Alright you beat that game after a long struggle to defeat the final boss. You finally roll trough the final cutscenes. After the credits are done, you suddenly get the information that the game has multiple endings! Maybe you need to beat the game on New Game+. Or perhaps you needed to do something specific within the game before fighting the boss. Or maybe you beaten a game with heavy plot, but you missed out on some parts and want to play through the game again to see those missing snippits. Mainly focused within the RPG genre and other genres heavily story based, RPGs and narrative games have different endings depending on what the player does within the game. Since RPGs tend to be linear and story based, it's hard to draw players back into the game once they finished it. So to put more time, they add different endings. Usually it gives you a really meh default ending, making you crave for that better ending and work for it. As a player, it's a good thing. Me personally, I love alternate endings. Especially if the default ending is not satisfying. I toiled hard in RPGs. They remind me of trophies. You work hard to achieve through that game, then set is aside for a long time, maybe even never touching it again. It's kind of a bittersweet moment, knowing you won't be touching that game anytime soon. Maybe a DLC could bring some spark, but worth enough to play through again? Many would disagree. A few would gladly play it over and over again. It seems it's all positives and stuff, but is it really? I don't believe so. In terms of scoring the game, many reviewers don't usually have the time to go through all the endings and so they have to base it off the default ending or maybe one alternate. I think this is where it goes downhill. I'm gonna take the example Drakenguard 3. It was heavily panned by many review websites due to poor framerate, dated graphics, and odd storyline. I don't disagree to a sense, but I think the score could've been higher if all the endings were located and if the reviewer had a better sense of the lore. A youtuber, Demolition D talked about the game and how and why it came out the way it did (Strong language and adult humor warning) In a sense, it's easy to see why games like this get panned by the media and get rather low sales. Games should get you quality lengths of entertainment for $60 (or your regional equivalent). Majority of gamers do not spend $60 to play a game over and over again (though one could argue the same over CoD and sports games) and rather have fun over a story driven game. Like how Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain were rated somewhat low due to lack of gameplay and MANY MANY endings depending on what the player did throughout the game. They were not JRPGs, but still had that lack of gameplay and strong narrative. It's not to blame the people who disagree. It's a fair argument to not buy a game because it doesn't meet your worth of money. But I think media outlets should spend more time with games that rely mostly on story and plot over gameplay. I can make a whole new argument just on the bias in game reviews. These hidden gems deserve much more in the eyes of reviewers and gamers altogether. These games suffer because the reviewers don't give them a fair grade and it loses much in sales and acclaim.
Well, it's a good incentive to actually replay games like this. If it was a game I actually enjoyed, then I would play through it again regardless, but bonus content is always good. Like, if you complete a game then play it again with the extra content, knowing what you know, the plot usually makes a lot more sense and you see things from a different perspective. I liked the way Nier handled this; Spoiler Upon completing the game, you get what you were looking for, and it's a seemingly happy ending. After the credits you're told that there are another 3 endings, but rather than play from the beginning, you start at the second part of the game with all of your stats and weapons from your first playthrough. You get extra cutscenes that weren't present in your first playthrough and the endings that follow are continuations to the normal ending until you get to the fourth and final 'true' ending. It has you do certain other tasks in order to unlock the endings, so that's pretty cool I guess. I personally don't listen to what reviewers say or think on a given title - if they pan it, it just obviously doesn't adhere to their tastes, but that doesn't mean that I or many others won't enjoy it. The way I see it, if they didn't like the game in the first place, seeing bonus material is hardly going to change their minds or overall opinion.
I think multi endings are great! They are a stepping stone towards the "ideal" game where your actions on the game really matter and you are not just following some script. It would be like Mass effect + a telltale game. They also give you reason to stick playing with it. But with that said, it is the job of the game to "sell itself", if the game only becomes good after 90 + hours and three endings, it is a design fault of the game itself, not the reviewer. Nier as I recall had the opposite effect on me, in the first playthrough I was happy to save my daughter, but after every new ending I got a worse ending revealing the truth of that world ç.ç. But that is ok, I was already hooked on it by then.
