Sad endings in games can be really tricky. After all, you as the player are the protagonist, so it’s natural to want everything to go right for your character. Because of that, for a long time, games tended to stay clear of overtly depressing endings, for fear of alienating players who were invested in seeing their characters win in the end. Some games however, despite how happy their ending seemed, were actually hiding some pretty depressing stories.
Here are 8 of our favorite examples of that.
1. Halo 3: Humanity as we know it is basically over.
By the end of Halo 3, Master Chief has defeated the Covenant, the Flood, and prevented the destruction of the entire galaxy. Seems like a good ol’ fashioned happy ending right?
Well… that is if you ignore the fact that an estimated 23 billion humans died during the course of the war, multiple colony planets were rendered completely uninhabitable, and nearly all of Earth’s military forces and fleets were wiped out. Good luck humanity, you’re going to need it.