This list contains spoilers!
Summary
- Life Is Strange challenges players to make tough choices with no perfect solution.
- SOMA trades horror for deep existential themes in its thought-provoking ending.
- Red Dead Redemption's final act showcases the weight of choices and consequences.
Some endings hit like a freight train. Not because they’re twisty or explosive, but because they sit with you long after the credits roll—quietly burrowing into your brain and making you re-evaluate everything from morality to mortality. These are the kind of finales that don’t just wrap up a game, they leave a scar, a memory, a lingering sense of “what does it all mean?”
36 Video Games With The Most Heartbreaking Endings, Ranked
Heartbreaking endings to poignant stories aren't reserved for movies and television. Some video games have incredibly sad endings.
This list is for those unforgettable endings. The ones that don't just end a story, but start an existential crisis.
7 Life Is Strange
Time Travel Can't Fix Everything
Life is Strange
- Released
- January 30, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
- Developer(s)
- Dontnod Entertainment
- Genre(s)
- Adventure
- Platform(s)
- Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Dontnod’s Life Is Strange isn’t just a story about rewinding time—it’s about dealing with the consequences of trying to fix everything. Set in the sleepy town of Arcadia Bay, it follows Max, a teenager with time-manipulating powers, as she navigates friendship, trauma, and fate. But by the end, it becomes something else entirely: a meditation on choice, loss, and the cost of control.
What makes the ending so powerful isn’t just the branching paths, but how every single action feels weighty. The final decision doesn’t have a “right” answer. It’s messy, emotional, and laced with consequences that no time travel can undo. It's not about saving the day—it's about deciding what's worth saving, even when everything hurts.
6 SOMA
All Those Lives, Just For One More Second
SOMA
- Released
- September 15, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- t
- Developer(s)
- Frictional Games
- Publisher(s)
- Frictional Games
- Genre(s)
- Horror
What starts as a sci-fi horror game aboard an underwater research facility turns into something far more cerebral by the end of SOMA. Frictional Games didn’t just want players to be scared—they wanted them to start questioning the boundaries of consciousness and what it means to be.
The game’s story steadily pushes players through body horror and isolation, but the final stretch flips the genre on its head. It trades monsters for meaning and replaces dread with existential crisis. The final scenes are jarring not because of anything chasing the player, but because of what they realize about themselves and the protagonist. It’s rare for a game to leave players staring at a black screen in total silence, rethinking identity, memory, and the terrifying idea of living on as a copy.
5 The Walking Dead Season One
Sometimes, Saying Goodbye Hurts More Than Dying
The Walking Dead
- Released
- April 24, 2012
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
- Telltale Games
- Publisher(s)
- Telltale Games, Skybound Games
- Genre(s)
- Graphic Adventure, Horror
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC, Mobile
Back when Telltale Games dropped The Walking Dead: Season One, no one expected an episodic title with minimal combat to deliver one of the most devastating endings in gaming. But it did. And it wasn’t about zombies, not really—it was about people. About a man and a child trying to survive a world that no longer makes sense.
8 Horror Game Endings That Will Keep You Up At Night
After a nightmarish journey, these horror game endings ensured players wouldn't be going to sleep without one final scare.
What makes the ending so unforgettable isn’t the plot twist or any dramatic music cue—it’s the simplicity. A dying man passing on his final lessons. A child forced to grow up in the worst possible way. Every choice made up to that point colors the finale, but the pain hits the same regardless. It’s tender, ugly, heartbreaking, and honest. And in its quietest moment, it somehow says everything about love, sacrifice, and the impossible task of letting go.
4 Silent Hill 2
A Dusty Mirror Never Lies
Silent Hill 2
- Released
- September 25, 2001
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Team Silent
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 2, Xbox (Original), PC
There’s a reason Silent Hill 2 keeps coming up whenever discussions veer toward the best endings in gaming—it’s less an ending and more a gut-punch laced with guilt. What begins as a man searching for his dead wife slowly peels back into a psychological deep dive that strips away every comforting illusion.
Unlike typical horror, Silent Hill 2 doesn’t rely on gore or jump scares. Its terror is existential. The town itself becomes a mirror, reflecting the protagonist’s psyche through twisted creatures and disturbing set pieces. And the ending—depending on how the player has behaved—feels less like a reward and more like a reckoning. Whether forgiveness, punishment, or denial, each path forces players to confront something ugly about the human capacity for grief and self-deception.
3 NieR: Automata
Not All Robots Want A Revolution
NieR: Automata
- Released
- March 7, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Platinum Games
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
Yoko Taro’s NieR: Automata pulls off something that most games wouldn't even attempt: five endings that build into one cohesive meditation on war, humanity, and the cyclical nature of suffering. On the surface, it’s a flashy action-RPG about androids battling machines. Underneath? It’s a layered, literary epic about what it means to have purpose when your creator is long gone.
Each ending reveals a new perspective, deepening the emotional stakes until the final finale (Ending E) hits like a choir of broken dreams. Players aren’t just watching characters grow—they’re asked to participate in their salvation. The final act, famously, gives players a choice that tests compassion in the most unexpected way, turning a story about hopelessness into one about connection. And maybe—just maybe—hope.
2 Spec Ops: The Line
What If The Monsters Weren’t The Enemy?
Spec Ops: The Line
- Released
- June 26, 2012
WHERE TO PLAY
Spec Ops: The Line lured players in with the promise of another military shooter set in a ruined Dubai, only to unravel into a hallucinatory guilt trip that weaponizes expectations. Inspired loosely by Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness, it doesn’t shy away from depicting the psychological cost of war, and by the time the ending rolls around, it’s clear that players haven’t just been fighting enemies, they’ve been complicit in something much worse.
14 Video Games with the Most Endings
As games give players more choices, these choices can potentially change the outcome of the story and, in some cases, lead to different endings.
What’s genius is how the game never really lies—it just lets players keep lying to themselves. And when the final truth comes out, it hits like a punch to the gut. There’s no victory here, no parade, no redemption. Just silence, ambiguity, and the terrifying realization that some lines, once crossed, can’t be uncrossed.
1 Red Dead Redemption
We All Make Choices, But In The End, Our Choices Make Us
Red Dead Redemption
- Released
- May 18, 2010
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Rockstar San Diego
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Adventure
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Android, iOS
There’s a specific kind of weight that comes with Red Dead Redemption’s final act. After hours of bloodshed, betrayal, and fading glory, players finally see what happens when a man tries to outrun his past. Rockstar's Western epic doesn’t just tell a tale about the death of the Wild West—it shows how systems grind people down no matter how hard they fight to live right.
What makes the ending so haunting is how personal it feels. This isn’t some dramatic boss fight or explosive showdown. It’s slow, inevitable, and steeped in tragedy. The game sets players up with the illusion of peace before pulling the rug out in a way that still sparks debates over what "redemption" really means. And just when it feels like things are over, it hands the torch to someone else, asking whether violence really ends with one man, or if it's baked into the bloodline.
11 Best Happy Endings In Horror Games
The horror genre isn't exactly known for being wholesome, but these games, both horror and adventure, have surprisingly happy endings.