The ending sequence is where a lot of video games drop the ball. Mass Effect 3 might be the chief example of this, as the choices you made throughout a trilogy of games were condensed into picking from three different options that each corresponded to an ending. You also have games with confusing endings, like Final Fantasy VII, or games with endings that only exist to set up sequels, like Halo 2.
You would think that most video game developers would have an ending chosen from the very beginning, but this is not the case. There have been many instances when outside influences have changed the ending of a game before it could be implemented. There have also been endings that were changed during development, in order to fulfill a change in story direction.
We are here today to look at the abandoned video game endings that answered questions about their respective games. From the cruel decisions of Lara Croft, to the truth behind the Colossus hunt.
Here are Twenty Deleted Endings That Fix Major Gaming Plot Holes!
20 The Fate Of Movie Blanka
One of the reasons why Street Fighter: The Movie was so terrible was due to the fact that it pointlessly changed most of the characters so that they were unrecognizable. One example of this was Blanka, who went from a savage who grew up in the rain forests to a result of an experiment gone wrong.
Blanka was absent from the arcade version of Street Fighter: The Movie, despite the fact that he was a major character in the movie. Fans had speculated for years that his inclusion was planned at some point. This has since been proven by people who have hacked the game and discovered an unused ending for Blanka, even though he wasn’t actually in the game.
Blanka would later appear in the home console ports of Street Fighter: The Movie.
19 Episode 51
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has a mind-screw ending that polarized a lot of the fans. This ending also left a lot of unanswered questions on the table, mainly relating to the fate of the young Liquid Snake and the Sahelanthropus that he stole.
It turns out that the entire ending of the game was left unfinished, as Konami wouldn’t let the developer complete it before release. This ending is referred to as “Episode 51” and all of the story content related to it was included on a bonus disc from the special edition of the game. “Episode 51” showed the fates of Liquid Snake and the young Psycho Mantis. It also shows the Sahelanthropus being destroyed, which explains why Liquid never used it to take over the world before the events of Metal Gear Solid.
18 The Fate Of Amanda In Tomb Raider
The Tomb Raider series has been broken down into different timelines, with each game being set in one of the various continuities that have been created since the release of the first Tomb Raider title. In the Legend Timeline, Lara Croft has an enemy named Amanda Evert. The two had previously been friends until Lara abandoned Amanda during an expedition, as she believed that Amanda had perished during a cave-in. Amanda would later forgive Lara in Tomb Raider: Underworld.
There is an unused ending for Tomb Raider: Underworld that was found in the files of the PlayStation 2 version of the game. This ending shows Amanda trying to take revenge on Lara, which forces Lara to shoot Amanda and leaving her to slowly perish of her wounds.
17 Larva Girl Did It 35 Minutes Ago
The Simpsons comics might be the most underrated aspect of the entire franchise. These have included comics based on Radioactive Man, which have acted as parodies of the comics released by DC and Marvel. It seemed as if this element of parody was missing from The Simpsons: Bartman Meets Radioactive Man, which was otherwise a standard action game. The prototype of the game reveals that a major comic book storyline was going to be parodied in the ending.
Bartman Meets Radioactive Man originally parodied the ending of Watchmen.
The original ending of the game revealed that the entire story was a plot by Larva Girl, who pretended to be the evil Brain-O in order to get Radioactive Man’s attention. This ending was replaced in the final version of the game with one where Brain-O was the real deal.
16 Batman Against The Code
Batman follows a strict rule where he will never take the life of one of his enemies, no matter how evil they are. This rule was created by the writers so that Batman doesn’t just throw the Joker off a balcony, resulting in no more Joker stories. The other forms of Batman media have sometimes ignored this. The Batman movie from 1989 ends with Batman indirectly causing the Joker’s demise.
The video game adaptation of the movie has an even more direct scene, where Batman throws Joker off a tall building.
The prototype for the Batman game reveals that Batman was originally just going to beat the Joker up, which means that the earlier version of the game actually followed the movie more closely than the final product.
15 The Fate Of The Exile’s Friends
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords has the most disappointing ending in video game history… because it doesn’t have one. You see the end boss falling to their doom and a brief clip of a spaceship… and that’s it. There was no resolution to any of the storylines in the game.
The reason why the game had no ending was due to it being rushed out to meet the holiday season.
