While compelling video game endings weren’t invented on the original PlayStation, it was one of the first places where games could be truly cinematic, and therefore game endings got a lot more elaborate and complex during that era. From Final Fantasy VII to Metal Gear Solid and beyond, PS1 games got what we thought was as close as video games were going to get to “being like movies.” Sure, that notion may seem silly now, but the storytelling and cinematography on some PS1 games has aged remarkably well for how dated the visuals have become.
In the decades since, the PlayStation brand has remained a gold standard for strong cinematic elements in gaming, with recent releases like The Last of Us and Uncharted 4 serving as a high water mark for what the medium can accomplish in terms of storytelling. Those games are also among the best of all time when it comes to video game endings, which is often an overlooked aspect of games as many adults either don’t find the time to finish most games, or are too busy playing multiplayer online to even bother with a game’s story mode at all.
For this list, we tried to stick as closely as possible to games that can be—or at least were at one time—defined primarily as “PlayStation games.” In order to make for a more interesting lineup of games and one that is true to this list’s title, we have come up with 30 games that are either 100% PlayStation-exclusive, were exclusive for a time, or at least are most commonly associated with the PlayStation brand for one reason or another.
30 BEST: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
What initially just seemed like an Indiana Jones rip-off and/or “Tomb Raider with a dude” has evolved into one of the best-selling and most acclaimed video game franchises of the modern era.
The gameplay is part of the reason for Uncharted’s popularity, but most of it is the series’ great storytelling and excellent character progression.
Uncharted 4 wraps things up beautifully by not only bringing the story to a satisfying close, but does a wonderful time jump where we see—and get to play as—the next generation of two of the game’s characters.
29 HURT: Heavy Rain
One of the biggest problems with choice-based games that let you guide the story is that they typically still only have one main ending that you have little to no control over, and that lessens the impact of all of the decisions you made.
It’s definitely a surprise to find out who the villain is in Heavy Rain, but it also makes it feel disingenuous that you played the game a certain way only to find out you were making choices for a murderer who knew who he was but you didn’t.
28 BEST: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has a convoluted an unsatisfying ending, made all the worse when faced with the reality that it’s to be the last MGS game Hideo Kojima will ever work on.
MGSV’s finale is extra disappointing when you know just how great a Metal Gear ending can be, as evidenced by the flawless climax of MGS3.
Snake Eater’s brilliant finale says complex things about loyalty and sacrifice, making you actually sympathize with Big Boss’ eventual turn to a life of crime and world domination.
27 HURT: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty
Most people’s knee-jerk reaction to the mention of Metal Gear Solid 2 is that the game was a huge disappointment. In reality, the game itself is excellent—at least, the first three-fourths of it are.
It’s only when the game turns into a weird, confusing lecture on reality and free will that the whole thing falls apart, leading to an ending so exhaustingly obtuse that it made gamers forget that most of what they just played was actually really great.
26 BEST: Persona 3
As the Final Fantasy franchise has struggled to maintain its quality and identity in the last few console generations, another JRPG series has quietly risen through the ranks to take its place as the go-to series in the genre for PlayStation owners.
Persona 3 remains the best of the series, and much of that has to do with its ending.
Touching on the struggle between choosing a life of blissful ignorance over actually facing the many evils of the world, it’s an ending that demands to be pondered long after you’ve put down the controller.
25 HURT: Xenogears
Xenogears is an unfortunate victim of corporate politics that its developer had no control over and were forced to make the best of a limiting situation.
As development of the game hit the home stretch, the Xenogears team had their budget cut and were given an impossible deadline with which to have the game finished by, leading to the final third of the game essentially playing out via screens of text rather than actual gameplay or even cutscenes. Not the exciting climax that such an ambitious game deserved.
24 BEST: Silent Hill 2
Over 15 years since its release, Silent Hill 2 remains not only one of the most acclaimed horror games of all time, but also having one of the best stories in video game history.
And the game’s utterly dark and depressing plot has an equally dismal ending.
However, it’s one that doesn’t take the easy way out or give into crazy supernatural elements, the latter of which every other Silent Hill game is unfortunately guilty of. Well, that’s assuming you got the real ending, and not the silly dog one…
23 HURT: Killzone 3
It’s pretty obvious that the Killzone series was created to be PlayStation’s answer to Halo—but unfortunately for PlayStation owners, it never quite got there, especially not in terms of story.
From a gameplay perspective, Killzone 2 and Killzone 3 are both fantastic FPSs.
But their plots leave much to be desired, particularly the ending of Killzone 3, which essentially sees an entire enemy planet blow up but the main antagonist frustratingly still get to live to see another day.
22 BEST: God Of War (2018)
The God of War series really got away from itself for a few years there, still fun to play but with a plot that got more absurd and less nuanced as the entries progressed.
If any series needed a refresh, it was God of War.
And that’s exactly what it got with 2018’s God of War, which not only retooled the gameplay but remembered that the franchise was once actually about telling a compelling story that wasn’t just an excuse to hack away at demons. That sucker-punch of an ending, where the surprising truth about Kratos’ son is revealed, left millions of gamers stunned.
