The End, My Friend, Part One

The guys at Destructoid have put together an interesting article that focuses on the challenges associated with making a satisfying ending to a video game. It makes for a great read, even going so far as providing examples of “good” and “bad” endings from various titles over the years. One such example comes from BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic:

Since unconventionally dramatic endings do not lend themselves to pleasing gameplay, most videogames often end with one of the aforementioned action climaxes, followed by a quick bit of story to wrap things up. Knights of the Old Republic, as dramatic and wonderful as it was, simply ended with a boss battle and a quick cutscene showing a good/bad ending, depending on whether you played light or dark side. This method of ending a game is problematic, but also seemingly unavoidable: on the one hand, the boss battle/epilogue format can get very boring, very fast. But on the other hand, would you really want to play a game that doesn’t give the player a tremendously satisfying gameplay challenge during its climax?