A better ending

[Scar Glamour]

I suppose being just another person extremely dissatisfied with how the story ended should not come as a great surprise. But I was so much dissatisfied, I felt that even if instead Kaliban and Idaho just reactivated Omnis and everyone ended up living in peace and prosperity forever after it would have felt like a much more fitting ending. When it clearly shouldn't.

Now, I am not going to discuss why pulling a Deus ex machina in this fashion never works (looking at you Mass Effect 3) or why finishing the game should feel rewarding and not punishing. Bleak endings can work, surely, if they surprise and provide closure. The Crying Suns' ending doesn't work, because it subverts no expectations at all and makes your entire journey feel like a zero-sum game. Everything would have ended exactly the same if Idaho and Kaliban just sat at Gehenna twiddling their thumbs. Maybe, minus them experiencing all those gory deaths over and over again.


But I got to thinking that, maybe, I was being too harsh. Maybe, coming up with a satisfying ending is really hard, especially when you've built up so much suspense and desperation, which is bound to create great expectations in the player. Then I came up with a much better ending in about 5 minutes. An ending about just as bleak but without robbing the player of their accomplishments. This ending is really not that long either, and it goes something like this:
Kaliban: You know, admiral, I think all those Omnis are full of cow dung. I have seen what you have been doing so far, and I think not all is lost for you and your race. Let's get back to Gehenna and make it our base of operations. We will help folks in other sectors, scavenge resources, build fleets, and help humanity pull through it all without turning you in a bloody, hated dictator or wasting the rest of your life travelling to Earth. We may or may not succeed, but at least we'll die trying. Oh, and while we're at it, let's also grab your wife from that cryo facility on our way back. Shall we?
Idaho: I am ready, machine...
Credits roll.

[bcbc2425]

Honestly i feel like it was ment to end at the emperor but they wanted a crazy Climax at the end which the slow burn that most of the game runs at didn't fit into so they just tacked it onto the end.
Though i think its just that the ending makes just how poorly done the Omni (mainly Kaliban) are, the ending doesn't fit because you never see Kaliban pull 3000 IQ play to help you ingame, or make huge leaps in logic and prediction and be right. You could pull a huge twist and say that because kaliban got his free will before becoming a 17th dimentional being, that he doesn't see a point to it. But instead you get a bunch of missed potental and a 'plot twist' you can see from a mile away.

[freezy]

I for one liked the ending. Sure it is not the most original since it is inspired by different novels and short stories, but probably still not many people have read such stories yet. To me it is also a better ending than just turning the OMNIs back on and living happy thereafter. But maybe I just like dark endings more :). I also liked that there is a choice at the end. And it leaves room for future expansions or sequels.

Where I agree though is that the 5th chapter felt more like a climax because it had more buildup, where as the revelation in chapter 6 was a bit sudden. Maybe some story hints could be sprinkled in (maybe even speculation with red herrings) throughout the run in chapter 6 to create more anticipation.

[loppantorkel]

I liked the ending too. Good sci-fi end to the journey.

[FieserMoep]

I think the part that annoys is that in a game you ultimatly want agency. You want your decisions to affect the setting and in so actually have the power to affect it in a meaningful way.

As of Crying Suns, you have neither. Your choices do not matter and on top of that, you never were a player at the table so changing anything was always outside your reach.

When you add a literal God on top of that which simply states the fact in a lecturing way you may just feel "meh". Some may argue it invalidates the journey, for the journey itself was irrelevant anyway. Others say they like for what it is.

I personally felt a bit let down. Everything pretty much escalated at the end with some people playing key roles you never even heard before of that point. Sure, it may make sense in regard of the inhibitor etc. but from a narrative PoV it pretty much makes every step of the journey, every attempt at solving the puzzle pointless - outside of traveling the stars.

At the end of the game we are just left with pointlessness. There is no clear reward for the sacrifice other than a vague chance. There is no closure other than your imagination of what the 10 seconds long ending may mean. It is less of an ending and more of a placeholder.

Instead of telling us how his story ends, we basically get to pick 3 paths that may lead to whatever. And finally this whatever with the patronizing indifference really stings. You can say that is a good thing, I personally do not like it.

