Do you sit through the credits when you finish a game?

Nothin’ like an endless scroll of names

This post contains mild spoilers for the end-credits sequences of Marvel’s Spider-Man, Portal 2, and Tales from the Borderlands. If you still want to play these games and be surprised, maybe come back to this one later.

After the last ten years, Marvel has really conditioned us to sit all the way through the end credits of their movies. There is something fun about the anticipation that sinks in as you sit through the 10+ minutes of scrolling names, waiting for one last tidbit before the lights come up. Post-credits scenes are certainly a thing in games (the irony that Marvel’s Spider-Man has one is not lost on me), but maybe there’s some wasted potential there considering most of them don’t employ this same strategy.

When you don’t have the promise of extra content at the end of something, do you ever sit through the credits anyway? Because I certainly do.

A lot of the time, I like to think that I do it out of respect. Making games is a tremendously difficult feat to accomplish, so I usually will sit through the credits and read the names because I want to. One of the most moving moments of my career thus far was seeing my name in the credits of a game for the first time, so maybe it’s just my own wishful thinking that someone saw my name nestled in there with the other QA testers and was proud of me for a moment, too. Sometimes it’s just fun to sit there, read someone’s name, and say to yourself, “I don’t know who you are, John Doe, but I appreciate the work you did on this thing I enjoyed.” It’s kind of weird, but I do it anyway.

Sometimes, developers go out of their way to make credits a lot of fun. Tales from the Borderlands is a great one, mostly because I love licensed music in games, and that use of “My Silver Lining” by First Aid Kit was iconic. It really felt like it brought the whole journey together, you know? I also love Portal 2‘s credits — that turret opera and GLaDOS’ song were such a fun way to end one of the most hilarious games I’ve ever played.

Other times, sitting through credits can be a really cathartic thing too, especially if the game was emotionally moving. A prime example of this is the end of the first Last of Us game. That final moment is so poignant and heavy, you kind of have to take a minute to recover, and the credits can help with that.

So, do you usually sit through the end credits of games? What is your favorite end credits sequence you’ve seen in a game? Let’s discuss below.

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