spoilers.

10

‘Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons’ (2013)

Image via Starbreeze Studios

This list features some pretty well-known classics, but one of the more obscure video games is Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. As the two brothers continue their journey to find the Tree of Life and use its sap to cure their dying father, one of them is fatally wounded, leaving the other to complete the journey and save the father, but at what cost?

On one hand, players set out what they strived for in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, but the tragedy is what makes it so well-designed. Most bleak game endings end in disaster and failure, but this one proves that the goal isn’t earned without sacrifice. Despite accomplishing the mission, players are left with an empty pit in their stomach, with no sense of achievement or joy, just sadness.

9

‘Halo: Reach’ (2010)

Image via Microsoft Game Studios

The Halo franchise is regarded as the best FPS game series, home to some of the most entertaining games, including a prequel, Halo: Reach. The planet has fallen, the player’s entire Spartan team is dead, and all that is left is to defend the last of humanity and ensure their escape. The last mission is to fight the endless swarms of enemies until the player dies, which they ultimately do.

The tragedy of Halo: Reach is knowing the outcome before playing the game, but fans can’t help but get sucked into the intriguing story and compelling gameplay up until the final objective: survival. Players put up a hopeless fight that they know they can’t walk away from, making it a badass, yet incredibly bleak ending in one of the best multiplayer video game franchises of all time.

8

‘The Walking Dead: Season 1’ (2012)

Image via Telltale Games

There are a lot of TV adaptations of video games, but the opposite is rarely successful, but one entry proves it’s not impossible: The Walking Dead: Season 1. After helping Clementine survive the apocalypse throughout the entire game, a zombie bites Lee Everett, forcing him to chain himself up and give Clementine one last lesson: to kill him or make him suffer as a zombie.

Having a character kill someone they’re close to is always sad, but what makes The Walking Dead: Season 1 even more ruthless is that gamers played the game through Clementine, making the decision more personal. This final choice isn’t just narratively tragic, but emotionally impactful and personal for the player, too, ending in a gruesomely intimate way that will haunt gamers forever.

7

‘Fallout’ (1997)

Image via Bethesda

The Fallout franchise has come a long way, with a handful of critically acclaimed games and a renowned TV show. However, the first game still has the saddest ending. Playing as a vault dweller, gamers spend the entire time defeating the mutant army and surviving horrors beyond human comprehension, and when they return to the safety of the vault, they are turned away, being exiled because they changed too much.

All the Fallout games are incredible, but the first one has a certain impact that is felt in an ending that is far bleaker than any part of any other game. The entire experience is a test of survival, putting the player through horrific tasks and events, and the reward for saving everyone is permanent exile. This bitter note was a shocking twist that makes everything that previously happened feel pointless, ending the game rather depressingly.

6

‘Shadow of the Colossus’ (2005)

Image via Sony Computer Entertainment

Fumito Ueda is a legendary game designer, and his magnum opus, Shadow of the Colossus, also has one of the most tragic endings in the medium. When the player successfully kills all 16 Colossi beings, their loved one, Mono, is resurrected. However, the player is possessed by the entity they made a deal with and then sucked into a sealing pool, stuck there for eternity while their lover is now alone.

Shadow of the Colossus perfectly subverts the hero’s journey by making every “victory” a tragic moment. Killing the Colossi isn’t a triumph, but a mournful event of pity and disgrace, and the player only notices it too late. By the time reality hits, every Colossi is dead, and the reward is bittersweet. They don’t even get to experience the love they sought, instead being forced to live sealed, leaving their loved one alone and afraid in a now-barren world.

5

‘Cyberpunk 2077’ (2020)

Cyberpunk 2077 is perhaps the most popular game on this list, finally becoming a success years after its disastrous launch. The game has multiple endings, but no matter which one players choose, V is dying because of the biochip in their head. Players can either die a legend of Night City, ride off into the desert, or become a digital prisoner for Arasaka Corporation.

The main theme of Cyberpunk 2077 is that the house always wins, and the city is ripe with capitalistic greed and control that make the world so intriguing and depressing. Some of the endings are better than others, but overall, this game has a devastating ending where the player can’t do anything but die in some shape or form. Still, Cyberpunk 2077 is even better a second time, especially if players want to experience all the available endings.

4

‘Mother 3’ (2006)

Image via Nintendo

Nintendo is a family-friendly company best known for its video games that everyone can play. However, the Earthbound or Mother franchise is a different story. In the climactic battle against the Masked Man, Lucas learns that the enemy is actually his twin brother, who regains his memories at the last moment before killing himself. Broken by the incident, Lucas pulls the final needle, which triggers the apocalypse and ends the world.

Mother 3 was never published outside of Japan, but the ending is infamously bleak. This game was supposed to be a fun and colorful time on the Game Boy Color, but young fans were met with one of the most tragic video game conclusions, and at such a young age, too. Having a visceral suicide in a kid’s game is such a bleak way to end it, especially considering everything else is so idyllic.

3

‘Silent Hill 2’ (2001)

Image via Konami

It is only natural for horror games to have bleak endings, and Silent Hill 2 might take the cake. James Sunderland spent the entire game fighting monsters to try and learn the cause of his wife’s death. However, the realization is more tragic than anyone could have imagined: he remembers that he killed her, prompting him to drive his car into the lake, drowning himself.

Silent Hill 2 is one of the best video games of all time, and the bleak ending is just the cherry on top to cement this as a depressing masterpiece of the medium. Each monster was a manifestation of his repressed guilt, punishing James for what he did and providing some of gaming’s most ruthless and eerie visuals. It all leads to a tragic yet deserved conclusion that made this game such a legendary classic, albeit bleak.

2

‘Signalis’ (2022)

Image via rose-engine

Like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Signalis is one of the lesser-known games on this list, but has one of the saddest endings. This underappreciated title has multiple endings, but the most depressing is the one where, after the entire time trying to save her human companion, Elster is forced to strangle her to death before putting themselves out of their misery.

The entire world and gameplay of Signalis is bleak, with the player being caught in an endless timeloop of despair trying to search for a cure that doesn’t exist. As the game progresses, you start understanding that the end of this path will be quite ugly, which only makes it worse once it finally hits. There is no kindness in this world except for death, a realization players will inevitably come to, leading to the ultimate murder-suicide.

1

‘SOMA’ (2015)

Image via Frictional Games

Throughout the entire game of SOMA, the player, Simon Jarrett, spends their time fighting biomechanical horrors in the hope of preserving a digital utopia that contains the minds of the last survivors of humanity. While he is successful, Simon stays behind, left in the pitch-black abyss of the underwater facility.

The water is a real fear of many, and SOMA plays on that phenomenally, especially with the ending. Gamers thought that they could transfer their mind and escape, but they could only create a copy, leaving the real one to die alone in one of the most frightening places. The ending hits especially hard, considering all Simon did for the sake of humanity. SOMA isn’t just a bleak experience; it is also one of the scariest video games ever.