00:00 Warning, spoilers ahead. When it comes to video games, there are players who play for
00:05 the action and there are players who play for the story. They're not mutually exclusive
00:09 of course, but even those with no capacity for cutscenes have to admit that some great
00:14 game endings are as iconic to the world of gaming as Rosebud is to the world of cinema.
00:20 Like Mafia 3, whose framing device is a documentary that mixes interviews, old news clips, and
00:25 other bits of footage from the past to tell the story of Clay and his fight against the
00:29 mob. In a scene that takes place after you beat the mob boss, Donovan exposes the Senator's
00:34 involvement in the assassination of JFK and shoots him in front of everybody and the cameras,
00:40 saying "I'm starting with you" and vowing to find everyone involved.
00:45 Or in Red Dead Redemption, easily one of the most iconic games ever, when Marsden pushes
00:49 the doors of his farmhouse open and the game automatically activates Deadeye, persuading
00:54 you to take out as many lawmen as you can. You can take out a few, sure, but Marsden
00:58 dies and we later see that the cycle of violence continues in Marsden's son, Jack, who we
01:04 see returning to gather his father's belongings, cluing us to the idea that one day we might
01:09 pick up where we're being left off.
01:11 What about the legend of Zelda, the Wind Waker? As Kenneth Shepard writes in Kotaku, the entire
01:17 fight is a literal washing away of the past that has plagued these heroes through multiple
01:21 reincarnation cycles. Wind Waker's final battle sells the notion with a dramatic vigor
01:27 elevated by a stellar fight. These are just three examples of endings, good or bad, that
01:34 stick with you and hopefully there are many, many more still to come.
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