Try and remember every game that you have ever played, and you will realize that everything you do during the game is put toward the endings. Especially if the game you play has different endings depending on how you behave, your gameplay decisions and experiences will vary vastly from play through to play through. Everyone wants the best ending for their characters.
But there are plenty of games which they don't require a lot to get the best ending. Some other games, however, require you to work and work hard for it. Here are 15 games that will get your knickers in a twist trying to mill a good ending out of the game.
Mass Effect 2
Once you got close to the ending of the game, BioWare made it clear that the ending's not going to be an easy one. After all, the final mission was literally named: “Suicide Mission”. It doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence, does it? It’s very difficult to bring all of the teammates that you had collected and befriended throughout the intra-galactic journey back in one piece.
So what are the requirements?
You will not only need to recruit all of the possible companions in the game, but you will also need to upgrade your spaceship - the SR-2 Normandy - to its fullest potentials. You will also need to complete Loyalty missions: Tailored, personal missions given to you by each teammate to gain their trust and dedication.
But you’re not there just yet. When you’re at the Collector’s Base, you will face off against a multitude of challenges. In order to overcome them, you will have to exercise your command capability by choosing the right person with the right ability for the job. If you choose unwisely, well, it’d spell the death of that teammate.
Do all of the above, and you’ll get the happiest ending, which is everyone coming back home alive… just to find out that an almighty fleet of genocidal machines is coming to kill everyone. But hey, everyone’s breathing, right?
Mass Effect 3
You still have not managed to reclaim your breath or got over the anguish and mourning period of Mass Effect 2’s Suicide Mission? Well, get ready for a re-run with Mass Effect 3.
One term you will have to get familiar with in the third and last game of Shepard’s Saga of Mass Effect (We don’t consider Andromeda to be a part of the famous trilogy) is ‘Effective Military Strength’. The term does what it says: Acting as a gauge for the strength of the military forces that are on your side as well as the ‘Military Preparedness’ to use it. ‘Military Preparedness’ is locked at 50% and can only be increased through multiplayer. The only difference between the two of them is the grinding necessary to get either.
If you managed to rack up all of the correct numbers of EMS and MP, you might be able to get the best ending to the game and the trilogy: Earth is saved, the Reapers are destroyed, and Shepard (?) lives. You will need to persuade the Turians, Geth, Krogan, Quarians, Salarians, and even the Rachni and Leviathan to achieve this ending. Furthermore, you will need to have either a high Paragon or Renegade score depending on how you act throughout the game and of course, make all of the right choices when it counts.
There are probably dozens of different things that can impact the state of your game’s ending, and that’s the fun part of it all.
Suikoden Series
The Suikoden series is probably even more serious than Mass Effect in making you work and grind to get the idyllic “happily ever after” ending. If you want to get the best ending, you will have to go and recruit all of the 108 Stars of Destiny. So the requirement is even greater than that of Mass Effect. When the sci-fi series only have about a dozen different characters that you must recruit and entertain. Suikoden has 108 different characters that you must convince into your party, explore with all of them on a regular basis, and furthermore, talk to and appease every demand that they could have along the way.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One
The game sets out two choices for you: ‘Obey the Owl’ and kill Kuro. Or the Wolf will have to sacrifice himself in order to save Kuro. While the choices may look as if they’re plenty straightforward and there aren’t much room for you to find a loophole, what if I were to tell you that there's actually a way for you to ensure that Kuro's spirit will live on?
Coming here, you might already be expecting that the road up to that point can be difficult, and it definitely is. You will have to find a way to complete a ritual and transfer the spirit of Kuro to the Child of Rejuvenating Waters. Follow the steps here:
Talk with the old woman near the Sculptor’s Idol at the Ashina Castle. Then you’ll have to defeat Genichiro Ashina, scrub the Corrupted Monk, and the Folding Screen Monkeys out of existence, and then you’ll have to get your hands on the Mortal Blade. With it, you need to defeat the Owl and pick up some rice along the way.
Here’s the difficult part, though: You’ll have to do all of the above before you get the Snake Viscera or fight the Dragon. At least the prize to all of your hardship is a relatively bright ending that ends the game in a hopeful tone. Furthermore, it even hints that there might be a sequel in the future.
