Bittersweet Ending / Video Games (A to M)

Bittersweet Endings in video games, from A to M.

• Every ending of 2Dark ends with the protagonist a broken hero; he saves dozens of kids from serial killers, but the Big Bad successfully turned his children into said serial killers. You can (A) let them kill you, (B) brutally murder them, or (C) throw them in the nuthouse for life. It's clear from the endings that the protagonist has lost the will to live.
• 96: Niles, Sixten, and everyone else who lived on the island are dead, but Elise survived and managed to get off the island to tell the story of what went on there.
• Several later Ace Combat games have this:
  • In Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, Chopper was KIA after crashing, your squadron members are declared traitors and officially recorded as being KIA, and while you gain unofficial recognition as the Ghosts of Razgriz, it will be years before the truth about the war and your achievements is known.
  • In Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, you lose both of your wingmen, the first to treason and the second to being shot down by the first.
  • Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation has quite a few: Ludmilla and Toscha are married in a prisoner of war camp, Viktor Voychek is presumably a POW as well (despite giving up the schematics for the Chandelier superweapon), the valiant Ilya Pasternak was KIA covering his squadron's retreat from Gracemeria only for some of them to be shot down in the final battle, Garuda Two's wife and daughter were killed before he could meet them again, and he is confined to a wheelchair after being shot down during the final battle. Oh, and the fate of the Hartman family's husband/father is left unstated.
  • Zero's Assault Records have what must have been some Bittersweet Endings for some Belkan aces if you shot them down: Robert Gloden Spieler left the Air Force a year after the Belkan War and ended up running a small hotel in San Salvacion by the ocean. (Based on the "FMV" cutscenes taking place at the time of the Usean Continental War in Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, if the same timeframe is assumed for the Assault Records he may have been the unfortunate uncle in that game's cutscenes.) Dietmar Wolf Absender would be tried as a war criminal, although the charges would be dismissed. And Daniel Bierofka Wetterhahn would go from ace pilot to automobile salesman and ordinary citizen.
  • Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown: The two ultimate drones have been destroyed, stopping them from using the Space Elevator to broadcast their top-class combat AI data to drone facilities around the world to instigate a perpetual Robot War. However, with Strangereal's satellite network in utter disarray due to Eruseans and Oseans destroying each other's satellites earlier in the game, global communications have been crippled, and it's not stated what the timetable is on rebuilding these networks that many civilizations throughout the planet are dependent upon.
• Both ActRaiser games have such an ending. In the first, The Master succeeds in killing Tanzra, resurrecting the world, and banishing evil... and the people decide they don't need him anymore, and just turn their backs. The second borders on an outright Downer Ending. The Master defeats Tanzra once and for all, freeing the world from evil. Unfortunately, not only do the people dump you again, but your Sky Palace is destroyed, all your angels are dead, and you're more or less trapped in Death Heim. The last shot of the game is your statue being overgrown with plants and crumbling to dust.
• Compared to the more unambiguously upbeat ending of its prequel AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative ends this way:
  • The Resolution route ends with Tearer's plan to unleash the TC-PERGE bioweapon foiled, Date returning to his duties, Mizuki and Bibi bonding as sisters, Lien and Kizuna getting together, and Bibi getting hope that her heart defect can be treated. But Kizuna is still confined to a wheelchair due to the events of six years ago and even though public opinion is on her side Amame has been arrested for killing Tearer, her and Shoma's father is never coming back, and she has to live with the consequences of her actions.
  • The secret Divergence ending obtained by the Frayer, AKA "you", the player, giving Tokiko the nil number learned during the epilogue much earlier in the story plays with this further. This creates an alternate timeline where Ryuki is able to apprehend Tearer before he kills Komeji thus sparing the cast much grief. Despite being called out as a perfect happy ending this is all presented with a melancholy air and proves Naix's belief that the world is a simulation created by higher beings allowing Tokiko to reach Moksha like she wanted and Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence but not before delivering a cryptic warning that their world is becoming more unstable and will one day collapse.
• Aliens: Armageddon deals with an alien xenomorph outbreak eventually reaching Earth, which spirals entirely out of control, and in the best ending, you can only escape Earth with a scant amount of humans, leaving the rest of the planet to the aliens.
• All games of the Amnesia series:
  • The Dark Descent ends with Alexander dying and Daniel surviving and finding redemption, and the shadows stop chasing him. However, the kindly old Agrippa dies after being buried in the rubble, assuming, of course, that his immortality gave out.
  • A Machine for Pigs ends with The Engineer's insane genocidal plan being stopped with the destruction of the Machine and London being spared from his wrath, but Mandus dies doing so. And, for better or worse, humanity continues to face the 20th Century and all the horrors and atrocities to come.
  • Rebirth ends with either Tasi managing to escape back to Paris along with her daughter, even though it's likely that the latter is terminally ill, give up her humanity to ensure that her daughter will live under Tihana's care, or sacrifice both of their lives to kill Tihana and end the suffering of everyone being tortured to prolong Tihana's lifespan.
  • The Bunker ends with Henri escaping the bunker, whilst additionally potentially putting Lambert out of his miserable existence as the Beast... only to be found by German soldiers, heavily hinting that he will either be killed or captured as a POW.
• The ending of Arx Fatalis. Everything seems to be okay, Akbaa is banished forever, his cult is wrecked and beheaded, king Lunshire meets his long-lost daughter and "rebels", who turn to be her protectors, probably will rejoin Arx kingdom. However, everyone will continue to live underground, as neither the Am Shaegar nor Noden have power to bring the sun back to Arx.
• Asgard's Wrath: The New God survives Loki's treachery but he escapes none the less and leaves them in his place within the god of mischief's prison. However, Heimdall assures you all is not lost by handing you an Ankh.
• Astra Hunter Zosma: If Zosma collects enough treasure but not all of them, he'll experience varying degrees of success in being an Astra Hunter and sharing the legacy of the bosses of the Crescent Moon Tower. However, his companion remains fused with him and cannot manifest in the world of the living to go on adventures with him.
• Asura's Wrath ends with Asura destroying the source of all mantra, and eventually ending the world's suffering once and for all, but at the cost of his own life. As long as his daughter is safe, however, that's good enough for him.
• The good ending of Avenging Spirit. The bad guys are defeated and the protagonist's girlfriend is saved, but his spirit has no choice but to pass on to the afterlife without her. The Game Boy version even suggests that the entire game might've been All Just a Dream.
• In A Way Out, the friendship between the two protagonists crumbles when Leo finds out Vincent is an undercover cop and promises revenge. One of Leo or Vincent will die in the ensuing battle and it's clear whoever survived feels terrible about it.
• Azure Striker Gunvolt:
  • In the True Ending, Sumeragi is in shambles and Gunvolt has stopped Asimov's plan to use QUILL to kill humankind, but Joule has lost her body and Gunvolt needed to kill Asimov to stop him. Gunvolt then leaves QUILL permanently, leaving Zeno and Moniqa astonished at Asimov's death and questioning Gunvolt's mindset. It also ends with his fate uncertain.
  • In the sequel, Mytyl and Joule become one, having no memories of their previous lives. Because of this, Gunvolt leaves Mytyl with Copen in hopes of her having a normal life. Meanwhile Copen cuts ties with his sister realizing that his actions make him no better than the Adepts he despises and he leaves his sister in Nori's care.
• The Baby in Yellow: The good White Rabbit Ending. With the help of the white rabbit markings, you manage to escape the baby and its hold on you. However, the parents will most likely just hire a new babysitter and the baby himself will continue to kill unhindered.
• The Baldur's Gate series has a few bittersweet endings for some of the NPCs. Each spoiler contains the epilogue for each NPC:
  • Aerie: "Aerie - Normal Epilogue: Aerie continued adventuring years after leaving my company, often traveling with a larger group but sometimes striking out on her own to use her considerable power to fight against slavery in the Realms. Her compassion grew tainted by revenge, however; revenge for what had been taken from her when she was in chains and could never be restored. She might have lost herself to her vengeance entirely had fortune not smiled upon her. The tale goes that Aerie, filled with a righteous fury, destroyed a slaver enclave in the northern hills of Cormyr single-handedly. She was surprised to find a group of avariel elves that had been held captive there and quickly freed them, and was in turn invited to return to her long-lost home of Faenya-Dail. She learned much while she was there. Most importantly, she learned she was no longer truly one of avariel, and let go forever of the wings that she had lost. Faenya-Dail was no longer her home, and it was with mixed emotions that she bid it farewell. It is said that Aerie eventually became a high priestess in Understone, a gnomish village her mentor Quayle had sometimes spoken of. He had been her true family, and it was among his people that she finally found happiness and the family she had always longed for. It was also said that Aerie prayed for me, each night as the stars revealed themselves in the sky above. She sincerely hoped I had been fortunate enough to find the peace that she had...for without me, it would never have been possible."
  • Anomen: "Anomen - Normal Epilogue: Eventually parting ways with his companions, Anomen would enter the hierarchy of Helm's church, over time rising to the rank of High Watcher. He remained restless and dissatisfied, remembering his days adventuring with me... and though many friends would urge him otherwise, Anomen never felt that the church was his true home. He remained in his position for a year until finally he could bear it no more. He left active duty in the church and, for a time, wandered the new land of Maztica as a missionary. Anomen remained a troubled soul, still never content even though his prowess earned him great respect from the new friends he encountered. When the powerful evil priest Yamash summoned a horde of demons in an effort to rid Maztica of all life, Anomen would at last find his purpose. He alone was responsible for organizing the tattered remnants of the Amnish soldiers and local Mazticans into a united army that stood against the dark priest. In the great battle that followed, Anomen was seen plainly by all to plunge into combat single-handedly against Yamash. He did not have me or other companions beside him: alone he stood against the tide of evil, and for once he was not found wanting. He was last seen from afar, shedding tears of joy as he engaged Yamash and shouted out to Helm while chanelling a blinding flash of power. When it cleared, both the priest and Anomen were gone. The battle was won and Maztica was saved. Anomen would forever after be regarded as a hero, inspiring the creation of a protective order of knights in his name. A new order for a new land."
  • Cernd: "Cernd Epilogue: Cernd left the adventuring life to return to his grove in Tethyr, promising to take up his responsibility and raise his son, Ahsdale, as he believed a father should. Cernd would eventually become the Grand Druid and make a name for himself throughout the realms by not only fighting for the balance of his grove but in protecting the sanctity of life in all realms and in all peoples. Cernd would discover in time, to his regret, that in his attention to his duty he had forgotten his promise to Ahsdale. His son had left the grove long before and Cernd learned that Ahsdale had become an evil and twisted wizard in command of a power that threatened the Sword Coast. Determined that this was his burden alone to face, Cernd solemnly abdicated as Grand Druid and sought out his son. He engaged in many battles with the forces of his son, wielding the forces of nature with a great fierceness that would be regarded as legendary by all who saw it. Cernd finally confronted Ahsdale himself deep in the Forest of Tethyr, and made a final effort to convince him to turn away from his path. Ahsdale refused, and Cernd fought his only son in a long and terrible battle that eventually saw both of their deaths. With his last breath, Cernd would crawl along the ground to clasp Ahsdale's dead hand, tears flowing down his face as he begged his son's forgiveness. Cernd's spirit would enter that of a great oak within the forest, and it is believed that this immortal oak still stands, and that around it has grown a wondrous grove of great beauty that is home to the rarest of the Realm's magical creatures. Each fall the great oak and the grove around it would turn the grimmest shade of red, a reminder that even the most flawed amongst us may eventually find their balance."
  • Jaheira: "Jaheira - Normal Epilogue: The events of the Bhaalspawn saga affected Jaheira deeply. It was her duty to protect the greater balance of things, but in the years to come she found an increased portion of that fight occurring within her own mind. Witness to great change while in my company, she had become acutely aware of how fleeting life was, and how the loss of those she held dear ate away at her thoughts. In time she would be known as a tireless champion of balance, one that sometimes acted in concert with the Harpers and sometimes did not. Jaheira operated quietly, appearing when needed and moving on when not. Many called out to her for leadership, but always Jaheira would deny that she was capable of such and say that there was somewhere else that needed her aid more. She remained distant and guarded, never staying long in any one place. It is said that she crossed the Forgotten Realms thrice over, always wandering and always searching... until finally she began to wonder what it was, in truth, that she was searching for. What happened to Jaheira later in life is not well-known. Some say that Elminster eventually came to her and convinced her to take her place amongst the greatest commanders of the mysterious Harpers. Some say that she fell in battle against a great lich that threatened to defile the northern forests. Some also say that she went in search of me, traveling to lands far beyond our own. Whatever happened to her, Jaheira never did return to either the Sword Coast or Tethyr ever again."
  • Keldorn: "Keldorn Epilogue: Keldorn Firecam thought his travels with me marked the end of his active career, both as an adventurer and in service to the Order. He retired to Athkatla, hoping to live in as much peace as an old warrior can expect, but the call to serve came one last time. It was years later, and Amn was besieged by giants. In his 60th winter, Keldorn and five knights held a strategic pass until the main Amnish force could arrive. He won the day, but his wounds were severe and the old paladin fell on the battlefield. As his knights watched, the hand of Torm descended upon the scene, and when it departed, Keldorn was gone. From that day, visions of the True God were accompanied by the stalwart ghostly form of Keldorn at his right hand."
  • Sarevok: "Sarevok Epilogue: In the years following his resurrection by my hand, Sarevok spent many years wandering throughout the Forgotten Realms, rarely spending much time in any single place. In Berdusk, he is said to have routed an army of invading orcs, displaying such fearsome power and rage that terrified locals weren't sure whom to fear more... only to disappear quietly without expecting a reward. In Westgate, he arrived as conqueror, brutally enforcing his will over the city only to mysteriously vanish months later, leaving his own startled men to the mercies of the angry mobs. He acted like a man that did not know himself, and all the stories agreed that Sarevok was a tortured soul, balanced between life and death, never to achieve either. Those who knew Sarevok best, which were few, said that the tormented warrior would in turn curse me for giving him his second chance... and then thank me. Eventually he disappeared entirely from the Realms, said to have assaulted the Abyss itself or even taken his own life. In truth, he journeyed to Kara-Tur to bury his one true love, the warrior Tamoko. He never returned, though the stories endure."
  • Minsc: "With the saga of the Bhaalspawn closed, Minsc fulfilled a long promised oath. He returned to Rashemen, hoping to regale the Icedragon Berserker Lodge with the tales of his deeds, and earn a place within its hallowed halls. His words were not needed. Every tavern in Faerun had a bard singing of the valiant ranger, and he was welcomed as a hero. Eventually he formed his own adventuring company, the Justice Fist, striking fear in the hearts and faces of evil until, in his advancing age, he again set out across the Realms... and disappeared. And what of Boo? Well, what is Minsc without Boo? The two would never be separated, and some say they are together still, up amongst the stars where hamsters are giants and men become legends."
