Games with downbeat endings

[Norfleet]

NWN2 Vanilla OC: You beat the bad guy, but your antics have annoyed the DM so much that rocks fall, everybody dies.

Fortunately, the story picks up in the expansion after the old DM either calms down or gets replaced, but if you never get that, then it just ends there: Rocks fall, everybody dies.

 

[Daemongar]

Dragon Wars - eh, the world is sinking under water. Defeating the bad guy doesn't really change the world.
Arx Fatalis - the world is still a frozen atmosphere-less wasteland. Yeah, they say "don't worry about it" but it still looks mighty crappy.
Ultima 8 - you don't really save the world. You just leave the world that was horrible to begin with. Sure, you put a new ruler in Tennebrae, but who knows how well he'll work out. You don't particularly make the world any better.
Serpent Isle - for that matter. The Serpent Isle is beyond messed up once you leave. Two games where RG must have been going through some dark times: the people are bad, so rather than make any attempt to help them, well, I'll pretty much destroy everything. Some broad is left without any skin for crying out loud and has to use a magical brush to APPEAR to have skin!

 

[karoliner]

At the end of the Company of Heroes games Germany loses the war.

 

[Fishy]

Planescape: Torment. I enjoyed the game in itself but loved the twist it takes on getting near the end. The whole game has you building up in power, recovering memories, and tons of dialogue options about taking over the world, grasping your power, etc. But at the end of the day, you're sent out to the planar equivalent of a tour of duty in Vietnam.

 

[what am i doing]

Arx Fatalis - the world is still a frozen atmosphere-less wasteland. Yeah, they say "don't worry about it" but it still looks mighty crappy.

There is atmosphere, it's just extremely cold. The ending shows that the sun is not gone but rather obstructed by some cloud of asteroids or something like that, with the implication that it will eventually pass and some day the surface will be habitable again.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

The worst bitter ending is when you discover that the true ending is behind a priced DLC.

No. The absolutely worst bitter ending is when you discover that the game is pay-to-win and that when you finally pay-to-win only then do you get the next pay-to-win and the next and the next, and then the notification that the developer is no longer developing the game and is living somewhere in a penthouse tower in the richest lands of the richest that would make even Trump nod his grim-faced approval #Sisyphus #GameOver

 

[JarlFrank]

The worst bitter ending is when you discover that the true ending is behind a priced DLC.

No. The absolutely worst bitter ending is when you discover that the game is pay-to-win and that when you finally pay-to-win only then do you get the next pay-to-win and the next and the next, and then the notification that the developer is no longer developing the game and is living somewhere in a penthouse tower in the richest lands of the richest that would make even Trump nod his grim-faced approval #Sisyphus #GameOver

And from that day forward, you never touch a mobile game ever again.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

 

[taxalot]

Posting this classic, ending of Contra on CPC.

 

[Danikas]

Witcher 2