[Arch]

Thank you for this post. I hate games that do that (like dying light (SPOILER!: Where nothing you do matter because you and everyone and everything die rendering teh whole progression meaningless).

I won't buy it now.

[bcbc2425]

Originally posted by SkullFk47:

Thank you for this post. I hate games that do that (like dying light (SPOILER!: Where nothing you do matter because you and everyone and everything die rendering teh whole progression meaningless).

I won't buy it now.

i would say to atleast watch somebody beat it, because the story is great up until the end. the star that burns twice as bright burns half as long and all that

[Midas]

Why is everyone part of a "in the end i must save all and be the heroe"

Lets think about the endings, havent you realy change something?

You cleared the sectors of fanatics, pirates and other monsters, and in the end you have to accept, that the galaxy will fall back into a dark age, like in Warhammer. But like Warhammer, even if the galaxy is doomed to end, and in warhammer it is clear it will be an endless fight but they are doomed to loose cause the human emperor there will perish soon or later, the end doesnt mean its over. You gave many sectors a clear start, now the colonies etc must make a new, different way, learn old stuff etc. so its not your fault, if they perish, but think of the agrar worlds you meet, people cannot farm for themselfes there, but the worlds would be able to be farmworlds again. So yes YOUR ending is not the heroic ones, but the stories behind are not your fault.

Look at our own world, we would have the chance to live in peace, but greed, anger and old conflicts never stop, so or world has the same problem. And if there is no common sense, it will also be a dark and dead world, one push, launch worlds end.

[Kaien]

Your ''better ending'' is a very bad one ...

Your journey is about understand how this univers work and the price of your decision. There is no good or no bad one. Just one decision with a price.

You are the most great, famous and loyal amiral of the empire. And you need to decide if you want continue to be yourself even if you already are a traitor and you will probably end with a corrupted empire again. Or you can decide your familly is the most important. Or you can go after a mystical quest.
The journey is about show who you are with your last decision. Not save the world.

[Scar Glamour]

Originally posted by Kaien:

The journey is about show who you are with your last decision. Not save the world.

I might have agreed with that if this realization gradually dawned on the player through narrative and exploration. But instead the game has the player search for the way to restore OMNIs and save the empire the entire time, while the "final decision" gets dropped on their head like an ad-hoc deus ex machina invalidating all the work they had done so far.

[Barrogh]

I'd argue that actual work you've made is not invalidated. People you've helped have matters in their own hands now, some colonies have their new chances now, a number of predators and parasites have been removed. It's the semi-arbitrary ambition to set things exactly how they were no matter what happened that met a hard reality check and melted.

I mean, endings themselves indeed aren't organic continuation of what was going on during the game, so if we expect story to adhere to Pratchet's "theory of narrative casuality", then this game doesn't meet our expectations. But scenario itself that boils down to "Okay, so I can't do anything about this one, time to do something else" isn't exactly stupid as well. We do this all the time IRL, for one. Doesn't make for an exciting story most of the time, but it's plausible.

As for options that you are offered - even the smallest and least ambitious one amounts to about 20 more years with your family in a world that you've recently made a little bit safer and more livable. Not even all of us who read this forum right now will be able to boast having the same in our supposedly relatively thriving world.

As for larger goals, things like that are often shots in the dark, but without somebody making them, no hits will happen. In fact, it is shown in Reign ending that it very much succeeds for what it can possibly be. Without help of OMNIs, for the record. Not great enough and generally futile? Not even ascended OMNIs are great enough to make their existance matter in the face of this universe's heat death, as well as greatest human will isn't enough to overcome its own death, even delayed by a millenia - which one could argue is the same thing for that specific individual. So let's just limit scope of our ambition *somewhere* and do what we've been doing since protein life decided to single out itself from the environment - set realistic if arbitrary (to somebody) goals and keep rolling to the bitter end.

(Also, typing all this reminded me of Talos Principle story and underlining ideas; good stuff)

[Arch]

I agree that "making things a little better and striving for more in the future" is a nice ending really.

But if so games that end like that should give the player an overview of that to give a feeling of closure instead of a feeling of "well, that didn't work, nothing really matters and ♥♥♥♥ you bye".