  • Viconia: "Viconia - Normal Epilogue: Viconia traveled only for a short time after parting ways with me, eventually starting a cult dedicated to Shar within the massive city of Waterdeep. One of her followers would eventually turn against her, precipitating a furious Viconia to slaughter the entire cult, herself. Shar did not forgive Viconia this trespass and removed her abilities. Viconia stubbornly refused to atone, however, and instead left Waterdeep to wander the Realms. The dark elf became known as an enigmatic and powerful figure as tales of her spread... and while it was known she no longer worshiped Shar, it was also known that her clerical powers were still great. Who the dark lady now worshiped, however, was her own secret to keep. She reportedly raised an army against the Vaasan Witch-King, viciously attempting to subvert rule over his Kingdom and only barely being defeated after several military failures. Viconia prevented an attempt by the Knights of the Shield to take over Calimport... only to take over the city herself days later and institute a reign of terror and cruelty which is spoken of even years later in shuddered tones. Viconia abandoned Calimport and, it is said, returned to the Underdark from whence she came. Hers was not a gentle return, however, as Viconia would become a conquering force amongst the drow to give even Lolth pause. Her mettle had been tested by both worlds, Viconia said, and proven herself worthy. She would make the drow strong whereas now they were weak. What eventually became of Viconia is unknown and shrouded in rumor... but it is said that even the great Spider Queen does not rest easily any more."
  • Viconia: "Viconia - Romance Epilogue: Viconia and myself continued their adventuring careers for several years, gaining considerable fame after being drawn into central roles in two wars that rocked the Sword Coast. My standing in the Realms grew considerably over time, his dark maiden always at his side. Eventually, Viconia became pregnant with my child, an event that caused much argument and strife between the couple, resulting briefly in their separation. The birth of my son, however, would change Viconia forever. She would return to and convince him to settle finally in Baldur's Gate, dedicating herself utterly to raising their son and teaching him the ways of the drow as well as the ways of my people and marveling at the power the boy already was demonstrating. Though she delighted at the understanding in her son's eyes, she would not live to see him grow. Viconia was a powerful priestess and all but immune to common poisons, but the venom of the Spider Queen's vengeance was not easily resisted and her reach is far. Poisoned by a servant of the goddess Lolth, railed in rage as even the most powerful magics proved ineffective in curing his ailing wife. Viconia's last words were whispered to me, in private, before she finally succumbed and are unknown... but the tale is well-told of how I held the body of his dark maiden close to him and wept, while the entire city wept with him, suffering a loss of something precious that they never even truly knew they had. The furious me left Baldur's Gate and raised his son in secret far away. Tales vary of him, some saying he began a crusade against the drow in the Underdark, some claiming he became a hero in the far-off northlands... and some even saying with surety that had waged war against Lolth herself in the abyssal Demonweb Pits... but all agreeing that the former son of Bhaal had been changed forever by his love for the dark maiden. As for the son, tutored by two of the most potent beings in the Realms? He would go on to forge a legend that would rival that of his father. That, however, is a different story..."
• Baten Kaitos Origins ends this way. Verus and Wiseman are dead, Tarazed is destroyed, and Sagi and Milly elope, but Guillo is dead, Milly is orphaned, and the empire is in the hands of Geldoblame, who has apparently lost his mind. Also, if you've played Eternal Wings, you know Sagi and Milly die of a plague a few years later and their daughter is behind all the terrible things that happen in that game.
• In Betrayal at Krondor, the Great One Makala and real Big Bad is not evil as much as doing his best to fulfill his duty to protect the Empire of Tsuranuanni from what he misguidedly believes a threat, while being rather colourfully pragmatic in typical Tsurani Great One fashion. And the moredhel (dark elf) Gorath, the Noble Demon/Anti-Hero who's lost and sacrificed the most without even the barest complaint, even going as far as joining the sworn enemy of his people in an effort to protect them, and the actual hero of the story, has to be wastefully killed in a heartwrenching Kill Us Both moment by the very human he has befriended against all odds. Had he survived, he would have been free to live the rest of his days peacefully in Elvandar with the light elves, or return to what still remains of his clan and try to put the pieces back together, and perhaps even start to lead the moredhel people to adopt less murderous, saner ways. It's a loss, alright.
• BioShock:
  • BioShock 2. The good ending ends with you dying, but Eleanor Lamb and the rescued Little Sisters are now safe on the surface. Eleanor takes your conscience and puts it in her body, allowing you to live on inside her. It gets really bad when you add in the facts Sinclair is dead, Mark Meltzer became a Big Daddy ironically assigned to protect his daughter, Gil Alexander is either incredibly mutated and insane or dead, and Rapture is still fucked up, with only the fate of Eleanor and the Little Sisters being definitely good, you can only imagine how bad the "bad" ending must be.
  • BioShock Infinite: Booker learns that he and Comstock are one in the same, Comstock being an alternate version of Booker that accepted baptism to cleanse himself of past sins, only to found Columbia (which turns out to be a flying fortress disguised as a flying city) and eventually destroy America. Ergo, the only way to prevent Comstock from ever being born is for Booker to die, himself. Thus, he lets Elizabeth and her alternate versions drown him, thus killing every version of Booker that would've become Comstock.
• Blazblue Central Fiction ends with Terumi's plans to turn reality into a cesspool of senseless strife being thwarted by Ragna, and the cast minus the bad guys all being thrust back into the world to help rebuild and live in peace. However, Ragna himself has vanished and nobody in the cast has any memories of him. In addition, Hakumen, Nine and Arakune are dead, Nu has become completely catonic, Relius is alive and well in the Boundary where he is no doubt continuing his dark experiments, and Carl, broken and embittered by the death of Ada, has begun walking down the same dark path as his father.
• Blanc concludes with the strong implication that the wolf cub and the fawn, who've developed a strong Interspecies Friendship throughout the story, most likely won't see each other again. That being said, they're still happy to be reunited with their families and they wish eachother well before departing.
• Every ending of Bloodborne, as far as we can tell. In each of them, the Good Hunter succeeds in stopping the nightmare, killing the Great One Mergo who would bring about the end of the world, killing the few truly malicious characters (like the Suspicious Beggar, Micolash, and Amygdala), and ending the latest plague outbreak that turns people into beasts. If you did all the sidequests and optional areas correctly, then it appears that they've also cut off the Healing Church's supply of old blood by killing Ebrietas (the source of said plague), ended the Hunter's Nightmare by stopping Kos's curse, and saved what few sane people were possible to save (Eileen the Crow, Adella, Arianna, the Skeptical Man, the Chapel Dweller, the Lonely Old Woman, a few others). However, some characters are doomed to death no matter what you do, nearly everyone you can save ends up mentally or physically damaged from the experience, and as Eileen outright tells you in your first meeting, almost everyone in the city of Yharnam has died or transformed into a beast already (the sole consolation is that this includes the Healing Church). The three optional endings throw in their own twists:
  • "Yharnam Sunrise": the Good Hunter severs their connection from the Dream Land that gave them infinite revives and the ability to level up. They are now mortal like previous moon-scented Hunters who did the same (e.g. Eileen and Djura), but have presumably kept their superhuman strength and other powers, also like them. The night is over and Yharnam, while an empty city, appears to be free of beasts, so the Good Hunter could rendezvous with the survivors to either leave permanently or rebuild, and the surrounding civilizations won't be molested. The most straightforwardly optimistic ending on the surface (due to the visuals and the protagonist getting more or less what they wanted), but it's ambiguous whether this will be a long-term solution, because all it would take to restart the plague is another Great One paired with another corrupt institution willing to abuse the power of its blood (the fate of Yharnam might make them think twice this time, though).
  • "Honoring Wishes": the Good Hunter takes Gehrman's place as the keeper of the Dream Land, to guide future Hunters should they be needed. A strange being called the Moon Presence cuts off the Good Hunter's leg and binds them to the dream as Gehrman's replacement, seemingly giving them no option to leave.
  • "Childhood's Beginning": the Good Hunter slays the creator of the Dream Land, the Moon Presence, and takes its place after transforming into a baby Eldritch Abomination that is presumably raised by the Plain Doll. The trophy you get for completing this ending states that you will lead humanity into "its next childhood." Given the results of previous Great One/human interactions, this could either grant humanity great power or be utterly disastrous, Whether this is better or worse than "Yharnam Sunrise" depends heavily on how you interpret the Moon Presence. On one hand, Gehrman's fear of the thing plus its behavior in the second ending portrays it as sinister. On the other, the Moon Presence seems to be fighting the other Great Ones and never does anything to harm you throughout the game; in fact, its role as the creator of the Hunter's Dream means that it was the one who gave you the ability to power up and strike back at the Great Ones, meaning it's humanity's greatest ally in this cosmic war. It doesn't help that the author of the first note is completely unknown.
• In the Wii version of A Boy and His Blob, after defeating the evil emperor for a second time, the blob has to return to his planet while the boy stays on Earth. While this is expected, the credits are accompanied by a pretty heart-wrenching song called "Everything to me", which is about how much the time they spent together meant to the boy, coupled with some drawings of both characters playing together.
• Breath of Death VII. The undead heroes save the last human alive and return the crystals to him, which allow him to travel back in time and save the world from the apocalypse. However, this comes at the cost of the very existence of the post apocalyptic time period, including the protagonists. Notable in that unlike literally the entire rest of the game, which is a tongue in cheek, over the top parody, the ending is played completely seriously.
• Breath of Fire:
  • Breath of Fire III: Sure, you've defeated the Big Bad and showed her that the world doesn't need a nurse, but one of your best friends is dead and the world will slowly turn into a desert. Averted somewhat in that Peco, a sprout of Yggdrasil, the world tree, has been planted in the Desert of Death and looks to be thriving, so the future, while distant, may be brighter.
  • In Breath of Fire IV, Ryu sacrifices himself to rid the world of the gods, so that a similar tragedy won't happen again. Although the Mad Scientist Yuna simply claims he can make as many gods as he wants.
• BROK the InvestiGator has eleven endings, all of which are bittersweet in their own way. In most of them, Brok and his adoptive son Graff are separated, both the local police and and school systems are left leaderless (and in the case of the former, also left without any officers due to the robots that replaced them breaking down) and have to be taken over by mere teenagers, everyone is still reliant on regular medication in order to survive the heavily-polluted setting, and/or someone gets erased via Temporal Paradox due to the "Canonical" ending not occurring. Even the "Canonical" ending that the game pushes you towards involves Graff willingly cutting ties with Brok and Brok going back in time to try and fix everything, even though there's already evidence of a past Brok affecting the current timeline, leading to a Stable Time Loop that didn't actually fix what Brok wanted.
• They don't get much more bittersweet than the ending of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Although the boys reach the mystical tree that contains the water which will cure their father's illness, the older brother dies and the younger brother must press on without him.
• Brown Dust II:
  • The first Story Pack "Knight of Blood" ends with Lathel killing the wicked sorcerer who posed as his parental figure and performed unethical experiments in secret, but his surrogate sister Misha is dead. However, he joins Justia in her journey after he became friends with her.
  • In the Nightmare Winter story, Morphea gets killed, ending her rule of the city but Ember gave her life ensuring her rule is stopped and a sidestory to the event reveals that there are Morphea loyalists who are still out there.
• Buckshot Roulette: Downplayed. If you win the game and get the tens of thousands of dollars, the player drives off into the night with the money and the shotgun. Despite all the prizes however the music sounds slightly melancholic, as if the character is reflecting on whether it was worth it or not.
• Call of Duty:
  • In Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the British SAS/United States Marine Corps task force manages to stop the nuclear missiles headed towards the Eastern Seaboard and kill Ultranationalist leader Imran Zakhaev... but at a great cost. Most of the SAS/USMC team is executed seconds before Loyalist reinforcements arrive, and it isn't immediately clear whether your commanding officer or you, the player character will even survive (though the sequel reveals they pulled through). In addition, Al-Asad was captured and killed, but not before he detonated a nuclear device that killed 30,000 American soldiers and leveled an entire city.
  • In the sequel, Modern Warfare 2, things go From Bad to Worse. Soap and Price manage to disable and kill General Shepherd, but it's a hollow victory at best. The chain of events that started with an undercover agent posing as a Russian terrorist (and subsequently dying after being found out) led to a ground invasion of Russian forces in Virginia and Washington, hundreds of troops being killed, sweeping military powers being authorized, and virtually an entire task force of elite troops being decimated before Shepherd was finally brought down. Soap and Price may still be alive, but the U.S. is on course for a major world war with Russia.
  • In Modern Warfare 3, by the end of the game the war between U.S. and Russia ends at a heavy cost with Soap dead by Makarov; Sandman, Grinch and Truck of Delta Force KIA and during the final mission to kill Makarov, Yuri is gunned down by Makarov, but Price manages to strangle Makarov to death with a steel wire and leave him hanging on the roof. The good news is that all of the evil men responsible for this are dead, Task Force 141 has been cleared of the bogus charges of treason and terrorism, and relations between the US and Russia finally evolve into peace.
  • Although it's only one of several ways Call of Duty: Black Ops II can end, one ending has Menendez captured and imprisoned, Karma surviving and stopping the celerium worm, and Menendez' plan failing, but Alex Mason was still killed by Woods in Panama, with Woods and David Mason visiting his grave while the credits role.
  • By the end of Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare, Kotch and his subordinates are dead and the SDF is left completely crippled after the destruction of their shipyard on Mars. But almost everyone, including Reyes, has to sacrifice themselves to make it happen, and Salter is one of the only FOUR survivors of the nearly 780 crew members of the Retribution.
• In Camp Sunshine, a survival horror game, Jez survives if you beat the game and saves his mother's life. His parents, who were considering divorce, reconsider and stay together. Also, the killer, who was actually possessed and not killing of his own free will, gets to move on in peace with his family as freed spirits. However, almost everyone from the camp, including most of the teenage campers themselves, has died a gruesome death at the hands of the killer.
• Cassette Beasts: The story ends with the player character's success in finding a way back home, but leaving New Wirral is a one-way trip, and since all of the player's companions (possibly including their lover if a romance is pursued) come from different universes and timelines, they will all be separated and most likely never meet again. Except for Barkley, who chooses to join the player character in their universe. A post-game quest also reveals that you cannot actually get rid of the dangerous fusions that are attacking New Wirral, as they are explicitly being sent by the Mer-Line to test humans.
• Some Castlevania games may end this way if you screw up (and sometimes even when you don't) along the way:
  • Castlevania II: Simon's Quest: Both the neutral and the bad ending - Dracula is dead, but so is Simon.
  • Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, the neutral ending. Castlevania is dormant and Lydie is safe and sound, but Maxim is dead, slain by Juste's hand.
  • Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Julius Mode's ending. Hooray! Dracula is dead and the world is safe once again... too bad Soma fell victim to a Grand Theft Me and then had to be put down like a rabid dog, Mina is completely oblivious as to what happened (if she isn't dead herself), and Julius, Yoko, and Alucard are left to pick up the pieces.
  • Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin: Jonathan and Charlotte successfully send Dracula back to the underworld and cure Stella and Loretta, but Eric's work is now done and he must now pass on to the afterlife. And on a more humorous note, Vincent is left behind to fend for himself, potentially while still a vampire.
  • Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, the good ending. Shanoa manages to defeat Dracula and reclaimed her emotions, but in the process lost her home and foster brother Albus. And as the said home was contaminated by evil, she then vanished into obscurity as records of her home became written out of history, probably including herself.
• Cave Story's normal ending is one of these. Quote, Sue, Kazuma, Itoh, Momorin, and possibly a couple others escape, but the other half of the cast dies, the Mimigas are almost certainly extinct, and it's hinted at that not even the Colony Drop would stop the cycle of the Demon Crown.
• The "Good Ending" of Chimera Beast: if you fail to defeat the Final Boss, you die. Eventually, all of the other Eaters cannibalize each other and go extinct, but Earth and the rest of the cosmos are spared from their wrath.