Multiple endings usually get praised by the media (Dishonored, Mass Effect, Fable, Dead Rising) as do games with heavy plot (The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite). I appreciate ya' defending DG3, but that game got panned because musou games and reviewers don't get along. Now here's where my post gets interesting... Alternate endings are a terrible, terrible idea for a plot heavy game. In fact, nothing makes the player's decision feel less valid than a game with multiple endings. Arright, so let's use an example to show what I mean Enter: Deus Ex: Human Revolution This game is fantastic. Easily one of the most fun and engaging experiences I've ever played from the Western market, with a great universe and an over-arching narrative that's pretty interesting and covers some good ground. This game advertises that the player can play how they want and handle anything however they want. In a lot of ways, the attention to detail to assure that is pretty cool. For example, there's a hostage scene where you're supposed to save the hostage based on a pass or fail dialogue tree... but you, the player, can be fast enough on the draw to save the hostage. And it counts. It's a decision you make, to try and kill the terrorist in that half a second, it's reflexive and responsive and surely you can lose the hostage and look bad by taking that second to think of what else you can do to save everyone and not acknowledging diplomacy has failed. Very cool. You know what isn't cool? NONE OF THAT MATTERING BECAUSE OF MULTIPLE ENDINGS. You get to the end, and you reach a multiple choice question on how to approach a problem. Each one initiates a different ending... One of those endings is canon. Just one. That's why I said "multiple choice" because that's what it is a question with one answer to pick out fro ma set of choices. It doesn't how I played or what I thought, the series has its own idea as to how it happened. Enter: Dishonored You know, I'm going to be harsh here so let me just say that Dishonored is a game every one with an interest in it after watching some video should play. It's a step away from a masterpiece with some brilliant ideas and a lot of them executed brilliant. That said, here we see the enemy known as "multiple endings" appear once more. Any bit of research will show you that Dishonored is a game that advertised the player can play exactly how they want. They can be aggressive, they can be stealthy, they can explore, they can see through walls, whatever. The characters in the game even back this up when talking to you. The game never straight up stops you to ask you how you'd like to handle things (do you want sequence of events a or sequence of events b?), it just observes how you handle them on your own. This is cool. You know what isn't? Again, none of that mattering. This game has an established canon and, would ya guess, they made the good ending canon. So whether or not I, the player, chose to handle a situation aggressively or quietly, the game already decided that in the grand scheme of things that I handled it quietly and everything was rainbows and unicorns. It never went bad. Diplomacy never failed. I never stuck my knife through the throat of some woman's husband because that's not how the game is going to tell how it went down. None of what I did mattered, because you already set up an answer key. All I did was take the test. Journos supporting this is effing. dumb. You're creating a false sense of replay value in order to justify a purchase. In reality, games like Deus Ex and Dishonored have content basically LOCKED from the player until they do it the right way, then they can play how they wish. It's creating such a dissonance where people have to go online and find out how the game is supposed to be played before they just jump in and play. Goddamn, no matter how much people bitch about the Mass Effect series, at least it contained every decision I made across the series so that whatever I did was canon to me. I let the council die, I convinced Saren he was indoctrinated by Sovereign, I destroyed the human Reaper remains, and you're damn right that I finished the mission by eradicating the Reapers. Nothing has contradicted that as of yet, at least. For now, that trilogy is a self-contained adventure where I did make the choices I wanted to.
@DigitalAtlas: The problem you are describing isn't inherently a problem with multiple endings though. What you have a problem with canonizing an ending where multiple are available. And I do agree somewhat. Why tell me I have a choice and then later tell me what choice I made? What if I didn't do that? But I could also create a game with multiple endings that are contained in a single game and not give preference, like The Stanley Parable, while short and not really serious on the plot, has lots of endings and I remember seeing the credits roll at least 3 different times on very different endings. I'm surprised you chose Human Revolution to pick on when at least they never lock you out of the cannon ending. IIRC the game judges your morality to four levels (pure good, mostly good, mostly evil, pure evil) and then gives you the same four choices. (Note that I've only played it through once with the mostly good path, so I'm not exactly sure how many sets there are and how they behave). It does broadly acknowledge your choices; and even gives you a go at the cannon regardless of how you got there. I'm just saying that cannon forces your hand in one action in that entire game, the rest is up to you. I personally feel odd with multiple endings. If I really like a game then it is a nice way to escape a degree of redundancy as I go through again. But I play games primarily for the story and characters. If the game tries to give me freedom everywhere then I become the main character, and I'm not that interesting. Once in a blue moon a game will put me in a situation where I act in a way I might not expect, but aside from that I'm predictable. If I like the game enough despite that to replay I go "I wonder what this guy will do if I do this instead." I'm not exerting my agency on a world, I'm picking apart code. But put me in the shoes of someone else, then I'm interested and empathizing. The catch then is that it is the character's decision, not mine. I mean there are details like a character build and side-quests that I still get choice in as a player, but nothing as meaningful as to create a new ending. (well maybe modify it into a secret ending or something, but even that gets weird depending on application.).
Revolution first: It DOES force your hand the entire game, but that's not a related problem. It does so by rewarding more EXP stealth than it does violence. You can do a lethal takedown, but if you do a nonlethal one you get 25 more EXP. Playing lethally literally gives you a long term disadvantage. Your hand is forced the second you see the different numbers in your head. And either way, why offer me the multiple choice if only one matters? Funnsies? It's definitely a symptom of multiple endings in a game that intends to franchise or is already a franchise. Stanley Parable is self contained. But let's look at Dishonored. Right now, that doesn't have sequel and let's pretend it's not getting one. In one ending, you create a new golden age. In another ending, being lethal ushers in a doomed kingdom and a mad princess, and in the final ending, you and the entire kingdom die via rats because you were too naughty. So legit two endings are failure states and one is absolute success. Right now, it's entirely self contained, but it's clear that only one matters. Why limit the game? Why make mechanics that can make you progress end up hindering you in the grand finale? Why limit the story telling ability too? Instead of trying to write three okay paths, you could write one really amazing path that incorporates all your ideas.
(I completely forgot quotes get redacted on my last post) In Human Revolution I don't think the idea was to encourage the good path, it felt more like bad execution on trying to make them equal. In the good path you get the experience for abilities, in the bad path you get easier access to ammo and weaponry. Though I could be wrong about that. Either way this isn't about invalidating a choice so much as encouraging one. The game doesn't say "The true Adam doesn't kill people" just "it will be easier to not kill people." And really, I'm not trying to defend the game so much as point out that it is an odd example for what you are describing. And I agree with you on franchising games with wildly different endings. If you play once and get a non-cannon ending, the sequel seems disjointed. The game creators are telling you that you chose wrong, that you didn't play it the real way. Maybe if you had some sort of story mode where deviation meant instant failure, and an open mode where you could do whatever the hell you want. But that is a hard sell on design teams when a lot of your content will be ignored, so it would likely make everything outside the beaten path kinda suck.
