Games need to end

 The unspoken rule.

Foreboding little title, isn't it? But it's a declaration I endorse and stand by to it's truest letter, provided you correctly interpret that I mean every game needs a conclusion rather than that the very institution of gaming as a whole needs to meet it's untimely end. (I'm not that brain-broken yet.) You may think my affectations insubstantial and puerile, surely it's a commonly accepted rule of all story telling that all must have a beginning, middle and end. French Cinema might argue their order is not so imperative, but who out there believes that stories begin, reach the middle climax and then just repeat that middle climax moment seemingly forever whilst praying it makes money until the end of time? Who could be so self important as to believe the very rules of storytelling as they've existed for thousands of years at least need be broken upon their stove? Who? You know who- the games industry.

Of course that's a pretty broad net; most games seem to follow the orders of storytelling in order to frame their sweeping narratives and even entirely dynamic story generation platforms like Rimworld or Kenshi understand the purpose of overall goals and the satisfaction of reaching that point of total conclusion where all fights are won and all peaks reached. Story driven as most games are, it really is important we recognise just how infuriatingly important the final act of any story is, a wrapping up of the entire preceding adventure, neatly tying together potential loose ends, reaching a moment of apotheosis for the core characters and narrative that, in the best instances, instil purpose in all the happenstance events and makes having experienced them all the more worthwhile. Finales are more than just an expulsion of built up air, they're a reinforcement of the limbs of a story forming an unbreakable and impressive body of work. We need our endings.

But a certain genre of games spit in the face of that and I'm not even talking about MMOs. Massively Multiplayer Games take a staggered approach to way they tell their stories, typically branching out plotlines over the several pockets of content that span several years. Final Fantasy XIV's 'Realm Reborn' narrative stretched on for nearly a decade before it's conclusion. And sure, some of the less 'put together' MMO's out there trail along their narrative without any real conceptual finale or direction in sight, preferring instead to form a grander narrative out of smaller stories, (I'm talking WOW.) there are those slight bumps of new conflict, ramping consequence and resolution fed in brief portions. There's never going to be that extreme satisfying release, and conclusion at this point for games like that is sure to be a disappointment- and it's a bizarre shame that this is erring towards becoming something of the norm for the direction that many franchises are trending.

Take, for example, The Live Service. Essentially MMO-lites, Live Services  present games with an online infrastructure that is treated to surface level improvements ideally over the span of years in order to keep players constantly engaged in this single infrastructure. Typically these games are resplendent with time-locked content that can only be engaged with once a week or once a season, so that life schedules are formed around the game, and their stories are fed with maddeningly tiny pushes forward in a never ending narrative teasing players with a story that will never conclude. Take Genshin Impact, for example. Every new island drop and slate of characters are stop-gaps on a never ending road to nowhere- and I'm certain that, in a very WOW similar fashion, when the protagonist finally does catch up with and defeats their erstwhile sibling, that will just end up being the springboard for a whole host of new content in a renewed build up storyline. Why? Because these experiences are too profitable to resolve.

That really is what it comes down to more often than not. The integrity of the monetisation model outranks the integrity of the narrative and it leads to scenario writing geared towards endless edging with nothing to show for it. One of the biggest examples of this stretched out to a whole gaming series would have to be Assassin's Creed, once a pointed sweeping story told across time, the franchise has become a sightseeing adventure across various tourist destinations with the most pathetic scraps of a 'modern day narrative' sprinkled inbetween to keep the likes of us from tearing our hair out in despair. But it's still shockingly insulting for an alleged story-driven franchise to have nothing in the way of overall direction, leading to stupid decisions where one team writes the story into a corner that the next team have to write the story out of. Even now it's painfully clear the franchise hasn't recovered from the ill-advised death of the main character Desmond, with each replacement being more and more unbearable and short-lived.

It can be easy to forget, in this age of eternity, the absolute freeing power of a conclusion done right. Oftentimes even the traditionally designed stories are framed around on-going franchises that dare not provide a full book end less they leave the audience with no more threads by which to pull them. But I still remember that moment when I completed one such game that had the respect to end itself completely and totally, and how the quality of that finale almost singlehandedly cemented it in my mind as one of the greatest games I'd ever played. Persona 4 Golden was a game I absolutely fell in love with about thirty minutes in, but it wasn't until I plumed the depths of the true ending that the scope of the game really settled on me. That the significance and purpose of everything I had endured came rushing forth in a moment of vivid certainty and all the loose ends tied together in a beautiful weaving tapestry of total pathos.

Personally, when I come to JRPG and TRPGs that threaten to cost a week of my life to play through, it's the promise of those final highlights (which I pray won't let me down) for which I drive myself forward. I don't so much care about the hours of mob grinding I'm going to be doing the in the sewers between the set piece heart stopping moments- because if the game can make me feel like that effort was worth it by the end then all the pain was just stepping stones on the journey. Conclusions by their very nature have the height from which to launch the player to the apex of their experience; when you cross beyond the barrier and see the antagonist stood before you, main theme blaring into brilliance, there's an undeniable hunger to that which calls us to rise to the occasion. I would loathe for a world when those moments are robbed by the inequities of soulless money men.

In the coming months we're going to see two games that I think are really going to put to test the idea of true finales and soft stops. Baldur's Gate and Starfield- both huge RPGs that promise huge journeys with unknowable conclusions. Starfield is a game that seems to be the starting point of a franchise, and knowing Bethesda's... issues with narrative, I suspect we'll get quite an open ended final scene that leaves us cold in the open world- perhaps to be picked up by DLC. Baldur's Gate 3 is more of a deeper mystery, however some part of me makes me think the game is going to end on a cliffhanger. Not just because the first two Baldur's Gate games told one consecutive story, but because BG3 only takes us to Level 12 and Larian haven't even entertained returning to Divinity after it's launch. (Possibly because they're moving right onto the long road of developing Baldur's Gate 4.) In the end, the games that don't end doom their audiences last thoughts on the product to be "I enjoyed it but I got bored" rather than "I loved it and that final scene cemented my passion." I know how I'd rather be remembered.