Games
How to End a Game
Goodbyes are tough. Sometimes it’s a person you love traveling across the world, other times it’s the finale
of your favourite TV show. Sometimes though, it’s your university magazine. After four years writing and editing, we’ve reached the end of our time and we’d like to say goodbye to TN2 by discussing what the “ending” in video games means for us, as well as its importance in this wonderful medium.
Seán - Games Editor The true “ending” of a game is difficult to define nowadays. Modern games often have no shortage of things to do after the main story is over. But while this might seem like a symptom of game bloat, it’s more of a blessing than a curse. In 2016, during a stressful set of college exams, I took respite in playing an hour or two of Ratchet and Clank every evening. When the end of the story came, I needed a reason to continue coming back to the game every night. So it was straight on to the New Game + mode, then on to the PSN platinum after that. The true ending only came when there was definitively nothing left to do. I completed the game again in March 2020 and I can confidently say that it will not be the last time. I’ll continue coming back to it whenever I need an idle distraction. I think the most memorable endings in games are the traditional narrative conclusions - the ones that hit you like a train. You know the feeling - it’s 3am, you’ve just played through to the end of a story that you’ve been emotionally invested in for weeks, maybe even years, and you’re left with a void in your very soul. One of my personal favourite endings is in Final Fantasy XV (the very first game I wrote about for TN2). The story follows four young men on a fantastical road trip across the game world. It culminates, in typical Final Fantasy manner, with a cataclysm that only the protagonist, Noctis can avert by sacrificing his life. Gut wrenching as this is, the real kicker comes after the credits, in an extra scene with Noctis and his three closest friends sitting around a campfire before the final battle. There’s no music, no grandeur, no sprawling speech praising the valorous sacrifice Noctis is about to make. It’s just four friends having a heartfelt conversation that they know will be their last. The groundedness and sincerity of the scene is palpable. Noctis pauses, the silences long and poignant. He fumbles his sentences and through teary eyes, eventually finds the right words to express his gratitude to his lifelong friends: “I’ve made my peace. Still, knowing this is it...seeing you all here…it’s more than I can take.” While the same can’t be said for the rest of the game, this scene is exceptionally well written and drives home the steadfast friendship between these four characters, galvanised over the course of a years-long journey. I think about it often, even five years later. Whenever I do, I am reminded of my first article with TN2 - a review of Final Fantasy XV. As my time at the magazine comes to a close, I look back on that article with great fondness, and I’m certain I will look back on this, my final article, with the same sentiment in five years’ time.
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