The final section of the game takes place on a planet called Malachor V. It is here that the Exile has their final confrontation with Darth Traya. There were originally numerous different events that could happen here, which included the Exile’s party members teaming up to try and take down Traya, before being ended. This offered at least some explanation as to their fates, rather than the nothing that we learn in the retail version of the game.
14 The Federal Hall Landing
There were several video games that had to be edited following the terror attacks on New York City on September 11th, 2001. One such game was Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which had its entire ending sequence reworked.
In the retail version of the game, Arsenal Gear crashes into Manhattan, which results in Raiden and Solidus Snake being trapped on top of Federal Hall. We don’t actually see the crash and people are walking around during the end sequence as if nothing happened.
The original version of the ending was meant to show Arsenal Gear crashing into Manhatten, which would have resulted in the Statue of Liberty being moved to a different location. The reason why the reaction from the public is so anemic was to downplay the severity of the incident.
13 Maria’s Possession
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is essentially a sequel to Rondo of Blood. Symphony of the Night even begins with the final battle of Rondo of Blood. The story of Richter Belmont and Maria Renard is tied directly into Alucard’s own, as he explores Dracula’s castle. Maria assists Alucard throughout his quest but neglects to actually intervene directly, even though she does so with Richter if you lose during the battle against Dracula at the start of the game.
There is dialogue for an unused ending in the game where Maria does intervene and becomes possessed by Shaft. This would have led to a boss battle against Maria, where she summons four demons to fight Alucard. You would then see a new ending where both Maria and Richter have sacrificed themselves to stop Dracula.
12 Scrooge’s Unlimited Funds
Scrooge McDuck owns a bank vault that is so stuffed with cash that he can swim through it at his leisure. This hasn’t stopped him from going on adventures in order to seek out even more treasure to throw on the hoard, even though he could be spending all day on a yacht in the Carribean with that naked duck lady from Howard the Duck.
The DuckTales video game on the NES followed Scrooge’s adventures as he looked for more treasure. Money is an important element of the game, yet the player suffers no ill will for running out of it. It’s possible (though incredibly difficult) to see an ending where Scrooge becomes bankrupt. This requires for you to spend all of your money on healing and completing Dracula’s stage.
11 The Fate Of Ninten’s Parents
EarthBound is a game on the Super Nintendo that has gathered a huge following in recent years. EarthBound was actually the second game in Mother series (as it’s known in Japan) with the first game not seeing an English release until 2015, where it had its name changed to EarthBound Beginnings.
The original Japanese version of Mother ended abruptly and never explained what happened to the cast.
When the English language version of Mother was in development in the early ’90s, the localizers decided to create a new ending which explains what happened to the stolen parents, as well as the main characters. This localization was shelved until 2015, though a leaked version of the prototype meant that players could see this new ending when it was shared online.
10 Blue & The Time Stop
Saga Frontier was a highly experimental RPG for the original PlayStation that followed the stories of several different characters.
Saga Frontier is infamous for the fact that it is unfinished, with many quest lines ending abruptly and several storylines being unresolved when the game ends.
Blue’s scenario might be the most famous in Saga Frontier, as it ends halfway through the final battle. This was due to the rushed development of the game, which meant that the full story couldn’t be told. The truth concerning Blue’s scenario and its ending was revealed in a book, called The Essence of Saga Frontier. It was originally planned for Blue/Rogue to break free from the spell when he heard the voice of his friends.
9 The Pilot Was A Zombie?
Left 4 Dead ends with the cast fighting their way to the roof of a hospital, where they are picked up by a rescue helicopter. This story continued in the Crash Course DLC campaign, which involved the helicopter pilot turning into a zombie, which forces the survivors to destroy him and crash the chopper.
Crash Course was originally how the story campaign of the game was going to end.
The helicopter pilot was going to reveal that he was feeling ill after a street pickup, which foreshadowed his infection. The players would then have to survive the crash and keep on fighting. This original ending would have actually offered an explanation as to how the pilot got sick, which is never given in Crash Course.
8 Multiple Missing Endings
In the 16-bit era of gaming, the chances of a Japanese game being released overseas usually depended on how much text was in the game. Fighting games generally don’t have much text, which means that the localization process will be brief. RPGs tend to have a lot of text, which is why so few of them left Japan in the days before Final Fantasy VII.
Killer Instinct 2 is a rare example of a fighting game with a lot of cut content related to its endings, even though no localization work needed to be done. This is due to the fact that lots of endings were planned for the game that depended on your actions during certain battles. The mechanics of this system were never implemented, which means that a ton of endings went unused.