NieR: Automata
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Although it is not inherently difficult to get the ending, NieR: Automata promises that you will have to spend quite some time to get this ending. You will have to taste the original ending of the game first and then play the game again for a second time. On your third playthrough, you must change the character between 9S and A2 so that both of them would face one another at the Machines’ Tower. The battle must be fought so that you could experience the entire fight from both perspectives. After you’re done with the fight, you will also have to beat the credits.
Yes, the credits.
But the kicker is that if you want other people to see the good ending where the protagonist is resurrected from death, you will have to make the ultimate sacrifice: Delete the save files you have worked so hard for. If you have also played through all of the extra contents, that’s about 60 hours you will scrap with a single command prompt in about half a second.
Undertale
Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Vita
For a game so simple in graphic, Undertale is truly one of the most sophisticated games I have ever played. Hundreds of articles have been written about the Pacifist Run of Undertale, but I will mention it again. In order to get this ending, you will have to go through the entire game by only killing some monsters (Please don’t be Toriel, please don’t be Toriel). After you have completed the first game in this fashion, start up a second, new game and kill no one. Even Flowey. He will eventually be revealed as Asriel, the incarnated son of Toriel and Asgore. This time, destroy him as best as you could, and Toriel will adopt Frisk - the protagonist. The relationship between humans and monsters will also be mended, thankfully.
Now I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but please don’t try and see what would happen if you were to kill everyone. Believe me; it is not pretty.
Man of Medan
Platform: PS4, PC, Xbox One
Man of Medan was a relatively deserving successor to Supermassive Games’ Until Dawn hit. The studios had made it easier for you to get the good ending in Man of Medan via the Life Bearings feature. But the catch is that there’s really no hints or anyone telling you what to do in order to unlock them, so most of the time, the playthrough can be quite gruesome.
If you want to make sure that everyone lives, the first thing that you need to do is to turn a blind eye to Conrad’s plan of stealing the speedboat of the pirates. The second part is to egg Alex to proposing to Julia as well as collecting the wedding ring off from the body of Danny in a later section. During the diving sequence, make sure that Julia properly decompresses. Find the gas mask and pick the decision to save Junior’s life as well as lending helping hands to Fliss and Brad.
Most importantly, though, DO NOT lose the distributor cap. That’s going to be an extremely critical component at the end. You do not want to know what would happen if you were to lose it.
Detroit: Become Human
Platform: PS4, PC
Detroit: Become Human is pretty similar to Man of Medan in the way it makes you work for the ending. After all, the two games are completely dialogue and choice-based, so it’s just right that they’re similar. The ‘good’ ending of the game is simple: Play it so that all three central characters of the game - Kara, Markus, and Connor - all survive. You will have to make many decisions from the very beginning of the game for the dominoes to fall correctly into place at the ending you want. You will want to play the game so that Connor could be sympathetic to the cause of the Deviants (By making all of the choices that increase Software Instability - don’t worry, while the term might sound ominous, it’s actually a good thing). Connor must also be trusted by his partner, Hank.
Markus ought to make all of the peaceful decisions during the Revolution (Be very cautious about this step because at some parts, like the Riot, being too pacifist can actually get Markus killed).
On Kara’s part, she will have to avoid being captured or killed by humans while escaping with Alice and possibly Luther.
If all of the three characters got to this point, Markus would reject the FBI’s offer at the end leading to peace between humans and androids.
Vampyr
Platform: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One
Vampyr is a pretty interesting game considering just how much of a throw-back it is back to Vampire: The Masquerade. The game technically revolves around building up your relationship with several NPCs and find the right moment in time to feed on them to enhance your powers. But the only way for you to get to the ‘good’ ending is to keep your fangs away from people’s necks throughout the entire game. Sure, this is going to make the game quite difficult because it will make you weaker. But at the end of the game, Jonathan will be able to go along with Elizabeth to find a cure for his condition.
There’s an exception to this rule, however. You can definitely drink blood while entangled in combat, and blood of people who had turned undead is free game.
