And though it has the right sense of importance and scale, it really lacks in the payoff category, as no one really does anything besides potentially doom an entire shelter of humans to starvation and savagery when one of the protagonists destroys the shelter's virtual-reality life support systems. It seems like a bit of a "well, how do we explain everything" kind of conclusion that the writers conjured up to justify the insane journey you just poured a dozen hours into. It feels like two different writing teams handled this game one tackling Connor's bold, moving narrative, and the other doing a poor job of ripping off Mass Effect 3's finale.īarring a cool and surprising appearance from Andy Serkis himself, who also voices and motion captures the protagonist of the game, there's just not a lot of good stuff to say about this ending. Prepare for sci-fi shenanigans to take a dump all over that previous ending, because in the present, Desmond is busy dealing with an all-but-extinct alien race to try and stop the implosion of the planet-which serves as the true culmination of Connor's storyline, the thing that he and all of Desmond's other ancestors have been unknowingly working toward the whole time. It's expert storytelling 101.Įnter: Desmond. What a nuanced, somber ending, right? And it's delivered with nothing more than a glance at a slave auction and a look of hidden pain crossing the protagonist's face when he realizes all of his fighting has been for naught. ![]() In the end, he realizes that Americans are just another evolution of the British ideology, one where his people will still be an afterthought in the colonists' road to continental conquest. Plus, it's not even like Shadow of War's grindy finale incentivized the game's microtransactions - it literally existed just so that every player would have to sink a lot of time into the game, to the point where playing became a chore.Ĭonnor's storyline revolves around figuring out if the Templars are morally wrong and whether the Americans will be any better than the British when it comes to enslaving and belittling minorities. It's a neat Easter egg cutscene that really subverts the average video game narrative (spoiler: it's a sad ending), but that alone doesn't warrant sacrificing so much of one's time to unlock it when it can just as easily be viewed on YouTube. It was just constant grinding until you finally had enough war assets to unlock the final cutscene. Just like you'd been doing all game, you had to conquer endless generic fortresses and claim dominion over the orcs of Mordor, only this time, there was no plot to spice things up. ![]() However, the fact that the game's true, better ending was locked off behind hours of busywork makes matters almost as bad. Had that been the game's true finale, this would be an even more egregious entry on the list. The first ending, achieved by naturally progressing through the game's story, featured a disappointing quick-time-event-loaded showdown with Sauron. A real, meaningful ending would've required a level of effort we can only assume they just didn't have at that point. Basically, it boils down to "do you want to actually have an impact on the narrative and screw over a bunch of people for an awful hipster girl, or do you want to do the right and smart thing in exchange for feeling like you didn't even matter to the story?" It's an ugly setup, and one we have to believe the writers chose to go with out of convenience. ![]() Life Is Strange gives you two options: save your best friend in exchange for the life of an entire town with thousands of people, or save the town and retroactively negate literally every event of the game leading up to that point. At most, you'll get to make one pivotal decision towards the game's climax and that's it. ![]() None of the decisions you make actually matter at the end of this Square Enix title. Life Is Strange has one of the most egregiously bad endings in gaming history-in fact, there's two of them.
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