• Chrono Trigger:
  • While the original game ends on a positive note, an additional FMV is shown at the end of the PSX and DS versions. In this scene, the player is shown a city under siege and some soldiers fighting: one of these, a city guard, ultimately falls with the legendary Masamune in his hands. You can assume that this city is Guardia, Marle, Crono, and Lucca's home, thus leading into the events of the sequel. The DS version has an optional bonus dungeon in which you can fight Dalton, the Zeal Army captain that previously served essentially as a comical character. By defeating him, you will learn that he's responsible for the Fall of Guardia.
  • In the DS version, you can fight an optional Superboss who is none other than the primitive form of Chrono Cross' final boss. If you defeat it, you will unlock the 13th ending, which is practically a Downer Ending. In the "canonical" ending, the heroes defeat Lavos, which is sent into a Reality-Breaking Paradox dimension. Here it merges with Schala, Magus's sister, creating the Dream Devourer. The player can travel to this dimension and fight the abomination with the help of an alternate-timeline Magus. At the end of the fight, Schala sends the heroes back to their dimension, and the Dream Devourer (who is still alive) begins to turn into the Time Devourer, Chrono Cross' final boss. The alternate-timeline Magus is then stripped of his memories and left wandering in a forest, thus implying that the character Guile that can be recruited in Chrono Cross is Magus himself.
• Chrono Cross: In the game's Golden Ending, the split timelines are mended together and Schala is saved... but to what extent, from either? Much is left almost deliberately unclear, but it is highly evident that several elements of the two timelines were mutually exclusive, and Schala's fate afterward - particularly whether she and Kid merged into a single person, or if she ever found Serge (though at least one version of her did) - is unknown. Worse yet, it isn't clear at all whether or not her brother Janus remembers her at all. A secret Easter Egg in The Radical Dreamers Edition suggests not only that he does, but she and Zeal are in fact all he remembers about his past (by virtue of being the only things he wants to remember.) That said, much like the game itself, it is left distinctly unclear what happens after Schala is freed, or if Janus will or even can be there to greet her when she's reinserted into our world...
• Clarence's Big Chance: The good ending, in which Clarence and the girl date for a while, although they eventually decide a romance between them is simply not meant to be. They remain friends, and Clarence gains new confidence due to his experience and continues trying to find the woman of his dreams, although the girl continues to hold a special place in his heart.
• Code Vein: Of the three potential endings, two of them are this, while the third is just a straight Downer Ending. In the To Eternity ending, you save the Vein and all your companions survive, but at least one of the successors wasn't saved, and you are forced to take Silva's place on the throne, hibernating for eternity to keep the current status quo. Meanwhile, in the Dweller In The Dark ending, all of the successors are saved, and restored to their human forms, while the new abundance of blood beads means the desperate situation of Vein has reversed, and you and your companions go out into the world to help fight back against the Aragami; however, all of this came about from Io's Heroic Sacrifice. It's by far the happiest ending, but still, Io's loss is a massive Player Punch to many.
• Company of Heroes:
  • The game ends with Able Company leading the encirclement of the Falaise Pocket, capturing a crippling percentage of the Wehrmacht. On the other hand, Captain Mackay is dead and 80% of Able Company is either killed or wounded. War Is Hell, indeed.
  • Both expansion packs actually make things worse. Not only are most named characters ultimately killed by the end, in an indirect way, you kill them off when you play the same scenario but from a different point of view.
  • In Tales of Valor, one scenario has you, the Germans, defending a town to keep the Falaise Pocket open. The same Falaise Pocket you, as the Allies, closed in the original game, effectively making Tales of Valor a doomed ending.
  • Again in Tales of Valor, another scenario has you, as the Allies, capturing a town. At the end of the scenario, you learn that the last surviving named character later went on to take part and was killed in Operation Market Garden. But in the other expansion pack, Opposing Fronts, you play as the Germans who ultimately succeed in defeating the Allies in Operation Market Garden.
• Conviction (SRPG): Ending A, "Elven Torchbearer," results in the Dark Elf being sealed, but at the cost of Leed's life. The party continues maintaining the balance between light and dark in his name and manage to fend off all attempts at assassinating them. The ending can be either sweeter or bitterer depending on whether or not Grace was spared in chapter 19A.
• Corpse Party:
  • Sachiko is convinced to let go of her rage and she and the other ghost children are finally able to find peace and move on, and the surviving characters are able to escape, but they are literally the only ones who will ever remember that the dead characters even existed.
  • The ending of Blood Drive, as well as the Heavenly Host trilogy as a whole. Ultimately, it proves impossible to save Seiko and the others from their fate. However, Ayumi eventually succeeds in destroying the school itself, once and for all. Not not only does this allow them (and the countless other students who died in the school) to finally rest in peace, but it also restores everyone in the outside world's memories of them, allowing the survivors (especially Naomi) to finally get some closure. However, the process nearly destroys Ayumi's body, leaving her bound to a wheelchair, and everyone except Yoshiki loses their memory of her.
• Crescent Prism: Count Chroma is temporarily defeated and Chapter 1X confirms that at the very least, the Crimson Prism Stone slips out of his grasp and into Nova's. Unfortunately, Astrid is nowhere to be found and the location of four of the Prism Stones is unknown. Since development on the game is cancelled, this is as far as the story goes.
• Crypt of the NecroDancer: Aria destroys the Golden Lute, but dies because its magic can no longer reanimate her. However, she dies with a smile on her face knowing she has saved her family and put an end to the Lute's curse.
• Cry of Fear: In the best ending, Simon manages to overcome his depression and inner demons to not take his own life, but in a psychotic episode, he killed two police who were called to check on him. This ends up institutionalizing him, but he is getting the psychological help he needs in a safe environment.
• Cyberpunk 2077: Almost every ending of Cyberpunk 2077 is basically this, ranging from more bittersweet to just plain bleak and depressing. There is no sort of Happily Ever After that makes everything alright. In a Crapsack World, it's only fair to have endings to match the magnitude. No matter which ending you end up, each ending will always with V dying in some sort of capacity.
  • The Sun/(Don't Fear the Reaper) has it so V has become the legend they've always wanted to be, but they're still on a six month expiration date. It's gotten to a point where they've decided to undertake a raid on a space casino solo, at the risk of dying, because it doesn't matter if they die then. They're going to die anyway.
  • While the Star ending is probably the most hopeful out of the other endings, giving V a chance to start over in the Badlands with the Aldecados, they're still going to die in six months, with a sort of bleak promise that they may find a cure out there. If they don't find one, at least they'll die among friends and family; that's good... right?
  • The Temperance ending has Johnny be the one to inherit V's body, with V following Alt beyond the blackwall and effectively 'dying'. Johnny is seen mourning V at every chance he got, but plans to make it up to them by living life to the fullest, even quit drinking and smoking. He buys V (and Rouge if she died) a grave and 'buries' them before leaving Night City to start life somewhere else. Many of V's friends are unaware that V was already gone; if V had a lover, they would just be confused and hurt that V just left without saying anything. Panam is enraged that Johnny 'stole' the body from V, unaware that they gave it up willingly, and declares revenge while Rogue is so disgusted by Johnny, thinking that he tricked V into giving up their body, that she doesn't want to see him every again. This ending may have given Johnny a second chance, at the cost of both V's and Johnny's friendships and livelihood.
  • While most would consider the Reaper ending to be more of a Downer Ending, on the morbid bright note, no one else has to be sacrificed just so V has a chance at life. There is no shifting of major powers (with Alt and Saburo) and the world will just continue to function as if V never really existed. While this is the best ending for the state of the world and the life of the people around them (since allies will die), the allies you chose to 'save' by committing suicide are now heartbroken that V is gone. There is tragic irony over the fact the ending where V cared the most for their friends' lives was the one that made those friends hate them the most. In particular, Panam is so disgusted that she wishes she'd never met V and hopes that he or she is rotting in hell, and Judy is so broken at having another of her friends commit suicide that it's heavily implied that she might take the same route.
• Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls: Komaru does not give in to despair and swears to save both the children and the adults of Towa City, with Toko choosing to stay with her. But the city is still overrun with Monokumas, the Monokuma Kids are still brainwashed, the Resistance is angry that Komaru and Toko destroyed Big Bang Monokuma, Monaca survived and the Servant promises to make her Junko's successor and Izuru Kamukara harvests Junko's AI from Shirokuma and Kurokuma for the events of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.
• By the end of The Darkness, you've successfully killed Paulie and Shrote. But Jenny is dead, and at the cost of your soul belonging to The Darkness forever. And you're allowed one last meeting with Jenny, before you're seperated from her forever. The sequel has Jackie tearing his way through hell to find Jenny and finally finding her after two years of guilt and depression, only for Jenny to become the host of the Angelus and abandon Jackie and the Darkness to hell.
• Darkest Dungeon: The evil in the Darkest Dungeon has been purged, and the world is safe from the Heart of Darkness... for now. But after all the horrific things he's experienced, the Heir is Driven to Suicide, just like the Ancestor.
• Every NPC's questline ends this way in Dark Souls III unless it's a Downer Ending (as it is with Grierat, for example, who will die if he goes on enough thieving missions, or Ringfinger Leonhard, who is just kind of a dick). Siegward and Sirris of the Sunless Realms can put down the loved ones they swore to release from unlife (with Sirris killing her grandfather and Siegward helping you with Yhorm), but die before too long afterwards. Anri of Astora defeats Aldrich, but Hollows out and ends up just another mindless undead killer (unless you go for the Usurp the Flame ending and they instead get murdered by someone they thought was a trustworthy friend, then resurrected as that friend's consort in the Age of Dark). Irina of Carim can achieve her goals and become a Fire Keeper, but her bodyguard will kill himself. Hawkwood will fight you for the right to the power of dragons, and eventually lose, but at least he gets a death he can be proud of. The main game has an Ambiguous Ending no matter what you do, though.
• The ending of Deadly Premonition definitely counts. The murderer behind Greenvale's killings, as well as the manipulator behind all the other red seed murders are discovered and defeated and Zach is freed from the Red Room, but Emily and Thomas are both dead.
• Dead Rising 2: Case West has good news, best news, bad news, and worst news. The good news is that Frank and Chuck escape with proof that Phenotrans is responsible for the Fortune City outbreak and evidence to clear the latter's name; the best news is that the evil company is going down. The bad news is Marian Mallon, the head of Phenotrans, refuses to release the permanent cure, as she sees only the strong ones will get it, and escapes with Isabela; the worst news is that nobody will believe what happened to Phenotrans.
• Detective Grimoire: "Tangle Tower": Grimoire and Sally solve the murder, and Penny doesn't get the golden beetle, but Penny gets away and possibly came close to killing Grimoire and Sally before Fitz, Polly, and Fifi rescued them.
• None of the endings of Devil Survivor are 100% happy. Yuzu's ending is a straight up Shoot the Shaggy Dog Downer Ending, but the rest are varying degrees of this. No matter how hard you try, everything inside the Yamamote line is more or less destroyed and hundreds of people die. The government will cover up the events of the game and God's next ordeal is inevitable unless you pick the Chaos ending (which allows the demons to overrun Earth) or the Law ending (which implies the protagonist went Knight Templar with the power). The Updated Re-release for 3DS extends the endings, and most of them either bring the story to an end full circle or fix any damage done by the game's choices.
• All the endings in the Devil May Cry series are this: Sure, Dante (and Lucia and Nero, depending on the game) kicks the bad guy's ass and saves the day, but it just doesn't seem to come without a cost.
  • Devil May Cry: Dante is unable to kill Mundus and is only able to banish him back to the Underworld with Trish's help, with Mundus swearing he'll return someday. Dante also finds out Nelo Angelo is his twin brother, Vergil, right after he kills him. On the plus side, Dante has a new demon hunting partner in Trish, and the two promise they'll be ready if Mundus ever does come back.
  • Devil May Cry 2: Dante defeats Argosax, but is now trapped in the Underworld with apparently no way back, so he rides even deeper in on a motorcycle that just so happened to be there. Lucia, meanwhile, finally comes to terms with her Dark and Troubled Past and is the one to kill Arius for good, but when she sees that both sides of Dante's lucky coin are heads, she realizes he tricked her so she wouldn't have to go on what amounted to a suicide mission. She later visits Dante's shop, musing about how Dante's sacrifice parallels the story about Sparda Matier promised to tell him, and sadly notes that Sparda came back in the end. Lucia then hears a motorcycle outside and goes to investigate, but it isn't revealed if it's Dante.
  • Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening: Dante triumphs over Vergil in their last duel, claims Sparda's sword for himself, and figures out a name for his shop with a little help from Lady. But Vergil stays in the Underworld and Dante assumes he's dead after he throws himself off a cliff. Lady also kills her own father, but Arkham had it coming for a long time. And if you kill a hundred enemies during the credits, Vergil is indeed revealed to be alive right before Mundus appears and Vergil charges into battle against him. And since this is a prequel to the first game, most people playing will already know Vergil is defeated and turned into Mundus's Brainwashed and Crazy servant.
  • Devil May Cry 4: Sanctus is dead, the Order of the Sword is no more, and Dante permanently entrusts Vergil's sword to Nero. Kyrie accepts Nero for who he is, demonic blood and all, and it's heavily implied a romance is blooming between them, but the only home they've ever known is in ruins and Kyrie's brother, her only remaining family, is dead.
  • Devil May Cry 5: Vergil is back to his old Anti-Villain/Anti-Hero self again and Nero, thanks to fully awakening to his Sparda blood, grows a new, now fully human-looking arm and gains his own unique Devil Trigger. Sadly, Red Grave City is in ruins and God knows how many people are dead, meaning there's a very slim chance the city will ever recover. And to clean up the mess Urizen caused, Vergil and Dante both embark on a potentially One-Way Trip into the Underworld, leaving the protection of the human world in Nero, Nico, Trish, and Lady's hands. In doing so, Nero has gone from discovering he has a living father and uncle to quite possibly being separated from them forever in the span of two and a half hours. The Sons of Sparda continue dueling each other in the Underworld, but thanks to Nero's intervention, their rivalry appears to be on much friendlier terms, and they are last seen working together to carve through another horde of demons.
• DmC: Devil May Cry: Mundus is dead and Limbo has collapsed into the human world, meaning mankind is now aware that demons exist. And then Vergil reveals that he plans to rule over the humans, leading Dante to fight him as the Final Boss and coming dangerously close to killing him until Kat convinces Dante otherwise. Vergil runs off with his tail between his legs, and whatever hope he and Dante may have had of reconciling is ground to dust in Vergil's Downfall, where he becomes the new ruler of the demons.
• Deus Ex has three endings. Each of them could be considered a Downer Ending (take out the global communications, bringing a new dark age, put the Illuminati in power, or allow an AI to rule the world), but considering how much of a Crapsack World the setting is, all of them are a definite improvement over the status quo.
• Out of the four endings Deus Ex: Invisible War has, none are unambiguously good (though some are definitely worse than others).
• Diablo III:
  • The game ends well. The prime evils have been vanquished forever, heaven is safe, and humanity is recovering the power it once had. But all of this comes with a hefty price: Many good people, like Deckard Cain and Leah, are killed, and Adria is still around.
  • Reaper of Souls DLC: Bad news: Everything you did in the base game has been undone by one very insane archangel. Good News: You became the Avatar of Death itself in the process; demon lords fall to you in seconds. Neutral News: Even Tyrael is afraid of how badass you've become.
