The game industry is getting
pretty good at figuring out how to make the openings of games more engaging
However
games still often run into problems
making a satisfying conclusion
A lot of final bosses
end up as lame shooting galleries
or the denouement turns out to be the most rushed
Contrived thing you've ever seen.
So
why does this happen
so often?
Before we dive in
please say hello to Brice
who's doing guest art for this episode.
Thanks Brice
you know, there's a common developer joke
about realizing mere months before shipping
that the game
has no ending,
but honestly,
There's some truth to this.
We often leave the ending
you guessed it
until the end
So not only does the finale not have as much thought put into it as the rest of the game
but it's most certainly had much less play testing
because to properly
Experience the emotional impact of the ending
you have to play through the rest of the story
and that's not even considering
that in order
To get a sense of what skill level the players will be at to make an appropriate end challenge
you'd need to have the rest
Of the game already locked
and sadly in-house testers are often no good for this
because by the time it comes to the ending
Everyone's already played the game until their eyes bled.
It's no longer an emotional experience or a challenge to them
It's just a bug hunt
and a less obvious problem
comes from developers
Simply not putting in as much time on the ending
because they don't think that many players will see it
The rationale being
that it's not worth spending resources
to nail an ending
that only a fraction of players will ever see
Especially in games
that don't have narrative as one of their core forms of engagement
So, how can we make endings better?
First
we have to discuss the fact
that most games
often have
more than one kind of ending
they have a narrative ending
and a
mechanical ending
but since most games focus more on delivering either narrative or mechanics
one of these endings tends to excel
at the expense of the other
The narrative ending
is concerned with concluding the game's story
And this should follow the ideal interest curve
showing the game's highest climax and culmination
Unfortunately
because endings tend to get so little thought during development
We often see games lessen their impact
by rushing to a conclusion
or we get twists week cliffhangers
that seem to come out of nowhere
To avoid problems like this
ask yourself a few questions while writing your ending
one
Does it tie up the major plot points
and provide resolution for the main characters ?
portal For example
Spent the entire game building up towards the eventual
Confrontation between GLaDOS and Chell
and the ending left us with a simple but satisfying resolution
for both of them
the first Assassin's Creed on the other hand
raised more questions than it answered with its ending
and really just felt like they were trying to sell us a sequel
Two
is the emotional payoff
worthy of the build up to this point
Batman Arkham City
is a positive example here
with the demise of the Joker being a bittersweet send-off for the character
contrast this with no man's sky
which hyped up the mystery found at the center of the galaxy
only to show that there was
literally nothing there
when you raise the stakes
you really do have to make sure that the payoff
is worth it in the end and
Three
does the tone fit with the gameplay
the first Assassin's Creed falters here again
Because once the action ends
the game becomes an exposition dump in a sterile boardroom
And that doesn't fit with the acrobatic action
or even the inherent mystery of the rest of the game
Silent Hill 2 by contrast
uses its numerous endings
to explore different implications
of its protagonists psyche
Which is what the whole game
was designed around
the mechanical ending meanwhile
is when the players experience culminates in a test of their accumulated skill
This should fit
right at the top of the game's difficulty curve.
This is also where the affer mentioned lack of play
Testing is problematic
A lot of final levels
end up being either extremely difficult
compared to the rest of the game
because the designers are the only ones playing it
or end up too easy
as the designers don't
Know what skills their players may have mastered along the way
not to mention
The problem of difficulty is also often compounded
when designers exhaust all of their best ideas before the finale
So the only way to ramp things up is by either
Cranking up the difficulty or throwing in new mechanics that don't really fit with the game
Psychonauts is actually a great example of both with its legendarily painful final level
It begins with the game's only escort mission which is timed and it only gets harder from there
Or still is that most of the gauntlet is pure platforming challenges?
So it let's the player actually play with many of the psychic abilities
They've been mastering the whole game now contrast that with Super Mario Odyssey
Which in my opinion has one of the most creative endings mario has ever seen a literal hat-trick
Which lets the player explore some of the game's most interesting mechanics from a brand new perspective
The narrative and mechanical endings are the climax of the game's pathos and logos the emotive and cerebral endings respectively
But there can also be an ethos ending the summation of the game's spirit
this is when a game uses its ending to reinforce everything the player went through and gets them to think about their experience from a
Higher plane rather than just admiring their score or killcount SpecOps the line pull this off
Masterfully by confronting the player about their actions and leaving them thinking about what they went through on the opposite end
We have fallout 3's original ending in which a game that is supposedly all about choice and freedom
Forces you to sacrifice yourself in an irradiated room while your radiation immune companion stands by and watches your heroism
I guess so what actions can we as designers take to improve game endings?
well
having some idea of where the story is going what the mechanics mean to the overall narrative and not waiting until the tail end of
Development to figure out those things is a solid starting point
the ending should be where the players get to see the extent of what can be done with the game's mechanics and the narratives should
Be informed by what the mechanics are saying and if this is done
well
any game can leave a player in deep introspective thought an
Adrenaline-fueled high or feeling any emotion that the designers wanted them to feel long after the players
Turn it off
game endings should never be treated as an afterthought that only the most dedicated players will see and we need to spend the time to
find endings that transcend the game's mechanics and narrative because if we nail that players will sit back while the credits roll and
Reflect on how those final moments in game made spending all those days of their lives playing through it all worthwhile
Not to mention how much more of that experience they'd like to see