By Evan Regan
Between the freedom offered by open-world games and the customization and narrative flexibility that is native to RPGs, most games that combine the two genres into an open-world RPG tend to offer a variety of endings. These endings are often dependent on your choices throughout the game, culminating in a moment that is (hopefully) a satisfying conclusion to your personal journey with the story.
Typically, these games offer a "good" ending and a "bad" ending at a bare minimum, and these days, there are usually several endings that blur the lines between good and bad rather than just the two ends of the spectrum. However, even when several endings are on offer, these open-world RPGs deliver a "bad" ending that is truly dark and depressing, and they will stick with you for a long time.
Cyberpunk 2077 (Path Of Least Resistance)
It's Not Just The Ending; It's The Video Calls Afterwards
There are four main endings to Cyberpunk 2077,including the new one added with the Phantom Liberty DLC. They're all a bit dark (like letting Johnny Silverhand permanently take over V's body), but the bleakest by far is the ending titled "Path of Least Resistance."
In this ending, V recognizes that any plan where they assault Arasaka will result in their friends dying, so they choose to kill themself instead, saving them from the consciousness-corrupting virus that they can't cure. In the end, V makes a decision for themself while they still can, rather than leaving their fate in someone else's hands. The darkest part isn't even V's suicide; it's the video calls you watch while the credits roll, as each of V's friends and acquaintances reaches out and expresses how their death has affected them. It's a hard watch, but it's deeply affecting.
Fallout: New Vegas (Legion Ending)
Slavery And Slaughter Abound
The ending of Fallout: New Vegas is mostly influenced by which faction you decide to align with. While you don't have to choose any of them, siding with a particular faction will result in them gaining control of a majority of the Mohave wasteland by the game's conclusion. Each faction has its own ideological beliefs, which naturally shape its vision for the desert. The darkest of these ideologies belongs to Caesar's Legion.
The Legion is heavily inspired by the Roman Empire, both visually and in their beliefs. They are ruthless, violent, and uncompromising in their efforts to conquer the Mojave. Siding with them will bring their plans to fruition, and the ending you get for doing so results in the Legion conquering the Wasteland, either enslaving or killing most of the people who live there.
Elden Ring (Multiple)
How Will You Destroy The World?
Much like all of FromSoftware's Soulsborne games, each of Elden Ring's six endings is pretty vague on what they actually mean for The Lands Between. Well, except for one aspect: you either assume the Elden Throne, or you destroy the world, seeking to remake it in a new image.
The "Blessing of Despair" ending, which involves completing the Dung Eater's questline, dooms everyone in The Lands Between to a life afflicted by the Seedbed Curse, preventing their souls from returning to the Erdtree for reincarnation and instead damning them to an eternity of torment. The "Lord of Frenzied Flame" ending might be even worse, depending on your perspective. In this ending, the Tarnished embraces the Three Fingers and effectively brings about the apocalypse. The Erdtree burns, along with most of The Lands Between and the people within it.
Diablo
He Can't Be Killed, Only Contained
Defeating Diablo is always the primary goal in Diablo. He's the Lord of Terror, and at the end of the game, it's revealed that he's possessed Lord Albrecht by piercing his head with a Soulstone. Once you defeat Diablo in battle, his form reverts to Albrecht, and that's when things take a dark turn.
The Hero determines that Diablo cannot actually be killed; instead, he must be contained within a mortal vessel. The Hero sacrifices themselves for this cause, piercing their own forehead with the Soulstone and becoming Diablo's vessel. The game ends with a shot of the Hero, clad in a heavy cloak, looking out over a desert with a light shining from under their hood. Things get even worse in Diablo 2, where it's revealed that the Hero from the first game wasn't strong enough to contain Diablo and was eventually possessed by the Lord of Terror, just like Albrecht.
NieR Replicant (Ending D)
Humanity Dies, The Hero Dies, And Everyone Forgets It Even Happened
The fourth ending for NieR Replicant, titled "Ending D," is a harsh and bittersweet way to end a game that's full of deeply lovable characters. It starts with Nier killing Shadowlord, who is actually a copy of Nier (it's complicated, but bear with us). After Nier wins the fight, Kainé begins to relapse, a term for when Gestalts lose their sentience and become hostile.
Nier is then given two options: kill Kainé, his love, or erase his own existence, saving Kainé but ensuring that neither she nor anyone else will remember that Nier existed. While Ending C is pretty dark, Ending D is even worse. For one, the romance between Kainé and Nier is the crux of the entire story, and seeing them separated immediately after their ultimate victory hurts a lot. Worse still, the Black Scrawl plague is still rapidly spreading, dooming humanity in the process. For a final gut punch, Ending D will delete your save file, permanently driving home the point that Nier is so utterly forgotten that any impact he had on the world has been completely erased. While Ending E lets you restore your save file (and Kainé's memories) for a slightly happier ending, it still doesn't save humanity.
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This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