• Dice and the Tower of the Reanimator: Glorious Princess:
  • In the good ending, obtained by winning without a weapon, Bambooblade manages to keep his companions alive and complete his mission, but the Reanimator's warning about humans plundering the Dark Realm turn out to be prophetically true. However, the protagonists hope they can change humanity for the better and prove the Reanimator wrong.
  • If the player beats the game while using a sword at least once, the cleric and knight will be killed and turned into zombies by the Reanimator, which weighs heavily on Bambooblade even after he obtains the elixir for Princess Gloria.
• Diablo IV: Lilith is defeated and her demonic army is left broken and leaderless, but Inarius is dead, his quest for redemption revealed to have been doomed from the start as Heaven never intended to ever forgive his crimes no matter what he did to atone, Neyrelle has made a deal with Mephisto in order to ensure his Soulstone is kept safe and leaves the Wanderer, and the Cathedral of Light frames the Wanderer for Inarius' death, causing them to become a pariah to most of the world.
• Digimon World ends with Hiro still in the Digital World. He's saved that dimension from total destruction at the cost of never being able to return to the human world. Mind you, he was also taken into the Digital World against his free will in the first place by some cosmic force, so this is also a case of Being Good Sucks. And since it was such a random teleportation, his parents will come home and find him gone forever with no explanation or note explaining anything.
  • Subverted with the release of Digimon World -next 0rder-, as not only does Hiro reappear as an adult (under the alias "Mameo"), he's the homeroom teacher of Shoma, meaning he did make it back home after all.
• Every saga in Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy has a Bittersweet Ending. Even the bad guys don't get everything they want in the end. Empire: Demon Uther was defeated, but not before he murdered his father the Emperor, leaving the Empire in ruins without a ruler or an heir. Undead: Mortis succeeds in reviving her lover, but he is so repulsed by what she had become and by what she had done to bring him back that he rejects her and abandons her forever. Legion of the Damned: Demon Uther wasn't actually their god reborn; he was a Creepy Child draining his power. The loyalist Legions manage to kill him, but their god Bethrezen is still sealed away, so they have to go back into hiding. Nobody in this game gets a completely happy ending.
• In Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, you get different endings based on how you beat the game. In the default ending, which assumes you accidentally kill at least one teammate (pathetically easy to do due to the large area of effect attacks in the game), Laharl, Flonne, and Etna show up to warn Seraph Lamington of Vulcanus's plan, and talk about Demons. He agrees that Demons are capable of love, but because Flonne has "betrayed" Celestia by fighting angels, she has to be punished, so he kills her (by transforming her into a flower). Laharl, enraged at this, attacks. Up to this point, the endings are the same. In the "normal ending", Laharl kills Seraph Lamington, only to have Mid-Boss appear and reveal that it was a test to see if Laharl would forgive Lamington; because he did not, Flonne is doomed. Laharl, distraught, either picks up Flonne's flower and exiles himself (asking Etna to rule in his place) for the rest of his life, or sacrifices his own life to restore her (on a slightly happier note, he comes back as a Prinny). In the good ending, which is considered canon, Laharl knocks Lamington out, but decides that Flonne would not have wanted him to take revenge. As such, Flonne is restored to life as a Fallen Angel, but is still her ditzy self. As a fallen angel, she can stay with Laharl and Etna, whereas as an Angel, she would have to return to Celestia. In the "bad ending" which is gotten by getting one ally kill and killing the Item God, Mid-Boss appears and explains the usual, saying that Lamington is alive, but just barely. Flonne then resurrects as a Fallen Angel and after more talking, Laharl tells Etna to take his place as he feels he's not ready to be the overlord, then goes on a journey to find himself and mature before coming back to claim his title as overlord.
• The DonPachi series is practically alien to the concept of happy endings, always making it clear that there is at least one major downside:
  • In the original game, the player character joins the elite Super-Soldier force DonPachi Squadron... after having completed training in which he is ordered to kill a massive plurality of allies posing as enemies.
    "In the end, we were not the ones who made this 'mission' a success, it was the numerous soldiers who lost their lives that contributed to the creation of these super soldiers. Thus came about the elite combat force, 'DonPachi'."
  • In DoDonPachi, the pilot unwittingly slaughters his own allies, his commander having lied to him and claimed that said allies were an evil force of "mechanized aliens". However, in doing so, he ended up solving a number of world crises like overpopulation, environmental pollution, and arms races.
• Don't Shit Your Pants: Any ending that doesn't involve soiling yourself, dying, or using the toilet counts, since you didn't soil yourself, but you now have a mess to clean up.
• Don't Wet Your Pants: Like its predecessor, all the endings count except for the ones that involve wetting your pants, dying, using the toilet, or peeing out the window — you didn't wet your pants, but you left a mess.
• Dragon Age:
  • Almost inevitable in Dragon Age: Origins, depending on the decisions made throughout the game. The only way to defeat the archdemon without requiring a Heroic Sacrifice from someone is to allow Morrigan to perform a blood magic ritual that will let her conceive a child with the soul and power of an old god,with no guarantees as to what consequences this might have for the world as the child grows up. If this ritual is not performed, either the Player Character will die, Alistair will die, or Loghain will die and Alistair's faith in the PC will be so thoroughly broken that he will leave in disgust.
  • Also, Denerim and Lothering have been sacked and all but decimated, as are the Grey Wardens (their numbers being from three to one depending on your choices with Landsmeet and the Dark Ritual). Countless number of citizens have either died or fled the country, the corruption of the Blight has made a large portion of the country barren and unsuitable to live, and depending on your choices Ferelden has lost one of its greatest generals if you decided to execute Loghain instead of recruiting him, and the new king hasn't got the slightest idea on how to rule a country, though epilogue dictates that Alistair will either become a good or a great king in time depending on if he's hardened.
  • In the Playable Epilogue of Dragon Age: Inquisition, after saving the world once again, the governments of Ferelden and Orlais force the Inquisition to either reduce themselves to a fraction of what they once were or disband completely, and Solas is revealed to be an Elven god who plans on bringing about The End of the World as We Know It. The Inquisitor loses one of their arms, and the game ends with them plotting against Solas with either a small army likely to be infiltrated by enemy spies, or no army at all. The only thing that prevents it from becoming a Downer Ending completely is that they still have their True Companions standing by them.
• Dragon Breed : It's more "bitter" than "sweet". The Hero gets shot by the Big Bad before he gets completely defeated by the hero, and then the hero's dragon Bahamoot commits a Heroic Sacrifice to defeat the Big Bad by crashing through him. The Hero gets brought by a bubble to the peak of the mountain. The ending narrative tells the player that Bahamoot has been ascended by the gods to become one of the stars in the sky after its sacrifice, while the final animation shows The Hero can't get up, confirming he's dead for good and the human civilization goes on (though, it's not clear whether it's a good or bad thing).
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest III ends with your hero defeating Zoma and saving both worlds... but the link between both worlds is sundered, stranding them in the former dark realm along with whatever friends they brought to the final battle. While recognized as their savior and raised into legend, they can never return home, leaving their mother to wonder what happened to her only child just like Ortega did. In some remakes, you can allay this a little by resurrecting Ortega after his death, at which point he reunites with his wife and chooses to stay with her rather than make another attempt to kill Zoma himself, but that doesn't solve the issue of the hero being stranded.
  • Dragon Quest VI has a similar ending to III, only with the Real World and the Dream World replacing the two worlds of that game and with Mortamor replacing Zoma. However, the bitterness of the ending is compounded by the fact that Ashlynn, who is not an inhabitant of the Real World, is trapped in the Dream World forever.
  • Dragon Quest VII: For some towns, you don't give them their happy endings:
    • Rexwood/Ballymolloy: The monsters are defeated and the town's women are rescued, but the tragic story of Matilda/Maev leaves the party shaken and hammers it into them that their adventures are not a game.
    • Falrod/Faraday: The Automatons are defeated, but ELLIE, who was instrumental in the victory, is ostracized and abused by the very people she helped saved simply because she herself is an Automaton. To make matters worse, Autonymus learns absolutely nothing from the whole ordeal and spends the rest of his days in bitter, misanthropic seclusion.
    • Labres/Vogogard seems almost like it has no ending with the priest just walking off with a goddess statue... except wait a minute, wasn't there a wandering priest a while ago who wound up sacrificing himself to save everyone in a plot around a goddess statue?
  • Dragon Quest IX actually can be viewed as a genuinely happy ending for its main quest. Unless you think that the Hero would not be happy as an immortal trying to protect an entire world from evil while their family has gone to live with "The Almighty" and all mortals have completely forgotten all the Hero's actions as their Guardian. The mini arcs, on the other hand, have a lot of these.
    • Coffinwell: With your help, Dr. Phelming was able to seal the sentient disease that placed a death curse on the town, but not in time to save his beloved wife. On the plus side, the whole incident causes the originally Jerkass doctor to man up and actually work for the benefit of his town.
    • Porth Llaffan: It turns out that the Lleviathan, who the townsfolk had come to rely on to the point they all became lazy, was actually the spirit of young Jona's dead father. After a tearful farewell, Jonas' father ascends to heaven, and while Jona and the townsfolk resolve to work hard again, it's hard to forget just how dependent they were on Lleviathan. Oh, and the whole incident sends the mayor into an Angst Coma from which he doesn't recover until you complete a sidequest available much later.
    • Bloomingdale: You learn that the rich young girl who had mysteriously recovered from her crippling disease really did die, and her doll became sentient and took her place. After the spirit of the girl rescinds her wish, the doll returns to being a doll to sit at the gravestone of her only friend for eternity, as she has no soul to travel to the afterlife with her.
• Dragon's Dogma ends with the Arisen who became the Seneschal, and might continue to fight until another Arisen bests them. However, they stabbed themselves with the Godsbane sword, killing themselves. In the end, however, the cycle is broken, the Arisen's pawn has a chance to live as a human being just like Serene by taking the form of their master, and Gransys is recovering.
• Drakengard:
  • The canonical first ending is bittersweet: the protagonist's sister and best friend are dead, and the dragon pact-partner he had grown close to is now the new seal. The third ending could also be considered bittersweet since the dragons have decided to exterminate humanity, but the protagonist has just killed the strongest dragon in the world (his pact-partner) and can probably take them. He certainly looks forward to it.
  • In the sequel's first ending, Legna reveals to Nowe that he is just a tool of the dragons, created from the bone casket as "the new breed", who will rise up and destroy the nameless (the Grotesqueries), thus allowing the dragons to take over the world and sentencing humanity to a gruesome fate. Nowe, deeply saddened by the betrayal of the one who raised him practically since birth, decides to Screw Destiny and kills Legna in the final battle, out of love for Manah and his desire to live as a human. But, to restore order to the human world, his former knight partner Eris gives up her normal life to become the new Goddess Seal, like Angelus and Furiae before her. The second ending has Manah offering herself to the bone casket and becomes possessed by the gods again, and Nowe kills her, as Manah will no longer be a puppet of the gods. However, Nowe and Eris decide to follow through with Legna's plan to battle the gods. The third ending is the happiest, although Nowe kills Legna like in the first ending, but Manah fights off the power of the bone casket, freeing her from the gods' possession, and now the world has no need for the Goddess Seal, the dragons, and the gods.
• The Historical endings of Dynasty Warriors 8:
  • Wei: Cao Cao's campaign against Shu in Jing Province is a success, with Wei taking control of the province and even managing to slay Shu's mightiest warrior, Guan Yu. However, the victory came at the cost of the lives of Xiahou Yuan and Pang De (Though they can survive if the player fulfills certain conditions). Cao Cao, knowing that he is growing old and does not have much time left, urges his son, Cao Pi, to finish what he started and bring a new era to China, but historically Cao Pi's reign only lasts six years, at which point his successors are overthrown by the Simas.
  • Wei's hypothetical ending is also kind of bittersweet. While Wu surrenders with minimum casualties (especially if you convince half of Sun Quan's officers to defect), Shu chooses to fight to the very last, resulting in nearly every Shu character being slain, Liu Bei included. Cao Cao, choosing to take his fallen rival's Last Request to protect the commonfolk to heart, willingly abdicates the throne to his son before choosing to Walk the Earth with his cousins.
  • Shu: After failing to avenge his fallen brothers at Yiling, Liu Bei soon falls ill and dies, leaving the leadership of Shu to Zhuge Liang. Under him, Shu begins an initially successful Northern Campaign against Wei, but their advance is brought to a screeching halt when Zhuge Liang suddenly dies from illness. The leadership of Shu ostensibly then falls to Liu Bei's son, Liu Shan, but it is made clear that he is a Puppet King and the true power behind the throne is Zhuge Liang's apprentice, Jiang Wei, who vows to finish what his predecessors started and destroy Wei, no matter the cost.
  • Wu: Sun Quan successfully installs himself as Emperor of Wu and proves himself a worthy warlord and Emperor during the Battle of Hefei Castle, but most of Wu is now dead (Though Lu Meng and Gan Ning's deaths can be prevented by certain actions), and despite the optimistic tone of the ending, there is no end of the chaos in sight.
  • As the epilogue of 7 points out, a few years after their triumph over Shu, Wei experiences a coup d'état that sees the last Emperor of Wei disposed by the Sima family, who change the kingdom's name to Jin. Jin conquers Wu a couple of decades later and unifies all China under a single banner, rendering the hardship and fighting of all the past officers of the three kingdoms as well as millions of generic soldiers All for Nothing — most of them being dead for years at this point. And as a last twist of the knife, Jin itself would soon after be wracked with internal strife and fragmentation, leading to the War of the Eight Princes and the Sixteen Kingdoms period. As anyone with knowledge of Chinese history will tell you, the War of the Three Kingdoms was not the first time China shattered into pieces with devastating consequences for the Chinese people, and it certainly would not be the last time.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
  • As the Steam updates page states, it's impossible to save everyone in the game. In the normal route, Pon Pon will be wiped off the map, one party member will sacrifice themselves to let the others escape from Vulcanite Mines, and the party will kill either Kael or Virgo/Rosie. However, the demons agree to let the party have five years to reform Zeta (now Utopya) and Vulcanite, as well as to rebuild Pon Pon.
  • The original Evil Runi route before the update in October 2023 is even more bitter than the normal ending, since Runi mind wipes herself out of despair due to Edgar's death and Akira's rejection, both Kael and Virgo/Rosie are killed, and Akira parts on a more bitter note with the archdemons, blaming them for all the tragedy. However, the process of rebuilding Zeta, Vulcanite, and Pon Pon continue as normal. However, the update changed the Evil Runi ending to be an unambiguous defeat for the entire party.
• Almost every ending in Elden Ring is bittersweet, save the two that are downright Earn Your Bad Ending. The game ends with an unambiguous victory for the Tarnished, ascending to demigodhood as the new Elden Lord who will rule the new age of the world, but not without costs: almost every even remotely friendly person the Tarnished has encountered by that point will have died (some exceptions depending on how questlines play out) or have gone mad for one reason or another and the world is still scarred by the war and the meddling of higher forces that remain unseen and unfought. At the same time, depending on how much of the game you choose to complete, the Tarnished will have eliminated huge threats to their rule that would have been the Big Bad in any other game (such as Mohg and Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy), and each ending has at least a small glimmer of hope for the future of the world.
• In Einhänder, the Einhander pilot succeeds in ending the Forever War by virtue of wiping out the majority of both sides' militaries. However, both Earth and Selene promptly erase all mentions of the protagonist from the record, with only those who fought and survived the conflict knowing the truth.
• Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising: The Sorcerer is defeated, and the curse on New Nevaeh is broken. However, CJ is forced to destroy the Rune-Lens that she was going to bring home for her Rite of Passage ^note though this is made sweeter with The Reveal that CJ's father's Lens was a fake and the rite of passage was actually about finding something that she can consider a treasure, Isha's father is dead and she herself is terminally ill thanks to the Barrows' Blessing, and Garoo is still searching for a cure for his daughter's illness.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • Arena ends with the Emperor rescued and properly placed back on the throne. However, later games reveal that the 10 years Jagar Tharn ruled as an imposter set the Empire into a downward spiral. The Imperial Legions are no longer the fighting force they once were and unrest is rampant in the provinces. Only the machinations of the Emperor are able to keep the Empire from fracturing for another couple of decades.
  • Morrowind: Sure, you've saved the world from Dagoth Ur, but you've also set into motion the exposure of the Tribunal as false gods, the inevitable fall of the Ministry of Truth, and, by severing the enchantments on the Heart of Lorkhan, weakened the metaphysical barriers enough to let the plot of the next game happen...
  • Oblivion: Sure, you've saved the world from the Oblivion Crisis. Mehrunes Dagon has been banished, the Mythic Dawn has been destroyed, the gates to Oblivion have been permanently sealed, and you're a hero to all the people of Cyrodiil. However many of your allies died to get to this point, including Martin, which leaves the Empire without a Septim heir, and the Empire will certainly fracture and decline without one. Plus, following the events of the ''Shivering Isles, the Player Character will start to slowly turn into Sheogorath, an all-powerful Mad God, but also a sad shell of who they used to be.
  • Skyrim:
    • When the player finally defeats Alduin his soul is not absorbed like other dragons, it's implied that Alduin will ultimately return to fulfill his destiny as world-eater, and there's no telling if a new Dragonborn will be there to stop him.
    • The Civil War questline. You brought about a swift victory for either side and threw a wrench in the Thalmor's plans, but their shadow still looms over Tamriel, everyone knows a Second Great War is coming, and all that stands between them and the enslavement and metaphysical destruction of mankind is either a weakened Empire or a bunch of upstart Nord rebels. Well, and you, so things aren't all bad. And to get that victory either way you had to kill some people who, however flawed and misguided they seemed, were not entirely bad.
    • Dawnguard ends with Lord Harkon dead and his dream of an eternal night where vampires reigned dead with him. However, you had to kill one of the only two non-regressed Falmer left in the entire world.
    • Dragonborn ends with Miraak stopped for good and Herma Mora leaving the Skaal alone for good, but the Skaal's elder died and it is implied that the Dragonborn will continue being just another pawn for more of the Daedric Prince's schemes.
  • The spin-off Dungeon Crawl game Battlespire also has one. Yes, the Apprentice successfully defeats the Daedric hordes, banishes Mehrunes Dagon, and rescues their partner, but the Battlespire itself is shattered and its connection with Oblivion is severed.
• The first two games of the Enigmatis fall into this, particularly the second. In both games, the Big Bad escapes and is on the loose. On the bright side, the detective manages to thwart at least some of his efforts in both games, and is able to save the lives of some of his would-be victims.
• Eternal Champions counts. The good news is that your character survived and managed to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. The bad news is that everyone else is dead, most of them by your hand.
• Ether One ends with the reveal that the eponymous "Ether One" project does not really exist. You are not a "Restorer" using advanced technology to enter the fragmented mind of dementia patient Jean Fletcher in the hopes of rebuilding her memories. You are actually Thomas Fletcher, and the entire premise is your own dementia-afflicted mind attempting to sort itself out. In the end, you succeed in recalling at least some of your past and, with that, your identity. You come out of the dreamworld and back into reality, but your mind is still clearly fragile and weak and you have to (once again) realise that your wife, Jean, died some time ago. The epilogue, seen by getting 100% Completion, adds a bit more sweetness: Thomas's state has improved a bit (implied to be a result of both his doctor's therapy efforts and Thomas's own mental struggle to rebuild his own broken memories) and he spends some time fondly reminiscing on his past before leaving the treatment home where he had been receiving therapy to live in the care of his son.
• Etrian Odyssey:
  • Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard: The Overlord is defeated, thus freeing High Lagaard from his insane experiments, but the Birdmen are now left with the reality that their "god" was in fact a fraud, and their leader admits that his people's future is uncertain. Also, the Overlord's death unleashes the Ur Child, but the Guild deals with that in the postgame.
  • Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City: both the Armoroad and Deep City endings are this. In both routes, the Final Boss begs you to protect the world in their place, and to tell their sibling they are sorry before dying, your party is left wondering if they chose the right side after all, and Yggdrasil points out that the true enemy, the Abyssal God, is still out there.
• The primary interpretation of Everhood’s Gainax Ending is that Pink, through the player, frees everyone in Everhood by killing them, and then destroys the Cube that represents Everhood itself, before finding themselves in the Waiting Room and has one last rhythm battle to allow everyone to depart and begin a new life, with Pink thanking the player for everything.
• Fable II in The Sacrifice route. Sure, the world is saved and everyone has their loved ones back. Except for you. The price for everyone else's happiness was your own because your spouse, children, sister, and even your dog is dead. You can never get them back and you have to live with the knowledge that you choose the lives of others over theirs. It doesn't matter what you tell yourself: at the very least, you will miss that dog.
• In Fairune 2, Layla learns her name and is allowed to pass through the Gate, leaving Hope Girl and Ancient Codex to miss her and bemoan that they didn't even get to say their farewells. Then it gets averted in that Layla met up with and sent the Layla native to Fairune back to give her farewells and gratitude to the protagonists. The ending continues as Hope Girl, Layla, and Ancient Codex travel the worlds with the Fairies as guides.
• Fallout:
  • In Fallout, the Vault Dweller may have saved eight settlements from a race of genetically-engineered super mutants, not to mention single-handedly fixing most of those settlements' social problems, but the Overseer of Vault 13 banishes him from his home because his time outside has changed him, and he's brought ideas and stories that endanger their peace and serenity. If the Vault Dweller got the Berserker or Childkiller karma traits, or you took the "Bloody Mess" trait at character creation, he blows off the left side of the Overseer's body before leaving. You can also actively choose this by initiating combat and firing before he gets all the way into the Vault again.
  • Fallout 3:
    • The good ending for the "Trouble on the Homefront" quest. Vault 101's tyrannical Overseer steps down in favor of Amata and the Vault is finally opened to the rest of the Wasteland, but Amata is forced to permanently exile you from the Vault because most of the Vault's residents still believe it's your fault the situation got as bad as it did. At least she gives you a nice parting gift.
    • The good ending for the vanilla campaign isn't without a bitter taste either. Even if you do survive the obscenely high radiation you got by activating the purifier (which you can only do with Broken Steel installed), it doesn't change the fact that your father, whom you were trying to find for the whole game, died to protect the purifier from the Enclave.
• Fallout: New Vegas
  • Every ending in the game has its ups and downs (except for the Legion ending, which is mostly just a straight-up Downer Ending). Depending on the choices you make throughout the game, the endings for the factions can be more bitter or more sweet. Due to the Grey-and-Gray Morality of New Vegas, each ending could be argued to be the best or worst. It's up to the player to determine which ending is best for the future of the Mojave.
    • New California Republic: After managing to defeat the Legion at Hoover Dam a second time, the NCR finally establishes definitive control over the region and annexes the Strip and surrounding communities. The Mojave becomes peaceful and secure under the NCR's reign. On the downside, however, small towns like Goodsprings end up dying out due to suffering from taxes and the NCR's overbearing presence, the NCR has become even more overextended than it was before, and most of the people like Kimball, General Oliver, and Colonel Moore who are largely responsible for the NCR's current problems like corruption, aggressive imperialism, and general incompetence get the credit and benefits from the victory, while more Reasonable Authority Figure types like Hsu and Hanlon get pushed to the sidelines.
    • Independent: With the Courier getting rid of Mr. House and the NCR and Legion both pushed out of the Mojave by the new Securitron army, New Vegas has finally become truly free and independent and the rest of the Mojave is left to govern themselves. Depending on how you dealt with the various factions, this can result in the Mojave Wasteland either becoming a violent anarchic hellhole plagued by raiders like the Powder Gangers and Fiends with no one around to stop them, or the region becoming stabilized under a new era of peace and prosperity. There will always be some downsides, however. The Followers end up becoming overwhelmed with patients following increased violence in the region and are struggling to even provide basic services, while the Brotherhood either gets massacred or degrades into harassing travelers for their tech without the NCR around to keep them in check.
    • Mr. House: Mr. House, with the help of the Courier, manages to drive both the Legion and NCR out of the Mojave Wasteland with his Securitron army and establishes a benevolent dictatorship over New Vegas. The region is stablized and New Vegas prospers, but doing so requires the destruction of the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Kings may be wiped out as well if you are not careful. It is also questionable if House's grand vision and plans for the future, which includes using Vegas's economy to fund space travel to colonize other planets, is even possible.
  • Similarly, every possible faction ending in Fallout 4. Some of them are more bitter or more sweet than others.
    • Brotherhood of Steel: The Brotherhood locate the Railroad's HQ and massacre them with an elite squad of knights, and then destroys the Institute by siccing the rebuilt Liberty Prime on them, storming their base with another elite squad of knights, and then nuking it. With the source of the synths and mutants eliminated and the Brotherhood in the process of purging other threats such as raiders and ghouls, the Commonwealth is finally safe and secure, but is now under the control of a neo-feudal military dictatorship, and the remaining Gen 3 synths will most likely be hunted down and killed.
    • Railroad: The Railroad are able to sneak aboard the Brotherhood's airship, the Prydwen, using a stolen Vertibird and sabotage it, causing it to crash. All of the Brotherhood aboard die, including several children. The Railroad then infiltrate the Institute, liberating synths inside as they proceed to rig the reactor to explode, allowing them to blow the Institute sky-high. The Commonwealth is safer without the Institute to prey on it and the synths are finally all free, but as the Railroad has no greater aspirations (or means to achieve them) than the destruction of those other two factions, few ordinary Wastelanders will see any real change for the better besides the lack of Institue synth and mutant attacks.
    • Institute: The Institute will root out and destroy the Railroad, and upload a virus onto Liberty Prime, causing him to shoot down the Prydwen. The Institute are able to get their reactor running and have complete control over the Commonwealth. For better or worse, the Institute will use the Commonwealth as a testing ground for their technological marvels, which in the past have included horrible Body Horror experiments and massacring entire towns For Science!, with the Player Character as the new Director. Depending on the player's alignment, this is either a straight-up Downer Ending or a chance for the Player Character to change things for the better after the ending and use their resources for something worthwhile.
    • Minutemen: Unable to access the Institute themselves due to the player's negligent actions, the Railroad decide to forge an alliance with the Minutemen. After finding an old service tunnel and later hijacking the teleporter, squads of Minutemen go swarming into the Institute and rig the reactor to explode. Depending on the player's actions, the Brotherhood can either be shocked into co-existing with the Minutemen under an uneasy truce, or be fought in a final battle at the Castle which ends in the Minutemen destroying the Prydwen and forcing the Brotherhood survivors to flee south on foot. The Minutemen have won the independence of the Commonwealth and both the freed synths and Wastelanders can try a hand at building their own free and stable nation without outside interference, but even with their victory, prejudices still remain, and there's no guarantee that the Minutemen will stick together, especially since they're largely presented as totally impotent in the absence of the Player Character (making it possible that their organization collapses after their current leader dies, just as it did last time), though this is migated by the fact that it is the only ending where it is posssible to keep all factions besides the Institute intact.
    • One more detail: No matter which faction you lead to victory, Shaun dies. He has terminal cancer and has opted to Face Death with Dignity rather than use treatments that will extend his life but rob him of his humanity. And if the Institute is brought down by another faction, then he dies cursing his mother/father on his deathbed as they storm the facility with their forces and destroy all his life's work and (what he still genuinely believes) is the last, best hope for human civilisation.
• Far Cry:
  • Far Cry 3's good ending. On one hand, Jason and his friends safely leave the islands alive, and Vaas' pirates and Hoyt's organized crime syndicate are both destroyed by the loss of their leaders. On the other hand, Citra dies to protect Jason an angry Dennis, Jason is painfully aware of the fact that he now has to live with what he's become and the bodies of hundreds, if not thousands on his conscience, Jason's brother Grant is still dead, and his friends are all left with mental scars from the brutal experiences.
  • Far Cry: New Dawn: Although the Highwaymen and New Eden have both been destroyed, and Joseph Seed has finally come to terms with the horrible things he's done in both this game and the previous one and is either dead or being forced to live with the guilt, Thomas Rush has been killed and society will have to reconstruct itself without his guidance.
• Faraway Story has the non-canon "Ultimate Pharmacist" ending if the player can win an optional Duel Boss fight. Ellevark states that Pia has finally surpassed him and that she can protect the Faraway Continent by herself. However, by fulfilling his purpose as a Celestial, he automatically turns into sand. Pia goes on to singlehandedly defeat the entire Erance army and keep them from getting to the continent's Philosopher's Stone, preventing both a war over the stone and the Dark Lord's revival. Considering Part 1's ending is a Downer Ending and Part 2's ending isn't implemented yet, this is currently the best ending possible.
• Fatal Frame.
  • All of the endings are designed to twist your heart, because no matter which ending you get, even the happier ones, someone has still lost or had to do something that has either contributed to their death or given them lasting scars. It's made even worse in that the canon endings to the first two games border on Downer Ending: neither Miku nor Mio have completely moved on from the events of the previous games, and Mafuyu and Mayu's deaths have left them with either Survivor Guilt in Miku's case, or with These Hands Have Killed and My God, What Have I Done? in Mio's case.
  • The ending of the first game has Mafuyu remaining behind with Kirie to keep her company as she keeps the gate closed to prevent the Calamity from happening while Miku escapes, leaving her beloved brother behind.
  • Crimson Butterfly ends with Mio strangling Mayu and her turning into a crimson butterfly. While this calms the Hellish Abyss and also frees the ghosts who have been trapped because of the Repentance, the fact remains that Mio killed her sister and has to deal with the fate of being a Remaining.
  • The Tormented has the closest to a slightly uplifting ending, though it still retains the bittersweetness. Rei defeats Reika and sends her across the river with her lover, Kaname, which allows all the ghosts to finally move on. Then Rei sees Yuu among them and wants to go into the afterlife with him, but Yuu tells her to live. Despite everyone being freed from the Manor of Sleep, Rei is still in pain of having lost her fiancé, but is living on with his memory.
  • Mask of the Lunar Eclipse continues the tradition. Ruka remembers her father's face and sees him again one more time before he crosses over, but Misaki's fate is left up in the air, Choushiro comes back and places the complete Mask of the Lunar Eclipse on Sakuya which allows everyone to pass over. That does not change the fact that he's still dead along with everyone in the game.
  • Maiden of Black Water surprisingly subverts this. Each character has several endings for their personal story arc, and while there are good and bad ones, the only truly bittersweet one is Miu's good ending: she's reunited with her mother, who left her when she was three... but her mother is expected to die within a year, if not sooner.
