Video Games With The Saddest Endings

Who says video games can't be emotional? Granted, a lot of video game stories are fantastical, but once in a while, fans hit upon a golden nugget in a sea of mud. A good ending can leave a lasting impression in players' minds, and a sad ending even more so. A sad one tends to put the events of the story into another context, and it also helps fans remember the game and its story in a more positive light. A bad ending can ruin a story, while a good ending can make one.

Related

8 Darkest Endings In Bethesda Games, Ranked

Not all Bethesda games end on a high note. Here are some noteworthy titles that offer unusually dark conclusions.

Posts

By  Diana Croce

This makes it important to have an ending in a video game that caps off a wonderful journey and justifies the many hours that players have invested in a game. This can be easier said than done, with players demanding the highest quality standards from their games and having extremely high expectations that can be hard to match. Thankfully, some of the saddest endings in video games end up being executed to perfection and make these games more memorable than ever.

Updated on January 27, 2025, by Mehrdad Khayyat: As an advanced division of the entertainment industry, video games sometimes provide much better tools for developers to tell an impressive story in a way that lets the audience (players in this case) immerse themselves in the narrative.

Video game characters from deep stories are barely forgotten, as the player actually experiences a synopsis of their life by wearing the protagonist's shoes. However, some stories just end in a way that leave a long-lasting impact on each player!

36 Final Fantasy 9

Vivi's Fate Will Make The Most Stoic Final Fantasy Fan Shed A Tear

Despite how charming Final Fantasy 9 may seem at the surface, there are some sinister and sad things boiling under the surface that take a while to uncover. At the end of disc 2, a mysterious figure starts narrating certain events in the show, making people wonder who this person is. By the end of the game, players will discover the truth about Vivi's existence and the finite nature of his lifespan.

It's a rather saddening plot point to uncover, giving the ending a melancholic touch when it turns out that Vivi has already passed away around this time. Despite how beautiful the conclusion of Final Fantasy 9 is, Vivi's fate is something that will take a while to digest after the credits roll for one of the sadder endings in video games.

35 Detroit: Become Human

A Branching Story About The Dark Future Of Humanity

Quantic Dream's latest released game, Detroit: Become Human delivers a highly replayable experience with so many different routes to take and endings to unlock. There are a variety of good and bad endings, but one of the darkest ones finishes with a horrible massacre.

If Markus insists on the Androids' demonstration and doesn't back off, the Androids eventually find themselves under siege by armed forces, and this is where players can choose to sacrifice Markus, letting him burn himself in front of the others. Based on Connor's choices, this ending could also eventually force Connor to commit suicide too, by shooting himself.

34 Lisa: The Painful

Brad's Fate Is Pretty Saddening, Despite His Many Flaws

Lisa: The Painful is one of the funniest RPGs players can check out. The story focuses on Brad, a man who raises a girl in a world where all the women have disappeared. As one would expect, the post-apocalypse is not a great place for fatherhood, and Buddy is taken away when Brad is betrayed by his closest friends. This leads to a chase where Brad doesn't give up, come hell or high water.

His addiction to Joy ends up being his undoing, with the game slowly revealing that Brad was far from a model father. He is shunned by Buddy before eventually turning into a Joy mutant. It's a sad video game ending for a man who was abused by his father and had to witness a gruesome scene involving his sister, which would've obviously messed him up quite a bit.

33 Inside

Players Become A Monster And Free Themselves In An Ending With Major Implications, None Of Them Happy

The great thing about Playdead games is that the narrative is never thrust into a player's face. Rather, it just cooks in the background and coaxes players to piece together the dots if they really want to know what's happening. Such is the case with Inside, the best game released by this studio that takes place in a mysterious half-destroyed world where players control a boy who is apparently being instructed by forces unknown.

After breaking into a laboratory, the kid merges with an amorphous blob that has to crash through a facility, being both helped and impeded by humans. It's a bombastic conclusion that shows how the child was just a cog in the grand scheme of things, with the blob eventually attaining a twisted form of freedom. The secret ending isn't all that great either, with players essentially turning off the program that controls all these boys and stopping anything from happening altogether.