21 HURT: God Of War 2
Many God of War fans still point to the second game as being the best in the series—and from a gameplay perspective, there is a lot to support that stance. But the game’s weak story definitely takes God of War 2 down a few pegs, and its ending doesn’t help.
Such an epic game deserved an epic ending—not just a glorified teaser trailer for how the next game was going to start. It literally felt like the game ended in the middle of the cutscene that was meant to start the next installment.
20 BEST: Shadow Of The Colossus
There is a lot to unpack in any Fumito Ueda game, and you can play through any of them multiple times and still feel like you haven’t fully “gotten it” yet.
That isn’t always a bad thing—games, just like movies, books, etc, shouldn’t always have a nice, obvious, tidy wrap-up at the end.
It becomes pretty clear fairly early on in Shadow of the Colossus that your actions are far less noble than they seem, but by the time you topple the last beast and return to the temple, those who can figure out what the haunting scenes are conveying will be blown away by what is revealed.
19 HURT: Bloodborne
The Dark Souls series is notorious for putting gamers’ skills to the test, and chewing up and spitting out anyone who dares to underestimate them. Unfortunately, your reward for all that hard work needs to just be the accomplishment itself, as Dark Souls games don’t pay off very well story-wise.
There was some hope that Bloodborne, from the makers of Dark Souls, would take that formula and apply it to a better story and characters.
This proved to not be the case, and if you play Bloodborne for a good plot and satisfying ending, you’re going to have a bad time.
18 BEST: Journey
You’ll either love Journey, or you’ll think it’s boring and pointless. There is no dialogue, no enemies, and not much in the way of an actual goal—like the title implies, it’s all about the journey itself, and nothing more.
It’s impossible to put Journey’s ending into words, but it’s something that everyone should experience at least once—ideally, with a co-op partner. It’ll truly move you if you let it, and though this is a tired cliche, it is one of the rare video games that can be defined as art.
17 HURT: Kingdom Hearts II
Even if you love the Kingdom Hearts games—and you should, since they’re mostly awesome—there is no denying that the story has become an incomprehensible mess.
It would take no less than 50 pages written by a genuine scholar to adequately explain what’s happening.
And all of that started with the second game, when the series’ creators got past just making a fun Final Fantasy/Disney hybrid and started to believe their own hype. KH2’s ending makes zero sense, and was the kickoff to the entire KH series making zero sense.
16 BEST: InFAMOUS 2
It’s too bad that inFAMOUS has never gotten the recognition that it deserves, as it is one of the best, most consistent franchises of the last two console generations and can stand up to almost any action and/or open world game.
In particular, the inFAMOUS series has a far better story than most open-world games—even rivaling Rockstar’s best work—and nowhere is that more evident than inFAMOUS 2’s dynamite endings. It’s the rare game where the good and evil endings are both equally incredible, and make it worth beating it twice just to see them both.
15 HURT: Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver
Those of us who remember being excited for Soul Reaver also remember that the game experienced numerous delays before it finally hit the PS1.
Anticipation was extremely high as a result, but miraculously, the game was still amazing and few felt it wasn’t worth the wait.
Unfortunately, the ending soured things a bit, taking the all-too-common “to be continued” non-ending approach that ends up feeling more like a cop-out to coming up with a real ending than whetting our appetites for the sequel. And it would be the last Legacy of Kain game that was universally praised.
14 BEST: Final Fantasy X
While a lot of longtime Final Fantasy fans had bounced off the series during the PS1 era, those that stuck around for its PS2 debut saw that the series had finally found is storytelling groove again for the first time since the SNES days.
FFX’s story and characters are still considered among the best—if not THE best—of the series.
And against all odds, it managed to have a perfect ending that paid off the adventure in a beautiful and heartbreaking way. It was especially satisfying since great endings had been eluding the series in its previous few installments…
13 HURT: Final Fantasy VIII
Keep in mind the title of this list when you see FFVIII show up, because it means that we aren’t hating on the game overall. FFVIII is an excellent, underappreciated entry in the series that actually does a lot of things better than either of its PS1 counterparts.
Until that muddled mess of an ending, that is.
Throwing every RPG cliche in the book into FFVIII’s overlong ending—including, yawn, amnesia—made for a lazy, uneventful conclusion to an otherwise awesome story. All the worse since FFVIII’s opening is still one of the best in video game history.
12 BEST: Um Jammer Lammy
Nobody quite knew what to make of Parappa the Rapper when it was first released, but it ended up becoming a surprise hit and made its titular pup one of the mascots of the entire PlayStation brand.
Tragically, follow-up Um Jammer Lammy got overlooked, probably because the game seemed to have left Parappa out completely.
But those who took a chance on the game anyway not only found it better than Parappa in a lot of ways, but also discovered that beating the game with Lammy unlocks an entire separate quest starring Parappa with remixes of all the songs!
11 HURT: Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
When arcades began to falter at the turn of the millennium, so did arcade juggernaut Midway, who struggled to maintain their relevance as a console-only company.
One of the brights spots of Midway’s 2000s decline was the inventive Psi-Ops, a game starring a character who could move things with his mind. Sadly, like many Midway titles on the PS2, it struggled to find an audience and didn’t sell well—which meant that the sequel that was teased at the end of the first game in lieu of an actual ending never came to be. Stop doing that, game companies!
