Best joke endings in video games

For quite some time now, gamers have been accustomed to video game ending cutscenes featuring enough drama and gravitas to rival those of Hollywood’s best productions. That, however, doesn’t mean that video games have entirely done away with the fun and unexpected comedy that earned this medium the place it occupies in our hearts.

Sometimes, even the most serious of video games are home to some of the funniest and most bizarre endings, and we love them for it.

wacky spoilers below

Silent Hill’s UFO ending

If you dare to venture back into Silent Hill after having completed the game once, you may complete an absolutely out there puzzle to find out who’s really pulling the strings in the titular town. Turns out it’s aliens.

Even though it’s obviously a joke ending, it gets bonus points for never really letting go of the scary element, from the weird noise the UFO makes in the sky when we trigger the ending, to the ending where the main character just gets taken into space for who knows what otherworldly reason.

Silent Hill 2’s dog ending

The UFO ending in the original Silent Hill is amazing overall, but its greatest strength is its completely unexpected nature. Silent Hill 2 also has a funny UFO ending, but it no longer catches fans of the series off guard. The developers were aware of that, so they came up with an even wackier ending.

Players who meet the conditions to trigger this ending will be treated to a cutscene that reveals that the mastermind behind all the treachery in the titular town: a cute Shiba Inu pup in an equally cute control room. Wanna know who that dog actually is? Try reading “dog” backwards, but not before you prepare to get your mind completely blown by this incredible plot twist.

The scene plays as a hilarious palate cleanser to the seriousness of the game’s story, and the song that plays during the end credits is yet another masterpiece in game’s already stellar OST. It’s just completely unbelievable that this ending came to be in a pre-Internet meme era.

Undertale’s dog ending

Undertale has three different endings. The first is heartwarming, the second one is heartbreaking, and the secret one is just the best. After the game’s credits, Sans tells us that a dog — that I assume is the “lengthshifting” one we see throughout the game — somehow became the mayor. Sans says that he just sleeps on the throne, but that things have been really good ever since he came to power, so no worries.

World Of Horror’s dog ending

I don’t know exactly why so many games have dog-related endings, but as far as I’m concerned, all games should have dog endings. What I like most about World Of Horror’s dog ending is that it has players searching through various locations for grey-alien like figures to figure out its strangest mystery, only to then have them abducted by a super advanced race of Shiba Inus, the Xenoshibas. To make matters even funnier, this ending concludes with a message saying the story will be continued in Galaxy Of Horror, an obviously made-up game — or is it?

Metal Gear Solid 3’s Time Paradox Endings

Metal Gear Solid 3 is a prequel to the rest of the series, and MGS3‘s time paradox endings are events that players can trigger in case they kill a character that would play a vital role in the future of the series. You’re not supposed to kill these characters, but Kojima isn’t the kind of person to pass on the chance to lay a fun easter egg in his game. Thus, he filled the game with sneaky instances where you can kill off an important character and immediately get treated to a Game Over screen for pretty much breaking the universe.

Though these aren’t actual endings of the game, you can argue that they’re even more definite than the actual ending of the game, because they completely kill the game’s continuity.

The most interesting part about the time paradoxes is that once you trigger them, you’re confronted by Colonel Campbell telling Snake that he just created a time paradox. Thing is, Campbell only shows up in future games, so, does this mean MGS3 is actually Solid Snake reliving the memories of his “father” Assassin’s Creed style? We’ll never know.

Nier: Automata’s Mackerel ending

One of the first things we casually learn about the androids we play as in Nier: Automata is that they cannot eat Mackerel, as the presence of that specific type of fish in their bellies will prove their demise. That’s interesting, but while we see our androids evolving and becoming ever-more multifaceted killing machines throughout the game, we can’t help but feel tempted to go fishing and finding out whether it’s true or just a rumor. Either I am part of the conspiracy, or yeah, it’s totally true, and you shouldn’t eat Mackerel, or your ultra-powerful android will be treated to the most humbling ending in the history of badass main characters.

Eternal Darkness’ fake ending

As the name Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem suggests, the game takes special pleasure with messing with the minds of players. As we progress through the game, we’ll be treated to various cutscenes and animations pertaining to extremely weird events, but most of those are hallucinations that give this game its unique flavor. One of my favorites leads players to believe they’d reached the end of the game, then even teases the culmination of the story in a made-up game: Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Redemption.

Sadly, a sequel to Eternal Darkness was indeed in the works for a while, but it ended up getting cancelled. How I wish that was but a clever trick the developers at Silicon Knights pulled on us to mess with our sanity.

Far Cry 4’s ending for patient players

Right at the start of Far Cry 4‘s campaign, the villainous Pagan Min kindly welcomes the player to have a nice dinner at his palace, but he’s interrupted by “terrorists” that he needs to deal with. Before leaving, Min asks players to just wait for a bit, promising that he’ll help players upon his return. That’s when most players try to get away from this tyrant, but those who actually stay will see that this is a monster of his word. Upon returning, Min will take us directly to the place where we’re supposed to put the main character’s mother’s ashes, effectively concluding the main quest.

Elements in this ending still do allude to the fact that letting a vile dictator off the leash isn’t a good thing for the people of the land, but, for players who only care about completing their own quest as soon as possible, this ending is the way to go!

Outer World’s literal dumb ending

Fallout games are famous for dealing with players who don’t care much for their intelligence in hilarious fashion. Outer Worlds, being the spiritual successor to the old Fallout games that it is, goes even further. On top of various funny dialogue options that pop up in the playthroughs of players with low intelligence attributes, Outer Worlds features an actual ending where players can, against all better judgement, decide to make a shortcut to their destination that goes through the Sun. Spoilers: it goes just about as well as you’d expect.

Silent Hill Homecoming’s UFO ending

Oh, were you expecting yet another dog ending? Nope. It’s time for another UFO ending. This time it’s the joke ending of Silent Hill Homecoming, the game that tried to follow the footsteps of the awesome UFO endings in the original series, and ended up getting one of the funniest ones but completely by accident.

One rule of joke endings in Silent Hill is that you’d never get them during your first playthrough. Searching for your daughter or girlfriend for hours on end, only to end up with your character tangled up with aliens and seeing no closure to their story would just make for a really strange first playthrough. Homecoming says screw that and makes it totally possible for the main character to get beamed up into a spaceship and taken to space.

It’s a terrible ending, but I just can’t help but to laugh at the irony of an ending that’s meant to be funny but that only ends up ruining the game for everyone.

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