32 Inscryption

Bidding Farewell To Leshy Is Surprisingly Emotional

The first act of Inscryption is a masterpiece, with players growing to hate Leshy and his manipulative ways. However, it turns out that this character just wanted to enjoy a good card game with the player, actually putting effort into the roleplaying process, unlike a certain dungeon master who takes over in the final act.

Related

Great Games Similar to Inscryption

Unlike most AAA games that just stick to what works, Inscryption takes risks time and time again to ensure that things remain fresh.

Posts

By  Austin Clark

When the game is being erased, Leshy sits down with the player for one more round of Inscryption. Players have grown to like this character, his sentient nature making it clear why one of the developers, Kaycee, found it downright impossible to delete Inscryption from existence. Even after the score tally disappears, Leshy plays on until he is deleted, making this farewell a bittersweet experience.

31 Final Fantasy 15

Noctis Must Purge The Realm Of Ardyn's Influence At The Cost Of His Own Life

It's a shame that Final Fantasy 15's development cycle was so cursed that the game was released in somewhat of an unfinished state despite being in development for way too long than it needed to. The game's story was so ambitious that a movie and an anime series were released for the title as well, with many people feeling that this hurt the effectiveness of the story instead of helping it.

The game itself was memorable for the bond that the four characters shared while exploring the open world, with regular banter and emotional moments hammering in just how close this band of friends was. After Noctis is encased in the Crystal and the world slowly goes to ruin, he comes back and reunites with his friends to take out Ardyn once and for all. Unfortunately, taking out this malevolent entity meant that Noctis would have to give up his own life, making for a tearful farewell as he shares one last moment with the gang before sacrificing himself.

30 BioShock Infinite

No Matter What, Booker Must Perish To Prevent The Rise Of Prophet Comstock

BioShock Infinite is a great game that needs no introduction. Ken Levine's final work on the BioShock franchise was absolutely masterful, bringing an emotional core to the story and the concept of parallel dimensions.

The ending of the game is a wild thrill ride with a pretty chilling conclusion. It turns out that Booker DeWitt needs to die for Elizabeth to stop being tormented, which makes for a pretty sad way to say goodbye to one of gaming's most memorable characters.

29 Bloodborne

None Of The Three Different Endings Have Outright Positive Connotations

As is the case with most FromSoftware games, Bloodborne is a title that will wow players and make them feel lonely as they fight back against the oppressive nature of the Hunter's Nightmare. The game's dark Gothic atmosphere is just a front for the nightmarish Lovecraftian horrors that lay within, with players slowly uncovering a horrible mystery that seemingly has no end.

All three endings in Bloodborne are pretty sad in their own right, and even the one where the player escapes the Hunter's Nightmare isn't without some horrible connotations of its own. The fact that the true ending of the game involves the player becoming a Great One is proof enough of how dark the game's ending is.

28 Cyberpunk 2077

V's Attempt To Take Control Of His Body Fails No Matter What He Does

​​​​​Cyberpunk 2077 is a game that faced numerous controversies upon launch before slowly getting fixed over time. Regardless of its issues, there's no denying that Cyberpunk 2077's narrative is the highlight of this title.

Players will form a bond with V and Johnny by the end of this experience, which is why the ending hits so hard. Regardless of what choice players make, the ending will always be accompanied by a tinge of melancholy because of the events that have and will transpire.

27 Final Fantasy 10

Tidus Is A Dream Of The Fayth That Must Disappear After Yu Yevon's Defeat

Final Fantasy 10 marked the franchise's debut on the PS2, and what a debut it was. The game was a critical and commercial success from the word go, with the amazing story and beautiful visuals of the game elevating its status to a whole new level.

The story was pretty upbeat for a world that was being mauled by a massive evil presence over and over again. However, while the gang manages to beat Sin and save Spira, it turns out that Tidus was actually a dream of the Fayth along with Auron, who would disappear for good after the party fulfilled their end goal.