• Fate/Grand Order:
  • The Babylonia Singularity ends on this note. Tiamat is defeated, the Singularity is corrected, and Solomon's domain has finally been located, allowing the heroes to take the fight to him. However, most of Ritsuka's allies from throughout the chapter are dead, those who aren't are still heavily damaged (with Quetzalcoatl having burned away most of her divinity and the First Hassan sacrificing his Grand status), and Mash is nearing the end of her lifespan. It's also noted that, even with the Singularity corrected and that era of time restored to normal, the Sumerian civilization the heroes spent the whole chapter fighting to save is still on its last legs per the events of history.
  • The Solomon Singularity, and by extension, the first arc of Fate/Grand Order as a whole, ends on this note. Goetia is defeated, Mash is granted a normal lifespan, and the timeline and the world have been restored. However, defeating Goetia required Dr. Roman, aka the real King Solomon, to sacrifice his existence in the Throne of Heroes, making it impossible to bring him back, saving Mash required Fou, aka Cath Palug, to sacrifice his power and sentience (though doing so also neutralizes any future threat he could provide as a Beast of Humanity), and as da Vinci points out in The Stinger, an entire year has passed while the world was incinerated, meaning society will be in disarray for a while trying to figure out what happened. That, combined with the methods Chaldea took to save humanity breaking all sorts of laws in the mage world, means that the Mage's Association will likely be knocking on their door soon. Also, previous Singularities had both Sherlock Holmes and Gilgamesh theorizing that another Beast is currently making its own moves, so the heroes aren't quite out of the woods yet.
  • The Atlantis chapter of the 5th Lostbelt ends on this note. All three of Olympus' main defenses are defeated, including two gods, and Chaldea makes it to Olympus with a newly upgraded ship and the prospect of Musashi and several other Servants waiting there to help them. However, all of the Servants Chaldea allied with over course of the chapter have been killed, and Chaldea still has to deal with Kirschtaria Wodime, the Dioscuri, and the remaining Olympian gods that wait for them in Olympus, and given Wodime's previous showing against Chaldea, things do not bode well for them. The Stinger for the chapter also reveals that the other half of Hephaestus that's in Olympus is still alive and is working on something with Muramasa.
• Fear & Hunger: Termina has a few:
  • Ending A: The player character, and optionally their party, awaken the Machine God Logic and are absorbed into the artificial green. The upside is that the artificial green doesn't sound too bad, and everyone still alive manages to escape Prehevil.
  • Ending B: The player character manages to become the Sole Survivor and leaves Prehevil to live their life, albeit with a lot of blood on their hands. All of them have differing fates, with some having endings leaning more on the sweet and others leaning more on the bitter, except for Daan who gets an outright Downer Ending.
• Secret of Mana ends with the world saved, but at the cost of the source of the world's magic, one of the three companions, the living Global Airship, the life of the female character's love interest, and most of the other connections to the world's deities. The world itself even splinters. Legend of Mana spends most of its time trying to simply repair the damage.
  • Trials of Mana ends happily for everyone except your Exposition Fairy, who was killed by the Big Bad... but because she died at the base of the Mana Tree, this means the Mana Tree will grow back and someday she'll be given life again.
  • The three main story arcs in Legend of Mana all have bittersweet endings: The Jumi are restored to life by the Player Character's tears, and learn to cry themselves to un-petrify you, but it's highly suggested that the same tragic events that drove them to extinction will repeat themselves eventually down the road; Matilda dies and is restored to her youth, but her demon BFF Irwin rejects their relationship because he believes them to be fundamentally incompatible and she becomes a Wisdom for all eternity instead, and along the way one of your childhood friends went insane and you were forced to put them down; and the Dragon Crystals are restored to their rightful place, but Larc is condemned to wander the Earth until Draconis' curse wears off; he does reunite with his sister eventually, though.
  • Dawn of Mana ends with the Big Bad defeated and a new Mana Tree created, but at the cost of the life of your Unlucky Childhood Friend.
  • Sword of Mana also ends with the Big Bad defeated, but it is revealed that the Mana Tree is the Heroine's mother, and she in turn becomes the next tree.
  • Bahamut Lagoon ends with the world saved from The Empire and the God of Evil...but one third of the story's principal Love Triangle is dead and another mentally scarred into a tyrant and only the third showing recovery by wandering the world alone with the titular dragon god. Then again, Unreliable Narrator is at play...
• The Legend of Tian-ding ends with your titular hero being shot by your own protégé, who mistook you for a traitor. After you had killed the main villain and destroyed the all-powerful Macguffin that could destroy the world. However, your reformed rival Matsumoto then proceeds to clear your name, and ensure history remembers you as a hero, while your protégé, eventually learning the truth, regrets his actions and builds a shrine in your honor, complete with a statue in your likeness.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Fire Emblem Gaiden, some of the endings for the characters will go from completely happy to bittersweet (and sometimes straight up into Downer Ending) if another character close to them dies in battle. i.e., if both Gray and his love interest Clair live to the end of the game but Gray's best friend Tobin does not, Gray falls into despair and alcoholic depression - but he pulls through with Clair's help, and they name their firstborn son after the dead Tobin. ^note The original Gaiden ending solely mentions him being drunk and depressed, however.
  • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade becomes this as it's the prequel to Roy's game. Lots of characters end up happy, dead, or unable to be together. The best example would be Nino and Jaffar, who have twin boys in their ending, only for Jaffar's past as an assassin to come back for him. It is saved a bit by their twins, Lugh and Ray/Raigh, who are still alive in Roy's game despite being orphans who don't seem to know whom their parents actually are.
  • Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones ends up with Eirika and Ephraim defeating the Lord of Terror with the help of their companions, but not before the twins' beloved friend/bitter antagonist Lyon dies in front of them. The last CG of the game has the twins recalling the day they met Lyon. Not to mention the whole issue of Grado falling victim to a catastrophic natural disaster.... just as Lyon had predicted and fell into darkness trying to stop. Several characters have to stay behind and help reconstruct the Empire.
  • In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, there's even a song called Bittersweet Victory that plays whenever you win a mission but a character dies.
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening has the ending to the first part of the game. King Gangrel is defeated, bringing an end to his war of aggression against Ylisse, but Emmeryn is dead, having sacrificed herself to prevent Chrom from having to hand over the Fire Emblem to Plegia^note Emmeryn can be recruited in an optional Spotpass mission, but she's lost her memories, meaning that she's no longer the person Chrom or Lissa remember, and can't even recognize her siblings. Best summed up by Chrom and his ally Basilio.
    Chrom: We've won... Somehow I don't feel like celebrating.
    Basilio: Victory can be bitter as well as sweet, boy. It's good you learn that now.
  • Both the Birthright and Conquest routes of Fire Emblem Fates end this way. Both routes feature Nohr and Hoshido ultimately reconciling, with the implications that Nohr will rebuild and try to move on from the darker aspects of its past, and both have some rather heartwarming ending scenes with Corrin's families. The "bitter" part is that each path also has some major sacrifices, including several unavoidable deaths (such as Corrin's best friend Azura in both), and the general pain caused by the Sadistic Choice early in the game. Even the Revelation route, while notably sweeter, still contains the deaths of a few innocents.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the faction that the player chooses will be the one to usher peace over Fódlan. However, no matter what the player does, at least one of the main lords will die. Edelgard and Dimitri will die in every path that is not their own. In Edelgard's case, this can also happen if you choose the Black Eagles, but then choose not to side with her in Chapter 11.
• Ending A of Fishing Vacation. You and your friend escape with your lives and sanity intact, although the uncle escapes and is currently on the run, while the police find nothing in the lake but unusually large trout. Sedna is also still out there.
• Five Nights at Freddy's:
  • Five Nights at Freddy's 3 has one - while the murdered children finally got vengeance on their killer after many years and were laid to rest, it came at the cost of a beloved pizzeria closing down (only to be revived as a horror attraction), the animatronics that once endeared children becoming feared and despised (and dismantled), a person losing their frontal lobe to the Bite of '87, and the death of at least one night guard. And it's implied the killer lives on in Springtrap anyway, and even after Fazbear's Fright burns down, its head can be seen by brightening up the newspaper picture, suggesting it survived the blaze.
  • Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator: Both the Cassette Man and Micheal Afton lure the animatronics into their fake pizzeria and burn it down with everyone, including themselves, inside. Good news, the murdered children (including the Cassette Man's daughter) are exorcised. Bad news, as Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach shows, it still wasn't enough to put down William Afton.
• In Forever Home, Xero fails to prevent Barclyss from scarring the planet and dooming all life. He and Enda then travel to the past using his time magic, and then the latter turns them both into trees so they can accumulate enough magic power to restore the planet once its destruction occurs. As a result, they manage to revive all lives lost in the war and even force the Barclyss into a Heel–Face Brainwashing, but their tree forms die. Additionally, Slash refuses to be revived because he wants to be Together in Death with his wife as atonement.
• Free Icecream: The girl manages to escape from her abductor-and-would-be-killer's house, but the killer already murdered her friend, and there's no indication or guarantee that the girl knows how to get home.
• FreeSpace 2 ends this way as the Shivans are revealed to be essentially unbeatable due to the magnitude of their warfleets. Upon realizing the futility of further struggle, the GTVA High Command forces a draw, of sorts, by severing all subspace links to Shivan-controlled space. A vital star system (Capella) is lost in the process, along with most of the Terran/Vasudan fleet. It is also heavily implied that the Shivans will eventually find a way around this obstacle.
• Freedom Fighters (2003). Sure, the resistance forced the Russians out of New York. But in the process, they blew up the infrastructure of most of the city. And it's not like they won't come back with more forces.
• Freedom Force, despite generally being a light-hearted, humorous homage/love letter to The Silver Age of Comic Books, has both games end this way.
  • The first game ends with Time Master defeated and the Universe saved; but Man-Bot had to stay behind in the celestial clock so the rest of Freedom Force could return to Earth.
  • The second game ends with Blitzkrieg defeated, the timeline restored, all the damage done by Entropy reversed and Man-Bot back on Earth, having been freed from the Celestial Clock ... but in order to save the world from Entropy, Alchemiss had to wipe herself from existence; meaning none of her friends even remember that she ever existed.
• Freedom Planet: Lilac and her friends stop Brevon from taking the Kingdom Stone, Milla is saved, and Brevon's army is in disarray. The Kingdom Stone, however, is destroyed in the process, but its energy is released into the skies of Avalice and the three kingdoms promise to share it. There's also still several of Brevon's cronies left on Avalice to cause trouble, Torque returns to space, and despite their sacrifices and struggles, Brevon still escapes with his life. Additionally, the destruction of the stone has released another threat.
• Frogger's Journey: The Forgotten Relic: In the game's ending, both OPARTs are destroyed after Frogger's sacrifices itself to save everyone from the explosion of Eric's, but Eric is defeated for good, and Frogger and friends all escape with their lives.
• Almost all of From Next Door's endings can be considered this to varying degrees:
  • Both of the good endings, although one leans slightly more positive.
    • In one ending Namie is assumed to be having a breakdown and must attend mandatory therapy for burning down her house and talking about monsters; she even starts to believe she could've imagined it all. When she returns to her old neighbourhood though, she glimpses the creature in the window and realizes it was true. That said, she at least escaped with her life, although the next tenants may not be so fortunate.
    • The other ending is much the same, save for the fact Namie isn't convinced she's crazy because her mother and Omura back up her story about a creature getting into the house. She is charged with reckless behaviour because the fire could've endangered her neighbours, but otherwise gets out unscathed (her contract with the housing company is nullified too, but she doesn't care because, well, there's a freaking Humanoid Abomination living next door). She ends up contacting Sen again telling him he was right, so it's possible they may be able to reach out to one another and cope with their experience together. Omura also comes to believe Namie's story about the house next door, so he might be able to warn other tenants.
  • One bad ending could be seen as this, though with heavy emphasis on the bitter. Namie is killed when the creature prevents her from escaping the burning house, but she seemingly kills the creature too.
• Front Mission loves these:
  • In the first game, sure, a couple rogue squads from the universe's two key supernations have uncovered and shut down a plot to make computers for Humongous Mecha from human brains, but that doesn't mean the third party occupying Huffman Island as a peacekeeping force will make the information public. Or that they'll let the island govern itself free from the corruption of all the military forces that have come through. Or that the player character gets to have his wife back, as he chooses to detonate his wanzer that contains her mind.
  • In Front Mission 3, Alisa, Kazuki's adopted sister, dies at the end of Emma's scenario. She stayed behind to ensure them enough time to escape the Ocean City before the MIDAS bomb vaporized the island. Kazuki and Emma are devastated, but a final email sent by Alisa before her death gives them the strength to move on. Emma and Kazuki are then seen in the field of flowers where Emma and Alisa used to play in, planning to start a family together. Alisa's scenario ends happier, as Emma and Alisa survive. However, at the end, a pair of unseen scientists are discussing how they will breed the "new" set of Imaginary Numbers, and the door shuts behind them...
• Frontlines: Fuel of War: You just fought through the downtown core of Moscow and held a square against a seemingly endless supply of Reds. Too bad the Chinese are still in the fight, and that citizen militias and the harsh Russian winter are likely to beat you back.
• Gears of War 3 ended with a superweapon created by Marcus' dad going off, causing every single non-human threat, Locust and Lambent alike, on the planet to be killed (actually, more like vaporized), and left very little room for doubt about whether any of them had survived. But aside from the vast majority of humanity being killed in the previous years, Dom and Marcus' father dying (just after reuniting with him, believing him to be dead for a long time) just before the end of the war, and the small remnant of humanity's resources already being extremely limited, nearly the entirety of the surface of the planet along with most of its natural resources were decimated during the war (by the Hammer strikes in particular), making any chance of ever rebuilding extremely slim. Life's going to be tough for humanity from here on out, any way you slice it.
• Get in the Car, Loser!:
  • After the journey to defeat the Machine Devil, Sam gains more confidence in herself while Grace and Valentin's relationship becomes stronger than ever. However, Angela is going to be punished by the Divine Order for helping the party.
  • The Fate of Another World" DLC ends far more bitterly. Although the party defeats the Machine Devil of the alternate timeline, Emily and Jo jump to their deaths, since doing so is the only way to prevent the Machine Devil from possessing Jo. Although Angela becomes the new Hero of Fate and reject the purpose given to her by her creator, she decides to stay in the alternate timeline to help Sam rebuild the charred ruins of civilization. However, the Jo of the main universe is still alive but imprisoned, and the remaining party members seek to find her to prevent her star from being misused.
• Ghost of Tsushima: On one hand, Jin kills Khotun Khan and thwarts the Mongol invasion. On the other hand, the Shogunate declares him a traitor for throwing away his Samurai honor with his "dirty" tactics (even though they were a necessity given the Khan's terrifying knowledge of the Samurai's code and tactics). Even worse, by openly defying the island's jitō, the Ghost has taught the peasantry to follow a charismatic figure instead of their proper political leaders. Lord Shimura then fails to take Jin's life in a duel as commanded by the shogun. Whether Jin spares his life or gives him an honorable death, Jin's fate is set in stone; he will have to spend the rest of his life as a fugitive, loved as a hero by the people of Tsushima and reviled as a traitor by the rest of Japan, and the only difference is whether his uncle will have to live with that worry and shame as well. And if you know your Japanese history, you know this won't be the last time the Mongols try to invade Japan...
• In the "standard" single-player endings for Giga Wing, the Player Character overloads their ship to destroy the Medallion at the cost of their life, and some of the normal two-player endings lead to one character sacrificing themselves and the other surviving, while others avert this trope by having both characters survive. Beating the True Final Boss triggers a no-sacrifice ending regardless of chosen characters.