Also, like I said, nothing beats the Dying Light ending for absolute garbage
where you meet people, help people, are helped by people, make things gradually a little better, and then, at the end, detonate a nuclear device that kills everyone and everything in the area of the game and around it

[PixiCode]

The big thing that bothers me about the ending is that it so wholly discredits Humanity despite what it, even if indirectly, managed to accomplish. And also what I consider plot holes.

The Omnis being indifferent to Humanity's fate makes some sense. Humanity relying on technology that requires Neo-N being the potential doom of their entire race makes sense. That 'hyper addictive drug' doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you genetically engineered humans to be addicted to that stupid drug, but whatever sure we'll take that too. Some of the above could be changed (It would have been cool if Kaliban and Idaho got more character development and even built a non-tool based relationship, but that's just my take on how I like tackling the concept of sentient machines) but the writers chose those elements of the setting, so they stay. That said...

Are you (the game) telling me literally every single planet Humanity ever made a colony on is completely uninhabitable without Neo-N/Omnis, not a single computer ((Or even your officers, who clearly have rather specialized skills?)) has knowledge other Humans can learn? It just feels like the game is trying to force the bleak message down the player's throat and it stinks. Yes those officers die in the final mission, but you pick up officers elsewhere so there has to be other people out there.

And those aforementioned officers you pick up on your ship. If Humanity is absolutely helpless without Omnis then how are there any officers competant enough to do anything? It just doesn't feel like the world building leading up to the ending fits the actual ending.

I think, given the events leading up to the end, it might have been an interesting narrative decision if Idaho actually said screw you to the Omnis and managed to work things out in their own way, and it *worked.* Hell maybe it even failed, but at least it would have been more satisfying to see the character take some more agency like, for example, his crazy surviving clone did. I kind of hated how Idaho was *still* relying on the Omnis at the end. Ugh.

[Darkintent]

I decided to check out the story on this game because I thought the premise was neat. I am glad I didn't pay for this or have any real investment in it. The ending clearly doesn't respect the player because the setting collapses once you think about it for a few minutes. No one knows how to farm to the point where humans will be totally extinct in a century or so because no one can farm?

Really? In real life people garden as a hobby, people farm because they like doing it. Sure without the machines maintaining the empire would probably be impossible, but if there is even a society capable of producing a military commander the loss of the empire wouldn't be a true extinction event. It would be a giant die off followed by a dark age.

But they needed the grimdark so forget logic. Man 40K is actually better at this kind of thing and it ain't like that franchise does not have problems.

[JaggedMallard]

Originally posted by Heresiarch:

Originally posted by Kaien:

The journey is about show who you are with your last decision. Not save the world.

I might have agreed with that if this realization gradually dawned on the player through narrative and exploration. But instead the game has the player search for the way to restore OMNIs and save the empire the entire time, while the "final decision" gets dropped on their head like an ad-hoc deus ex machina invalidating all the work they had done so far.

In fairness the game had been hinting at the final choice for a while, theres constant little snippets about Earth, your wife and being the Emperor yourself.

[bcbc2425]

Originally posted by JaggedMallard:

Originally posted by Heresiarch:

I might have agreed with that if this realization gradually dawned on the player through narrative and exploration. But instead the game has the player search for the way to restore OMNIs and save the empire the entire time, while the "final decision" gets dropped on their head like an ad-hoc deus ex machina invalidating all the work they had done so far.

In fairness the game had been hinting at the final choice for a while, theres constant little snippets about Earth, your wife and being the Emperor yourself.

there is, hell, you can even find the planet your wife is on at some point.
The general consensus seems to be how forced the ending is, its cherry picking, even though like 75% of the plot is about the fact that people ARE alive somehow regardless, the amount of people that you kill throughout the campaign alone but your gonna then tell somebody, who is probably on one of there most powerful runs ever that everyone is ♥♥♥♥♥♥?

those said '♥♥♥♥♥♥' people definitely not in organized groups and surviving just fine enough to attack you at every turn? All for a out of the blue ♥♥♥♥ you that your told you should've expected this and to choose how you want to lose. it akin to those "you didnt collect/play X object/difficulty so were giving you that bad ending because you cant turn into *insert super form*" they give you in games to pad the runtime, and has no place in a game that is so brutal already.