Is Gaming Ready for Unsatisfying Endings?
Firewatch and The Last of Us can teach us a lot about writing unconventional endings
In February 2016, Campo Santo released their debut game Firewatch to critical acclaim. Eurogamer bestowed upon it their very respectable silver stamp of Recommended, IGN gave it an impressive 9.3/10 and it generally did well enough to deserve a nice green “76” stamp on its metacritic page.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story, because that green stamp sits next to a far more divisive amber 6.8 score under the user reviews (if we’re following the scoring system for gamers who forgot the lower end of the 0–10 scale exists).
And it’s all in the ending. Run a quick google search for “Firewatch Ending” and the very first result is a Reddit thread simply titled “Disappointing Ending?”. The fantastic Emily Short has already covered this far better than I could, so I’ll refer you to her for more details on Firewatch specifically. For now, all you need to know is that Firewatch’s ending features a twist that turns the suspense on its head and tells you that things aren’t nearly as exciting as you (and the characters) thought.
It’s a deeply unsatisfying ending, from a suspense point of view — the player and the characters chase a government conspiracy for hours, only to be told it’s not that deep. It’s a deflating moment, but it invites you to reflect. Why did you want the ending to be so exciting? Was it because you were too caught up in the excitement brought on by the characters? Did you really want the best thing for the characters, or, like Henry and Delilah, were you just desperate for something fantastical and exciting to happen? It’s a reasonable enough demand for the audience to make, but it’s far more toxic for the characters, who are desperate for there to be something more exciting in the wilderness than just the harsh realities of their own painful and mundane lives. As an outside spectator, you should have been able to see from the start how unhealthy this fantasy was for the people involved, right? Right??
So what does this have to do with The Last of Us Part II?
The world has not been kind to TLOU2. It didn’t even get out of the gate before the leaks had masses of fans slamming it harder than a student can slam a tequila shot on fresher’s week. There are a myriad of reasons for this and, frankly, I don’t think I’m equipped to deal with all of them, but one criticism that really puzzles me is the firm declaration that the ending is awful.
I am perplexed. To me, this seems like the only way TLOU2 could have ended well. Yet, the census from the masses is that the game teases you with a climactic ending, only to fizzle out with a sad, pathetic fight. Which, yes, it does exactly that, yet it’s so fitting – a pathetic scrap between two people worn down to their cores, by years of vainly seeking to heal their trauma. This is a beautifully fitting ending to a cautionary tale of revenge, but many say they would have preferred it if Ellie got her revenge. As if the game hasn’t spent hours showing you that Abby gained nothing from enacting hers.
This is saddening because, like Firewatch, this ending is designed to make the player reflect. I know I, like Ellie, wanted Abby’s head on a pike for most of the story – Especially since the game, despite its best efforts, does a pretty poor job of making me care for Abby – but the ending gave me reason to pause and think. Was it ever really worth all this effort?
I will make the argument that TLOU2 certainly does veer dangerously close to being a mediocre game for most of its runtime, but that ending elevates it above all of that – especially the epilogue. The final scene would be fitting enough, if a little humdrum, if Ellie just returned to find that she’d lost her lover and her American Dream White Picket Fence lifestyle, but it goes one step further with the guitar.
The tender moment in which Ellie realises she can no longer play guitar – the moment where she realises she has not only lost Joel, but also lost her last physical connection to him – is a stomach-dropping scene. It highlights that everything Ellie (and you, the player) have achieved is utterly pointless, because it’s driven Ellie even further from the human connection she has been seeking this whole time. It may not be a thrilling ending, but it’s sombre and beautiful.
Sadly, the gaming world at large doesn’t seem to appreciate this ending, and that’s disappointing. Hopefully the narrative changes as time goes on. The passage of time has certainly been kind to Firewatch, which has a Very Positive review rating on Steam at the time of writing. On the other hand, Firewatch released four years ago — a very long time in gaming’s short and fast-paced history — and yet here we are, repeating past mistakes. Maybe gaming will always have this issue? As a medium aimed at teenagers and young adults, it may well forever be faced with the problem of its audience having less experience with different kinds of narratives. Hopefully gaming can be a way to introduce people to fresh perspectives on storytelling. TLOU2 is by no means perfect, but I have a lot of respect for Naughty Dog for attempting to be just that.
