Games with unsatisfying endings.

Firewatch felt like a story someone would tell you if you hung around with them long enough. It wasn’t a happy ending, sad, or anything. Just An Ending. It was the end of a job, end of a relationship with someone, end of the summer.

Firewatch had a relevent end for me. I had a long term girlfriend at the time and we had played thru 90% of the game. When i finished it alone later and Delilah wasnt there, it felt exactly how it should have.

This video made me realise that the whole game was isolating. That you never got to interact in person with any character. Whether it was Delilah, seeing the teens have fun, the veteran. It’s like you’re the one that has to navigate through the grief, and no one is there to help you through it. It’s you and you alone to save yourself

I used to think Firewatch had a bad ending, not meeting Delilah after all that seemed kind of frustrating. But after all these years, the ending makes more sense. Henry was trying to find a escape. With Delilah, he found that. But both of them were just running away. You can’t always run away from your problems. Someday you’ll have to face them. It’s a powerful ending no matter how off-putting it felt.

Dude's house catches fire. Days later, releases a video featuring Firewatch. Incredible.

I loved that Firewatch was happy to be such a specific, emotional experience. Having Delilah run from the responsibility and pressure of meeting you in person mirrors your own running away from your wife's problems. The reality you didn't want to or weren't able to face. The emptiness at the end of the game hit like a hammer and I wish there were more that took those swings.

The ending of fire watch is like graduating college. You completed your goals and you move on with your life. Its probably the last time you see or hear from people you've grown to know well. You dont get some happy ending of "we will definitely keep in touch after this is over".

The graphics, the story, the soundtrack. Fire watch is just amazing. It’s the only game I’ve played where you can feel so fufilled playing, then so empty after finishing.

i'm not sure if anyone still remembers this game, but presentable liberty is the epitome of an unsatisfying ending. not because the ending is poor, but because it leaves you completely hopeless. you were the cure, trapped inside of the only room which could ever grant you peace and freedom, but unfortunately you learned these things just a day late.

When I played Firewatch, the ending actually affected me. Because I didn't get to meet her or see her, That stayed with me, because I as the player, really felt something for these characters. I went to bed, and my dreams did the rest. I dreamed that as I was escaping the Fire, I saw her there, at the end, as I reached her tower, she was there at the base of it... With the dream, Firewatch was on my mind for a solid week, before I finally let it go. It was such an emotional ride, that I'll never forget. Recently I tried replaying the game, but after about the midway point, I gave up. There was nothing left... It was like walking through a grave yard. Speaking with her again, felt empty.... Definitely the strangest experience I've had with a game.

I got confused when he switched to borderlands, cause i was like "what does this have to do with firewatch"

I'm actually somewhat relieved to hear that there wasn't a "good ending" I missed out on in Firewatch because I thought I had somehow caused the "bad ending" with my dialogue choices. That time when she's accidentally broadcasting, I chose to ask who she was talking to under the assumption that she was talking to another tower somewhere and I was just trying to make conversation. I didn't mean it in a prying way, but she didn't take it well and there was no way to recover. I was always worried that that was why it ended the way it did, so it's good to hear otherwise.

Man, I loved this game so much. Being able to navigate around the Forrest and solving a mystery. The conversation. The sadness. It wasn’t a bad ending. This game made me rethink the types of games I really enjoy. If it wasn’t for What Remains of Edith Finch, I would have never have found this game. Both are just fantastic.

I actually really liked the ending to Firewatch. It feels so real, that a man wrapped in guilt, trying to escape a life he can’t cope with would want to get swept up in some grand mystery in the middle of nowhere. The fact that it turned out to be nothing, and the main “villain” being a man just like Hank was really impactful. Even not being able to see Delilah at the end made sense realistically

The way you space out this video with multiple games with bad endings but also a core focus game that you return to is really different and unique. Honestly awesome!

Firewatch's ending and story has stayed with me for so long precisely because of its "anticlimactic" finale. As you said, the vet staying in the woods mirrors Henry's desire to escape from the tragedy of his real life. The idea that the government is spying on 2 random people is easier for him to deal with then his wife's Dimentia is heart breaking and feels very real. Great Essay! Happy youtube recommended you. Subscribed.

I feel like this video really accentuates the difference between an unsatisfying ending and a bad one. Bad endings leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth, like your time would've been better spend doing basically anything else than playing this game. Often, they don't make sense or are just... lazy. Uplifting or depressing, regardless they just feel wrong. Unsatisfying endings, like that in Firewatch, are well-crafted and grounded in the reality of the game. While they don't wrap everything up with a bow and feel-good emotions, they still feel good. Fitting. Rewarding, in a strange way, despite not being what you might've wanted.

The ending to Borderlands is much better than I remember. You were one of the first to make it to the core of the compound around the vault. Eons before that ancient race was so advanced that none would ever break their security. Until now. And that security wasn't to protect a weapon. It was to protect the universe FROM a weapon. The destroyer was almost ethereal. A being from a higher dimension that thinks only of consumption, and gains the attributes of all it consumes. But by accident the ancient Eridians made exactly what was needed to kill it. It was forced to be in our dimension, and play by it's rules to feed. It was mortal. It's just sad the explanation that made it better was in future games.

“There was nothing on that mountain that mountain that could possibly satisfy the hole left inside of him, no answer to his suffering.” There actually is something up there that can heal Henry’s pain. There’s an alternate ending, and all you have to do is… well, it’s the title of the game. Just watch the fire instead of getting on the helicopter.  I personally find this a lot more satisfying of an ending, imagining the pilot radioing this back in, that you refused to board, imagining this information being relayed to Delilah, imagining Henry becoming another ghost of the mountain. It’s really the last and only decision you can make that gives Henry some agency.

LMAO, you just brought back a hilarious memory of me and a friend rushing through Borderlands 3, fighting over loot and just laughing, talking shit about borderland 1's ending, only to go on to loot the post-game Vault and find literally exclusively white tiered loot