I loved the ending, but... *SPOILERS*

[DONKEY GONK]

The fact that Chumbucket and the Magnum Opus magically show back up in your world the moment after you complete the game, in my experience, somewhat negates the impactful end. I know... you're expected to suspend your disbelief and seperate the gameplay from the story, but I'm having a difficult time doing that. Seeing both Chumbucket and the Magnum Opus being destroyed in Max's desperation to finish Scrotus once and for all left me with a sense of morose, yet accepting finality. I felt like the ending fleshed out Max's character more and showed what kind of person he truly is.

Then, right after the final scene ends, you're thrust back into the game world. Everything you painfully sacrifice as Max magically shows up again like nothing ever happened. In this moment, I felt like all of the harsh realities I expected to force myself to cope with were completely meaningless. What do all of Max's efforts even mean if I can jump right back into the game and pick up where I left of as if nothing ever happened?

From a gameplay perspective, I'm ultimately happy. I loved the gameplay and am excited to pick the game up where I left off, leveling up the Magnum Opus more. However, I really feel like this gameplay possibility could have been worked better into the game without detracting so much from how impactful the story was.

Ultimately though, I still had an absolute blast with the game from start to finish. Maybe that's why this small gripe with the ending affected me more than it otherwise would. In a game that, for the most part, did an amazing job transporting me into it's captivating setting, small gripes like this are more noticable

BUT, with all that said, what were your experiences with the game? Did you find this to be an issue like I did, or did you happily play on without a thought after the end credits rolled?

[Atom.Little]

Originally posted by Scoot:

The fact that Chumbucket and the Magnum Opus magically show back up in your world the moment after you complete the game, in my experience, somewhat negates the impactful end.

I think we're supposed to look at their showing up back in the game world after the ending of the main story, is just supposed to be a way to give us an opportunity to continue playing and to complete siede missions and other stuff that we may not have done before we played through the main story line.

We're not supposed to take Max and Chum Bucket reappearing in the game world literally as if they have actually been revived or magically put back into a game reality which they have just left[1*]. We're supposed to ignore the inconsistency.

And by the way, this feature isn't unique for Mad Max, in fact most Open World non-linear games do the same thing...

'The Witcher 3'
'Assassin's Creed' series
'Fall Out' series
'Watch Dogs'
'Dying Light'

...Just to name a few game titles (obviously there are many, many more).

.................
[1*] - I haven't played through the ending and avoided the spoiler part of your post, so I don't know how it is with that, but I can tell from what you say in the quote here above that logically they should not be back in the game world that we've come to know so well.

[DONKEY GONK]

Originally posted by AmaDraque:

Originally posted by Scoot:

The fact that Chumbucket and the Magnum Opus magically show back up in your world the moment after you complete the game, in my experience, somewhat negates the impactful end.

I think we're supposed to look at their showing up back in the game world after the ending of the main story, is just supposed to be a way to give us an opportunity to continue playing and to complete siede missions and other stuff that we may not have done before we played through the main story line.

We're not supposed to take Max and Chum Bucket reappearing in the game world literally as if they have actually been revived or magically put back into a game reality which they have just left[1*]. We're supposed to ignore the inconsistency.

And by the way, this feature isn't unique for Mad Max, in fact most Open World non-linear games do the same thing...

'The Witcher 3'
'Assassin's Creed' series
'Fall Out' series
'Watch Dogs'
'Dying Light'

...Just to name a few game titles (obviously there are many, many more).

.................
[1*] - I haven't played through the ending and avoided the spoiler part of your post, so I don't know how it is with that, but I can tell from what you say in the quote here above that logically they should not be back in the game world that we've come to know so well.

I know, and you're right. You're not supposed to take chum and the Magnum Opus showing back in your world as an official part of the story. I was more trying to say, in my experience as the player, me bing able to play right back where I left off somewhat cheapens the weight of the ending, given the nature of the story. For me it's harder to feel a sense of loss when you really haven't even lost anything in the end.

Take, Red Dead Redemption, for example. I know everyone wasn't crazy about being forced to play as Jack Marston after John dies at the end, but in terms of the story, I think it was the right choice. Having gone through his struggle through the entire game only to have him die in such a brutal way was heartbreaking. Not being able to play as him further into the game twists the knife in deeper. You're forced to come to terms with the loss of the main character.

I know this is a common thing in open world games, to be thrust right back into the game world after the end credits roll without any major changes to the gameplay based on the ending. I just found that, given the nature of the ending in Mad Max, this change was a little more abrupt and jarring than similar changes in other games..

But seriously I am super ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ happy I can keep playing the game. I remember how ♥♥♥♥♥♥ it was in Fallout 3, where if you've finished the game, that's it. You can't continue anymore.

[Draigan]

I just finished my second playthrough after a couple of years and i agree with you it is jarring, but thats just something we have to put up with most of the time due to the fact they are games and most of the time there is more to them than just the story

[Alex]

In the witcher all the characters that died in your playthrough arent back and in assassins creed the character nearly never dies

[Chief Nathan]

Poor Chumbucket - for a moment i was thinking damn Max isn't that heartless then ........ ;-( RIP chumbucket.
I think the last 2-3 main missions I did all at the same time because i was getting right into it, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ feels man