Aside from abiding by this rule, you will also need to do a couple more things. Mesmerize Dorothy Crane and Aloysius Dawson, thus, killing the latter. You have to let Edgar Swansea dies and spare McCullum. Lastly, you have to donate blood to Sean Hampton, and voila, the greatest ending to the game is yours.
This War of Mine
Platform: Android, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One
Playing this game is an unforgettable experience. This War of Mine focuses not only on the more glorious side of wars, but you will view the Siege of Sarajevo through the eyes of the innocent civilians trying to live through it all to see peace. There are dozens of different things you will need to keep track of and manage: The health of different survivors, their mood, hunger, and even mental conditions must be kept track closely of. All of these must be stable, and everyone must survive until the Ceasefire.
The difficult part is that you don’t really know when the Ceasefire will occur. There’s no definite date. Instead, it will happen at complete random. Supplies are scarce and hard to come by, and you will have to make morally questionable decisions to gather supplies for your survivors or stay true to yourself and risk hunger, madness, and death. But if you manage to stay ‘clean’ by not murdering or robbing anyone, you will get the best ending to the game at the end.
Guacamelee
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3
It’s not difficult to defeat the final boss of Guacamelee - Carlos Calaca. But the thing that’ll get your blood rushing is the task of rescuing El Presidente’s daughter Lupita. She would die at the end of the game from the ritual if you were to play the game in a normal fashion. To save her, you must gather all six Orbs. To do that, you must finish all of the Inferno Trials with golden medals. By defeating Calaca, you will gain the seventh Orb and thus saving Lupita.
If you got to this point then congratulations, Lupita and Juan will marry one another and live happily ever after until another adventure unfolds in the sequel.
Dishonored
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4
It’s kind of a shame that a game like Dishonored will actually penalize you for using the fullest potential of either Corvo or Emily’s power. But it’s a great incentive to make you stay ‘good’ throughout the game by sneaking, knocking people out instead of slitting their throats, and only kill a few people to ensure the future of the people of Dunwall.
In the game, there’s a concept known as ‘Chaos’. The more blood you shed, the highest the Chaos counter will rise. There will be visible changes in the game if the Chaos counter is too high. The streets will be infested with disease-carrying rats, and the plague will permeate through the city.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
Platform: Android, PC, iOS
The sci-fi slash horror novel of the same name by Harlan Ellison upon which this game was adapted was a true test of your mental resolve, and the game delivered quite well the gritty atmosphere of the novel. In this bone-chilling adventure, you will take turn to control five different characters as they go through the psychotic simulations constructed by AM - an utterly deranged supercomputer.
The only hope of facing down the computer itself is to complete all of the simulations and allow the characters to find redemption through making peace with their flaws. But even when you got up to this point (Which, mind you, is difficult already), you will have to make all of the correct decisions so that 750 people frozen on the Moon can be revived. Lastly, one out of the five characters must take up the mantle of the supercomputer and become the new Overseer of the new generation of humans.
Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee
Platform: PlayStation, PlayStation 3, PC, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Portable, Game Boy
With the remake New ’n’ Tasty! has managed to receive a multitude of upgrades, changes, and improvements to the base Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee game. But overall, both of the games require you to rescue a number of Mudokons to juice the best ending out of them. But do keep it explicitly clear in mind that Abe cannot fight and will have to rely on solving puzzles and such to rescue his friends. The first game’s a little bit tame with only requiring you to save about 50 Mudokons, while New ’n’ Tasty! brings the number to a whopping 150. Once you have reached the proper number, at the end of the game, the Mudokons will band together to pulverize Molluck, saving Abe.
Max Payne 2
Platform: Xbox, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PC, Xbox 360
The best ending you can get in Max Payne 2 is the ending where Mona Sax survives and gives Max a kiss after. The ending can only be gained after you had played through the game at ‘Dead on Arrival’ difficulty. The enemies are brutal, and furthermore, the enemies won’t be any easier to handle after you die and respawn. Dead on Arrival doesn’t have adaptive difficulty, so don’t think that you can cheat your way through the game like that.
Plus, remember that the game limits the number of save slots so you can’t really revert back to an earlier point in time if things get tough. You’ll really have to grind for this one.