As a non-linear medium, games can present players with several different outcomes compared to books, films, or TV shows. To increase the replay value of a title, it's not uncommon for developers to offer players different ways to finish a game.
While there have been films that sport different conclusions due to focus groups, director's cuts, and myriad other production changes, gaming stories are often crafted with different endings in mind. Bad endings in titles occur when a player has reached the conclusion, but fell short of victory due to certain criteria not being met. Sometimes, it's worth screwing up just to see the ultimate what-if scenario where the heroes lose.
This article contains major spoilers for a variety of video games.
10 Players Too Slow To Save Their Buddy Run Alone In Sonic The Hedgehog 2
In the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the stakes are much more personal, as the blue blur's little buddy Tails is kidnapped by the nefarious doctor. Players who manage to collect all the chaos emeralds will succeed in thwarting Robotnik and reuniting the hog with his chum.
However, players who fail to do so are instead presented with a somber credits sequence that shows Sonic speeding all by his lonesome before he looks wistfully at a visage of Tails in the starry sky, heavily implying that his faithful companion's fate is sealed.
9 Players Lose Their Reputation And Their Life Should They Fail To Find The Dagger Of Amon Ra
In Sierra's murder mystery graphic adventure, players will have to channel their inner gumshoe and gather the clues necessary to bring the perpetrator of these grisly crimes to justice. Even if players manage to avoid the several losing scenarios in the adventure, they're still tasked with deducing who committed the killings, the motive, and the location of the eponymous dagger in the game's conclusion.
Players who fail to do so are rewarded with a series of "where are they now" epilogues where most of Laura's friends have met unfortunate ends, eventually culminating in the investigative journalist getting plugged by some unknown assailant.
8 Players Can Become The New Boss In Streets Of Rage
When players finally make it to Mr. X, the big bad makes them an offer to join him as their right hand. Should the player accept and proceed to best his former comrade and the boss, they'll sit on their newly acquired throne. The game then sarcastically applauds the player with their ascension to the criminal underworld while a sinister variation of the game's intro theme plays, and the credits roll.
Just in case the point wasn't clear enough that this was far from the ideal outcome, the player is presented with text that reads "BAD END."
7 The Webhead Crawls His Last Wall Should Players Fail Spider-Man VS The Kingpin
Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin puts players in control of the wall-crawler as he attempts to thwart Wilson Fisk's plot to blow up New York City and rescue Mary Jane. If Spidey failed to beat Kingpin before Mary Jane was lowered into a vat of acid, Fisk would be arrested, but take the opportunity to taunt the bereaved hero.
Should Spider-Man be bested in this altercation, the concluding scene demonstrates that there won't be a rematch. Fisk immediately ties the webhead alongside Mary Jane and proceeds to submerge both of them, cackling all the while.
6 Soma Becomes The Count Should He Fall In Castlevania Aria Of Sorrow
Players who manage to get all the necessary souls in Aria of Sorrow will discover after their fight with Graham that the character they've been controlling is non-other than the reincarnation of Dracula. Julius then tells Soma that to avoid becoming the dark lord; he must venture further into the castle and defeat the darkness within.
Prepared for the worst, Soma asks the grizzled vampire hunter to slay him if he succumbs to the count's influence. Should Soma fail in the final battle, Julius arrives at the throne room to fulfill his promise before the fallen hero tosses his goblet in an homage to Symphony of the Night.
5 The Player Can Join The Master And Fulfill Their Ambitions In Fallout
In Black Isle's Fallout, there are several ways to make it to the Mariposa Military Base, where the mutants are manufactured, but one of the easiest ways is to get captured at Necropolis. Players are then interrogated by the verbose but sadistic Lieutenant, who demands to know the location of Vault 13.
Players who relent are then dipped into the vats and transformed into prime mutants. They then witness the vault's destruction as the Master's forces brutally slaughter its inhabitants. This unnerving sequence is then capped off with the vault dweller delivering the killing blow to the overseer.
4 Undertale Doesn't Forget, And It Doesn't Forgive
Players who give in to their curiosity and actually go through the Genocide route in Undertale are given a fitting reward for embracing the underground's worst fears of humanity. Flowey appears to placate the player, tearfully pleading for mercy. However, if players deliver the killing blow, there's no going back. Chara appears before the player and offers to rebuild the world in exchange for their soul.
Should players go through a pacifist route after this deal, their happy ending is yanked out from under them as the game not too subtly indicates that Chara will bump off everyone they just saved.
3 The Duo's Quarma Catches Up On Them In Oddworld Munch's Oddysee
Each Oddworld title provides a suitably karmic outcome to players who fail to liberate their enslaved brethren, but Munch's Odyssey takes the cake. Munch and Abe's attempt to rescue the slave mudokins is cut short by the fuzzles, who've suffered painful experiments at the hands of the vykers.
After getting mauled by the vengeful critters, Munch awakens to discover that the scientists are about to perform a lung transplant for the glukkon queen, he's the donor, and they're doing it while he's still conscious. The game cuts to a heart monitor as Munch delivers his dying screams before he flatlines, and the vykers laugh mockingly.
2 Players Lax In Their Duties Watch Their Crew Die In Mass Effect 2
In the concluding section of Mass Effect 2, players must know the ins and outs of every Normandy member and the ship's status before they go on the fittingly named suicide mission. Players who assign their teammates to the wrong tasks and are lax in their duties to keep their vessel ship-shape will be forced to see their comrades fall one by one.
Should Commander Shepherd get killed in action, the galaxy's fate looks more uncertain as there's no one to thwart the indoctrinated Illusive Man or the Reapers. It's also the only ending that players cannot import into Mass Effect 3.
1 Players Who Fail To Beat Lavos Watch Their Future Unfold In Chrono Trigger
At a certain point in Chrono Trigger, players can choose to take on the mighty Lavos and acquire one of the game's numerous endings. However, if they're not quite strong enough to take on the cataclysmic threat, only one conclusion awaits them.
In what could have just been a simple game over sequence, players are presented with an elaborate cinematic that depicts the apocalyptic moment in history that the heroes were trying desperately to rewrite. The game concludes with a shot of the devastated planet accompanied by text which reads, "BUT...THE FUTURE REFUSED TO CHANGE."