7 The Fate Of The Bombermen
The Bomberman series is known for its tense multiplayer action. Trapping one of your friends behind a corner with a well-placed bomb is likely to incite a reaction on the same level as throwing a blue shell in Mario Kart, and it’s one of the reasons people still love the series after all of these years.
The Bomberman series has occasionally included games that have used single-player modes, even though the games are known for their multiplayer action. Super Bomberman 2 is one such game, as it has a story mode that involves Bomberman being captured and imprisoned in a space station.
There are unused sprites for the other colors of Bomberman that are found within the game that are linked to the ending. These suggest that a multiplayer variant of the single-player mode was planned, but scrapped during the development of the game.
6 The Fate Of The Escapees
Dead Island had a trailer that promised an incredible narrative experience. That trailer was a lie and what we got instead was Borderlands with zombies. You played as one of four generic action hero protagonists as you slaughter wave after wave of the undead. There are lots of unused text files within Dead Island, which refer to story elements that were cut from the game. These include the actual ending of the game, as monologues were written for each of the four characters that go unused.
The unused monologues would have played during the final sequence when the main characters are escaping on the helicopter. Each of the monologues involved the characters talking about their experiences on the island and how it changed them.
5 The Curse Of The Clue Book
The 7th Guest is a first-person puzzle game that relied heavily on FMVs to tell its story. You had to walk around the haunted mansion that was owned by a famous toymaker, named Henry Stauf. You have access to a Clue Book that will give you hints on how to solve the various puzzles in the mansion. The instruction manual tells you that there are repercussions for using the Clue Book too much. This warning is a lie, as you can use the Clue Book as many times as you want without negative results.
There is a bad ending programmed into The 7th Guest that doesn’t show you the resolution of the story. This was likely the cost of using the Clue Book and was essentially a way of telling the player to complete the game without using it, in order to earn the right to see the ending.
4 Siding With The Illuminati
Deus Ex is a game that had a lot of content cut during development. These include sequences where you travel to the White House and meet the President, which were scrapped during the production phase, but elements of which can still be found within the files of the game.
There was a planned “bad” ending for Deus Ex where you would have been able to side with Bob Page and join the Illuminati. Page would have offered Denton rulership over a continent in exchange for his help with fusing his consciousness with that of an artificial intelligence. This ending would have tied into some of the other scrapped pro-Illuminati storylines in the game, some of which you can see the remnants of within the story.
3 The Original Final Boss Of Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect 3 doesn’t have an end boss. Instead, you have to talk down the Illusive Man, who has become corrupted by the Reapers but is also working on a plan to control them using the information and technology that he had acquired throughout the series. You have to defeat the Illusive Man in a cutscene rather than actually fighting him.
It seems that the Reapers weren’t originally going to be so complacent with their last line of defense aboard the Citadel, as the concept art for Mass Effect 3 shows a monstrous final form for the Illusive Man that would have acted as the end boss of the game. This was replaced with the far lamer story sequence that was included in the retail version of the game.
2 Legacy Of Kain: Sequel Maker
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is up there with games like Halo 2 in the sense that it almost ruined an amazing experience with a tacked-on ending that did nothing but set up a sequel. The story of Soul Reaver involves Raziel hunting down Kain and his children. The game ends with one of Kain’s children still alive and Raziel chasing Kain through a magical portal to another world.
The developers didn’t have time to finish the original ending, which involved Raziel slaying Kain and using the power of the massive cathedral organs that he discovered earlier in the game to wipe out all of the vampires in the land. This would have been a definitive ending to the series, which meant that there was no room for sequels, so changes were made at the last minute to end the story at an earlier point.
1 The True Fate Of The Colossus Slayer
Shadow of the Colossus is part of a trilogy of games that have almost nothing linking them, save for similar narratives and settings. This wasn’t always going to be the case, as early footage of Shadow of the Colossus showed the main character sporting a set of horns, like the protagonist of Ico.
These horns were once going to be relevant to the plot, as there was going to be an ending exclusive to those with Ico save data.
The creator of Shadow of the Colossus has explained that the imagery of Wander becoming more monstrous throughout the game was due to the fact that he was going to transform into a literal monster after slaying the last Colossus. This is what all of the foreshadowings throughout the game was leading towards and he has admitted that this ending might have been better than the one we got.