• The God of War series:
  • In God of War III: All the Gods are dead at Kratos' vengeful hands, but in process, the whole of Greece is left in Chaos and ruins. That said, the Olympians were Jerkass Gods and Kratos, realizing the error of his ways, sacrifices himself to release the power of Hope to be used by mankind, giving them a chance to rebuild without having to rely on the Gods. The Norse era games later clarifies that Greece has in fact recovered due to Kratos' sacrifice, although as the vase depicting the Ghost of Sparta made clear, Kratos' infamy is still present there, meaning any chance of Kratos ever returning or being able to show Atreus Greece is moot, and Ragnarok reveals that the magic of Greece has died, meaning the mortals there are surviving purely by their own merits.
  • In God of War (PS4): Kratos, along with his new son Atreus, has successfully scattered the ashes of his wife Faye, their strained bond has been healed over the journey, and they return home... Except in the process Kratos is forced to kill Baldur, Magni, and Modi, earning Freya's hatred for killing her son and the wrath and attention of the Norse Gods, as evidenced by Thor arriving to face them in Atreus' dream. Killing Baldur has also activated Fimbulwinter, meaning Ragnarok will begin soon. All this means Kratos can now face a future along with his son, but the road ahead for them will be filled with peril.
  • In God of War Ragnarök: While ending on a much more happier note, the final game of the Norse era is still not without bitter elements. Asgard has been destroyed and Odin is killed for real, freeing the Nine Realms from the oppressive reign of the Aesir, the remnants of whom make peace with the Vanir and can now life in Vanaheim in peace without Odin forcing them to be tyrants. However, with Thor dead shortly after he finally redeems himself, the Aesir has no powerful protector in the present, with only Sif there to lead them, but there is hope that Thrud could eventually replace her father in that regard as she finds Mjolnir and uses it to begin training with Sigrun. The real Tyr is also found and freed and while he still needs time to adjust, there is a chance he will be able to help the Aesir and Vanir. Kratos has finally found redemption for all his deeds in Greece by saving the Norse realm and is left with joyful hope as he learns that in the future he will unite all of the Norse and become the new All-Father, setting off to repair the damage caused by Ragnarök, but there is much to fix before he could truly become the leader the Realms. While Kratos is proud of Atreus finally maturing into a responsible man who could now go and fulfill his own path, Atreus is heading outside of the Norse lands to find the surviving Giants, meaning it will be years before the family could be back together. Most bitterly is Brok's death, which shatters Sindri's friendship with Kratos and Atreus. While moments of care and tolerance shows there is still hope to earn Sindri's forgiveness, with Sindri disappearing after Brok's funeral, it will take a long time.
• Goodbye Volcano High: Fang achieves their dream and manages to pull off an amazing concert, Worm Drama becomes the biggest band in town, they mend all their relationships, and they can potentially start a romance with Naomi... but none of it changes that the asteroid is still going to hit. Ultimately, Fang helps bring comfort and closure to everyone around them, and they won't be facing the end of the world alone. This ends up being true for the group's "Legends & Lore" tabletop sessions as well: The heroes manage to defeat Braxus, saving the world and allowing people to live in peace; but at the end of the fight, they are sucked through Braxus' portal into a black void of darkness and are pulled apart into space dust over millions of years, becoming constellations in the night sky, overlooking the world they saved.
• Granblue Fantasy:
  • The ending of "The Inner Light" event. Avarita has been defeated, and the commotion caused by her rampage has bought attention of Epice officials to Sidheros Island, hopefully meaning that conditions on the island will be better. However, Galthazar is still going to be sent to a prison hospital, and while his precious children will be in good hands, he'll still be separated from them for potentially a very long time, with only Altos remaining behind so that he doesn't break down completely from loneliness.
  • The Titanic Yeager event. The Female Titan is dealt with and Eren is saved. But titans still roam about around the island of Estioss. However, the citizens within the walls are given hope of freedom now that they knew of the existence of the sky realm.
• Quite a few Grand Theft Auto games end this way:
  • At the end of Advance, Mike's thought dead best friend Vinnie is revealed to have faked his death in order to get away with the entirety of the money the two had heisted. Mike kills Vinnie and gets back the money, but nearly every major gang in Liberty City is out for his blood, and his only true friend, Eight Ball, has been arrested. (Fortunately, those who've played Grant Theft Auto 3 know that he eventually escapes.)
  • Chinatown Wars ends with Huang, after a harrowing journey throughout the city, finally avenging the death of his father, retrieving the stolen ancestral sword, and becoming the new leader of the Liberty City Triads. On the downside, a lot of people, many of them Huang's friends and allies, died along the way.
  • Both endings of IV. In "Revenge", Niko finally kills Big Bad Dimitri and finally finds some measure of peace in his life, only to see his girlfriend gunned down by Dimitri's vengeful dragon. Despite this loss, Niko is still able to come to some form of peace after avenging his girlfriend, his cousin Roman is alive and well and is in fact soon to be a father, which is a major step up from the Butt-Monkey status he had throughout the game. However, if Niko chooses the "Deal" ending, Dimitri screws him over, then tries to kill Niko at Roman's wedding, but Roman gets killed in the process. Niko then goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, killing Dimitri in the end. Additionally, his girlfriend breaks up with him for abandoning his principles, and in the epilogue leaves town after offering her condolences. In any case, Niko is royally screwed up if he chooses one ending over the other.
  • The Ballad of Gay Tony ends with Luis nearly killing Tony. They both survive and get out of debt, although they lose the diamonds nearly every gangster in Liberty City had been fighting over. Unlike the main game, however, this is far further on the sweet end of the Bittersweet Ending spectrum.
• The ending of Grim Fandango. Manny defeats the Big Bad, gets the girl, and earns himself a ticket to the next world, thus finally reaching his initial goal of getting out of the Land of the Dead. However, he has to leave his best friend Glottis behind, because Glottis isn't a human soul but a native elemental spirit (though Glottis is happy with his new job and new friends that he was able to get thanks to Manny). Furthermore, it is unknown what exactly happens to a soul upon entering the Ninth Underworld, apart from the fact that none of the departed ever came back. The very last line in the game drives the point home:
  Manny: "If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might as well enjoy the trip".
• The Half-Life series never ends on a completely good note.
  • In Half-Life, Gordon is told that his efforts were observed by some extraterrestrial entity for an employment opportunity. He is then given a choice, either join the G-Man (the recruiter/employer), or go against a gross of Xen minions weaponless. Either choice leaves a bitter taste in the player's mouth.
  • In the expansion pack Opposing Force, the player character Adrian Shepard is sealed for eternity after the events of the game, since he's never mentioned in the Half-Life universe again...
  • In Half-Life 2 ends with a massive explosion about to consume Gordon and Alyx. Before it reaches them, the G-man momentarily stops time to rescue Gordon, saying his services will be needed again, while his partner is presumably left to die.
  • In Episode 2 Eli Vance, Alyx's father, dies in her sight while Combine Advisors suck his brains out after averting a major invasion from the Combine.
  • The only official Half-Life game that didn't have such a bad ending was Half-Life: Blue Shift, where Barney Calhoun successfully escapes Black Mesa, later appearing in Half-Life 2.
• The "good" ending in The Halloween Hack. Dr. Andonuts dies, but the monsters have been stopped, and Varik is returned to Twoson.
• Halo:
  • At the end of Halo 3, the remainder of humanity has been saved, the Covenant has been disbanded, Gravemind and the Flood are toast, but at the cost of every named human we see in the games, except for Lord Hood. Including Sgt. Johnson (SAD SAD dirge music). The protagonist and his trusty AI companion are stranded in an unknown part of the galaxy, and presumed dead by everyone else.
  • The original Halo: Combat Evolved had this as well. The ring is destroyed and the galaxy is saved (for now). Too bad nearly everybody in the game was on the ring at the time, and Master Chief had to kill Captain Keyes himself after the latter was turned into a Flood monster. Sergeant Johnson made it off in a Pelican, but we didn't know this at the time.
  • Adding to the bitterness of the original trilogy's ending, 23 billion humans (out of an estimated pre-war population 39 billion) are dead, a good majority of Human colonies have been glassed, and rebuilding will be a lengthy and arduous process that may take decades, even with the UNSC starting to pump out new and improved technology again.
  • By the end of Halo: Reach, all but one of Noble Team is dead and the titular planet has capitulated, but not before Six helps the Pillar of Autumn to escape with Cortana aboard. Which of course results in Master Chief being unleashed, and ultimately sets up the Covenant's downfall.
  • In Halo 4, the Chief finally manages to stop the Didact; however, the Didact was still able to wipe out an entire metropolis, and Cortana ended up sacrificing herself to ensure victory.
  • Halo Wars: The Covenant have been stopped, the Arbiter is dead, the Prophet of Regret has been stopped, and the Spirit of Fire is safe... but then Captain Cutter pauses to lay his hand on Sgt. Forges' empty cryo bay.
    Cutter: You got all of us out of there, professor.
    Anders: Not all of us, Captain.
  • Additionally, the Spirit of Fire, left without an FTL Drive, is left drifting in space for what turns out to be twenty-eight years.
• At the end of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, you die suddenly, at a premature age of at maximum your 60s and being unable to see your adult child begin their career. However, you lived a happy, peaceful life doing what you enjoy, making friends, and having a family.
• Norman Jayden from Heavy Rain has not a single unequivocally 'good' ending to call his own. Instead, most of his epilogues fluctuate between bittersweet and downright depressing. His two best endings fall under the former category. In 'Resignation', Jayden gives up on the Origami Killer case and resigns from the FBI. He states that he needs time to distance himself from the murders and get in touch with 'the real world' again. He also gives up the ARI, and it is implied that Jayden is putting effort into overcoming his addictions. In 'Case Closed', Jayden saves Shaun Mars and is hailed as a hero by the press, but his overuse of the ARI has caused him to start seeing vivid hallucinations. The epilogue has no spoken dialogue by Jayden, and ends with a shot of his surprised expression before fading to black. It is not revealed whether or not this condition is permanent.
• Heavy Water Jogger: The good news is Mr. Fluke, owner of the biggest, most dangerous nuclear power plant in the USA and jogger, turned the heavy water back on, saved the plant, and got out of there alive. The bad news is the No Name Given disgruntled employee, who started the whole mess in the first place, has escaped, called the police, and pinned the crime on him. The police arrest Mr. Fluke. Then again, Alternative Character Interpretation seems to suggest that Mr. Fluke may have been a Bad Boss and Villain Protagonist, while the employee may be a Magnificent Bastard who wanted to take down Mr. Fluke.
• The TurboGrafx-16 Toaplan Shoot 'Em Up Hellfire S ends with Karou sacrificing herself by ramming her ship into the enemy core by use of a kamikaze attack.
• Two of the Multiple Endings of Completing the Mission end like this. Examples include:
  • "Valiant Hero": The Toppat Clan's space station is destroyed, but Charles is K.I.A., leaving Henry implicitly traumatized for the rest of his life.
  • "Revenged": Henry gets his revenge against the Toppat Clan for betraying and mutilating him, but dies for good in the process.
• The Order/Academy campaign in Heroes of Might and Magic IV ends with the hero defeating the Big Bad, like all video games do. It also ends with The Hero paralyzed from the waist down, her advisor and father figure mindcontrolled and killed by their own men, and a Fate Worse than Death for the Big Bad, who is actually a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• Hotline Miami ends with the protagonist taking a smoke from the balcony of the final boss' mansion, having avenged his girlfriend, as well as his old squad mate from the USA-Russia war 3 years before the events of the game, as he lets go of a picture that he had taken with him. Though you only figure that out after playing the sequel.
• In The House of the Dead: OVERKILL, G and Issac stop Papa Cesar and Clement from unleashing their plans, but Varla's brain ends up getting separated from their body, and the last boss fight was against the mutated form of it.
• I. M. Meen: The sequel, Chill Manor. You finally capture Ophelia... only for Meen to teleport in, free her from her restraints, and mock you (even saying he has a feeling that you and him will be meeting very soon, a subtle way to advertise the first game), before warping out. Ophelia then blows a raspberry and laughs in an obnoxious tone at you before vanishing. Though, on the positive side, you recovered all the pages of the Book of Ages and prevented her from rewriting history. Still, it does little to soften the disappointment from the fact that she gets away with everything.
• Ib:
  • The "Memory's Crannies" ending. Garry and Ib escape the gallery alive, but they do not remember each other or the adventure they shared.
  • In "Forgotten Portrait" and "Together, Forever", Ib escapes the gallery but Garry dies and she does not remember anything she just experienced. The only difference between the two endings is Mary escapes the gallery in "Together Forever" and a Cosmic Retcon takes place, resulting in a world where Mary is Ib's sister. And Mary gets away with killing Garry.
  • One variant of the "Ib All Alone" path leans heavily towards the "bitter" side: Garry escapes the gallery but Ib stays behind after being tricked by a hallucination of her mother. Garry likely will not remember it.
• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: In the "Good" ending. The bad: Four out of five survivors are dead. The good: They were able to overcome their personal demons and defeat AM, with the final survivor being able to rebuild the Earth, and eventually bring the humans on the moon home.
• At the end of Ikaruga, your ship sacrifices itself to destroy the Final Boss. It's also bittersweet because while Shinra and Kagari die fighting the Stone-Like, they succeed in destroying it, ending the Eternal Recurrence from Radiant Silvergun once and for all.
• The optimist ending in I Miss the Sunrise. The universe is preserved at its current state — no more, no less. The war is over, but it has taken its toll — now there is even more work to do before society gets back to pre-Shine levels of stability. Neff, Chac, Cassidy, Cole, and Ivoronus are dead, and Tezkhra and Mahk have disappeared. Ros is possibly dead as well.
• The best ending of the Kongregate flash game ImmorTall. The alien saves the human family it befriended but succumbs to its wounds and dies in the end. The family briefly mourn the death of their new friend before fleeing the scene, and snow slowly buries the alien.
• Only the 1-player "use at least one continue" ending of In the Hunt is an unambiguously happy ending. As for the rest:
  • 1 player, clear the game with no continues used: D.A.S. is destroyed like in the best ending, but one last "furious explosion" destroys your sub in the process. It's a Wonderful Failure, indeed.
  • 2 players, either player wins the final battle against each other: With the defeated pilot dead, the winner becomes the new ruler of D.A.S. It's Another Wonderful Failure.
  • 2 players, neither player has run out of lives when time runs out: D.A.S. is destroyed, but both player subs are destroyed too.
• inFAMOUS:
  • The good ending to the original game sees Cole having stopped Kessler, but having to prepare for The Beast alone, what with his girlfriend dead, his best friend turned a traitor, and the whole disaster pinned on him by Moya.
  • The good ending of inFAMOUS 2 is even more bittersweet. On activating the RFI, Cole stops The Beast once and for all, at the cost of his own life and the lives of every other conduit on Earth. However, the plague that would wipe out humanity is gone, and the town of New Marais hails Cole as a patron saint. Also, the very last moment of the good ending implies Cole might not be dead, but inFAMOUS: Second Son shows that Cole is in fact dead.
  • inFAMOUS: Second Son is no exception: in its good ending, Delsin exposes Augustine's deceptions regarding conduits, toppling the D.U.P. and liberating the conduits she imprisoned while using the concrete powers he took from her to heal the Akomish tribe. Sadly, however, Delsin's brother Reggie is dead, but in an incredibly touching moment, Delsin changes the billboard of Reggie he vandalized at the start of the game into a beautiful memorial in honor of him.
• Infernax: Both the Good and Redemption endings involve Alcedor striking down Belphegor and ending the scourge facing Upel (and in the latter, atoning for his prior crimes), but dies as a result.
• Into the Breach: The end of a run involves the mechs plunging into the Vek hive and destroying it using a Renfield Bomb, saving humanity in one timeline. However, the pilots of the mechs cannot escape the blast of the bomb conventionally, and must immediately time travel to another timeline in peril, forced to continue the fight ad infinitum.
• Jack French: The ending for the third game. Jack may have killed Vince, the Big Bad of the entire series, but he got killed as well.
• King Arthur & the Knights of Justice: After all their efforts to protect and save Camelot, it's not for the football team to enjoy this world's newfound peace. It's time for them to finally go home. To this end, they gather at Stonehenge and are transported back as suddenly as they were ripped from their own world, leaving Merlin to utter a simple "Good-bye, Arthur." for the addressed no longer to hear.
• Despite the cheery aesthetic, emphasis on The Power of Love and The Power of Friendship, and the indefatigueable optimism of the main characters, the Kingdom Hearts franchise is full of these, with so far only one game out of seven with a definitely happy ending.
  • The first game, Kingdom Hearts, ends with Ansem apparently defeated, and the worlds restored to life...but Kairi is now stuck alone on the restored islands that the protagonist called home, Riku, who has finally come to his senses about the darkness, has locked himself in a dark world along with Mickey, the king Sora and company have been desperately trying to find, and our heroes are left wandering and lost and on Castle Oblivion's doorstep.
  • The second game, both chronologically speaking and in order of release, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories has two endings, one for Sora-mode and one for Riku-mode, and neither are all that cheerful: Sora ends up a shell of his former self, having completely forgotten Kairi, and must sleep for a year while Namine restores his mind to how it should be—that not sad to you? Namine, under orders from the Big Bad, was the one who replaced Kairi in Sora's memories with herself, and now must make Sora forget she ever existed when he was the only person in her life who actually cared about her. As for Riku, it turns out that Ansem has been possessing him and while he stops him now, he'll always be lurking, waiting to possess him again, and that no matter what he will have to come to terms with his own darkness. He finally finds Sora again — but just after Sora begins that year-long sleep, and thus has to leave him while he goes on his own path.
  • The third game released and also third chronologically, Kingdom Hearts II, is the one extant game in the franchise with a happy ending, but damned if didn't require a hell of a lot of work.
  • Fourth game released and a complicated sort of Prequel / Interquel/whateverquel mix, spanning from just before the end of the first game, over the events of the second, and ending right before the third, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days ends with the "villain" protagonist running to the cessation of his existence as a separate entity that will occur in the prologue of the third game, after having had to do in his poor friend who was Doomed by Canon, setting up most of Kingdom Hearts II.
  • How Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep initially ended; Terra, Aqua and Ventus ended up suffering a Fate Worse than Death but not before stopping Xehanort and Vanitas's Keyblade War plan from being commenced. Unfortunately, revelations from Dream Drop Distance turns it into a flat out Downer Ending.
  • Kingdom Hearts coded, released for cell phones in Japan and later remade for the DS for the US, doesn't have a happy, bittersweet, or sad ending. It instead ends on a pure Sequel Hook.
  • Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] ends with the characters doing juuust better than breaking even, with the Big Bad still at large and stronger than ever and, of the two protagonists who set out to get the Mark of Mastery, only one succceeded, while the other almost died and needs to retrain from square one.
  • Kingdom Hearts III ends with this in an almost picture perfect fashion. All the good guys of the series have got their happy ending, having been brought back to life and/or reunited with lost friends. When Sora appeared after saving Kairi, the ending was the ideal Happily Ever After scene; that is, until Sora inexplicably just vanishes. The Re:Mind DLC basically confirms that Sora is really gone for good and had been gone for a better part of a year already. Literally everyone, including the big bad Xehanort, got a happy ending except for Sora. Re:Mind ups the ante by having a 'Bad Ending' in addition to the normal ending, where Sora actually loses and is turned into a crystal statue. Thankfully this Bad Ending isn't canon...probably.
• Kings Quest (2015) ends with Graham losing all of his friends to the passing of time and finally dying of old age. Graham has, however, lived a long and fulfilling life, ensured the continued survival of his kingdom, found a worthy heir, spends his last moments in the presence of his family, and has finally been reunited with the spirit of his old friend Achaka. Plus his grand-daughter Gwendolyn is eager for her own adventures and takes up his cap, so his legacy lives on.
• Klonoa:
  • Klonoa: Door to Phantomile ends with a Tomato in the Mirror reveal where Klonoa's best friend, Huepow, reveals that he faked all of the former's memories and pulled Klonoa in from another universe to try and stop the Big Bad. When Phantomile is about to be cleansed from anything that doesn't belong there, Klonoa is among the things that are forcibly removed from the world.
  • Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil isn't much better. Sure, the main antagonist is killed and the world is saved, but the main antagonist turned out to be an Anti-Villain who only wanted to save his dying kingdom, and despite forming a close romantic relationship with the lead female character, Klonoa can't stay in this world either, and has to leave in an ending almost as heart-wrenching as the first game's.
• Knights in the Nightmare:
  • Its "good ending". Despite beating the Big Bad, the loyal knights of King Willimgard are all dead, his son is dead, the Tiamat race is doomed, and the whole kingdom is in ruins.
  • Every single ending aside from the ones that are Nonstandard Game Overs or just plain nightmarish is like this:
    • If you found Ancardia and won the final battle, Willimgard gets to come back to life, but the world is still a mess. He may or may not get his Tiamat lover back as a farewell present, and poor Maria gets damned and thrown out of Asgard despite how hard she fought to fix her mistakes as Marietta.
    • If you didn't find Ancardia, Maria and the Wisp are just stuck Walking the Earth for the rest of their lives. However, since disembodied souls can only survive for so long before dispersing, this is probably going to be very short. Not to mention that the world is slightly screwed with no Arbitrator.
    • In Meria's route, it's even worse, as the only way to get a reasonably "good" ending is to backstab Meria and side with Marietta despite everything you've been through together and the self-destructive loyalty she's shown you.
    • And if you decide that protecting your True Companions is more important to you than textbook order, then win your battle against Marietta, Meria becomes Melod Melgis. The good news is that there's no more corrupt Asgard and no more Hector. The bad news is that the world kind of sucks now.
• L.A. Noire has Cole Phelps drowned in the sewers saving both Jack Kelso, his not-friend-but-not-enemy, and Elsa Litchmann, his love interest. The game ends with Jack attending Cole's funeral with Elsa and Cole's ex-partner Biggs. While the Suburban Redevelopment Fund is finished, the corruption endemic in the LAPD and Mayor's office, that chewed up and spat out Cole, is allowed to continue, and Roy Earle, Cole's crooked Vice partner and SRF bagman, gets to deliver Cole's eulogy. That's Noir for you.
• In La Pucelle: Tactics, even though the world was saved, as was Croix, it is not unmixed with sadness, since Allouette died to save Croix and, even though Croix and Prier finally confessed their love, they go their separate ways.
• In The Last of Us, Joel saves Ellie from being killed by the Fireflies and the two are free to live out their lives in peace. This comes at the cost of a possible cure for the cordyceps and Joel having to lie to Ellie about the circumstances behind their escape.
• The Last Story ends with the war between humans and Gurak terminated, ending with both races living together in peace. Also, the Outsider is reassembled and it flies to space where it belongs. Calista marries Zael, and even gives him the title of Knight he has been dreaming of. However, the characters lament that Dagran had to be killed when he revealed himself to be a comrade of Zangurak, though he manages to redeem right before his death. It's also revealed that, despite his questionable ambitions, Count Arganan was not purely evil like he thought, and even the otherwise jerk-acting Jirall had earned an undeserved death after he slipped into insanity as a result of Dagran having falsely accused him for the death of General Asthar, which was actually Dagran's crime.
• In the Left 4 Dead & Left 4 Dead 2 DLC mission "The Sacrifice" (and the comic tie-in), the original surviors escape to the Florida keys and potential safety from infected, but at the cost of one of their team members; while the players can choose between themselves in-game, the canon choice means that Bill Overbeck has been Killed Off for Real.
• The Legend of Spyro: All of the games' endings are bittersweet, some more than others:
  • The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning: Spyro has rescued Cynder from her enslavement by the Dark Master by beating the curse out of her, and in doing so has delayed the Dark Master's return. However, there are still other ways he can return, Spyro's powers have been sapped by the effort it took to defeat Cynder, and Cynder is worried she doesn't belong after what she has done to the world.
  • The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night: Spyro has managed to defeat the Big Bad, Gaul, but in doing so, he briefly fell prey to dark powers. Now the mountain is collapsing in on him and his friends, with no way out because of Spyro's brief possession and subsequent self-doubt. He has no choice to encompass himself, Cynder, and Sparx in crystal to stay alive. Oh, and the Dark Master has been resurrected, now free to wreak havoc on the world. Damn.
  • The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon: With Malefor's death, the world has begun to break apart. Spyro, with his special powers, manages to save it from doing so. However, Ignitus is dead, and everyone, including Sparx, thinks Spyro and Cynder might be dead too. Made a bit happier at the end when we're shown that Ignitus becomes the next Chronicler and Spyro and Cynder are alive and well, though they still haven't been reunited with their friends.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Navi, Tatl, the King of Red Lions, Midna, Fi. Only a few examples of Link's faithful companions throughout his adventure fated to part ways with Link forever when his quest is complete.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the entire island turns out to be a dream that vanishes when the Wind Fish awakens. By completing the game without dying, there's a scene where Marin is shown flying off with the wings of a seagull like she always dreamed.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ends with Link defeating Ganon in one timeline, and it is implied that he stops Ganondorf's plan before it can start in a second, but he is left with the memories of his battles and a hellish world ruled by evil that only he remembers, none of his friends in Kokiri Forest remember him anymore, the world he lives in will never know how he saved it, and his best friend, who stood by him in every battle, leaves him for parts unknown. Then there's the third timeline, which veers straight into Downer Ending teritory when Link fails to defeat Ganondorf and is killed in the process.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask seems to have a pretty cheery ending for what is otherwise a dark and depressing entry in the franchise. The land of Termina is saved, the moon has been destroyed, the evil within Majora's Mask is gone, and the festival commences - with Link apparently being coerced into leaving before it even begins by the very people he had accompanied on his quest. But right after the scene where everyone you've helped is having a good time, you see the Deku Butler kneeling in agony before the dead, twisted tree you encountered at the very beginning of your journey; the one you saw right after being turned into a Deku Scrub. Tatl even remarked on how much it resembled your new, twisted form. When you wear the Deku Mask, the Butler is reminded of the days when he raced against his son, whose wherabouts are unknown throughout the course of the game. Remember, every other transformative mask you acquire in the game (sans the Fierce Deity's Mask) contains the spirit of someone who had died. Was the Deku Mask really an exception? And to top it all off, Link never actually manages to find Navi, who had left him without anything in the way of an explanation at the end of Ocarina of Time. On the bright side, The Skull Kid reformed and renewed his friendship with the Giants, which granted peace for all of Termina's living.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Ganondorf is finally and utterly defeated, but the Master Sword and the ancient Kindgom of Hyrule fall into permanent oblivion, despite it originally being one of your (unknown) goals to revive it. Also, King Daphnes rejects his grand-grand-[...]-grandaughter Tetra's pleas to go and search for a new land along with her and Link, resulting in him saying a touching line of speech, before finally drowning in the waters of the Great Sea, which crash down on the ruins of ancient Hyrule. Even Link tries to reach out for his hand once again, but he refuses to take it, knowing he and Zelda will eventually find a new world to call home in the vast ocean.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: Vaati is defeated, but Ezlo returns to the world of the Minish as the door that opens only once every hundred years is about to close. In other words, Link never meets the Minsh again, and all their helpful hints and gear are lost in that door for another century.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess ends with Link and Midna (who have become rather close friends after spending the bulk of the game practically inseparable) separated when the bridge between their worlds is permanently destroyed, and the populace at large is nearly totally unaware of the struggles the two went through. In this case, it was done on purpose by Midna, apparently to make sure the two worlds remain separate and nothing like what happened with Zant ever happens again. This was a very unpopular move among Midna's many fans, but was worth it since Zant's goal of creating darkness was crushed.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword ends with the sealing of Demon King Demise, bringing peace to Hyrule and the Sky. However, after his defeat, Demise curses Link and Zelda by encasing them and their descendants into an endless fight between good and evil, effectively setting up the existence of Ganon in the other games. Later on, there's the farewell between Link and Fi, then between Impa and Zelda in the past, and then the physical departure of Impa in the present.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Calamity Ganon is sealed away and Link and Zelda are reunited. But many good people, like the King and the Champions, had to die to make it all happen and the Hyrule kingdom is still fragmented. Also, Zelda's hundred long years locked in battle with Ganon can never be erased and she has probably lost most of her divine power. To top it off, Ganon's defeat is only temporary and Zelda implies he will return in the future. Not all is lost, however, as Link and Zelda agree to continue their research and bring Hyrule back to its former glory.
• Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice: Larry and Faith finally get hitched and are about to have a happy life together, but Pi was killed in order to save the world from Wang's Pi-Bots.
• Liar Jeannie In Crucifix Kingdom has the "kill humans" ending, the neutral ending, and the secret ending, which all allow Jeanne and Marta to be together. However, Marta was an undead all along and cannot survive outside the kingdom without becoming Jeannie's thrall, though he is allowed to keep his sentience in that case. The "kill humans" ending is more bitter than the other two due to Jeannie becoming a Well-Intentioned Extremist who believes she's helping people by turning them undead, though it's still better than the Downer Ending where Jeannie kills Marta.
• In The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, the Wolf manages to restore the Prince's sight, but because they accidentally burned down the Witch's home and part of the forest, the Witch takes her human form and memories of the Prince as payment. She also doesn't get her singing voice back. However, in spite of the Wolf's now atrocious musical ability, the Prince is able to find her again and offers her a bouquet of flowers, bringing forth a sense of nostalgia in her and rekindling their friendship.
• Lichdom: Battlemage ends with the Dragon defeating King Cavassa and a resurrected, Demonic Count Shax, thus ending the Cult of Malthus's dark plans, but the Gryphon is dead, Roth's MIA, and the Cult itself isn't truly destroyed, but rather gone into hiding. On the plus side, the Dragon is confident that they'll be able to protect the world with their newfound power.
• At the end of Life Is Strange's final episode, you are offered one last painful choice: Let your best friend die, or let the whole town be destroyed. One of those options results in the deaths of everyone who hadn't already fled the town, probably hundreds of people, and the other means that Chloe (who Max can potentially fall in love with) dies and the time she spent with Max during the game is overwritten by a new timeline, meaning that Max's friendship with and love for Chloe only lives on in Max's memories. It's hard to say which is the more painful choice.
• Like a Dragon:
  • Yakuza: This one is a doozy. The big plot is resolved, the stolen ten billion yen recovered and a corrupt psychopath of a politician brought down. However, Kiryu has lost everyone during this plot. His best friend, his foster father, his sweetheart, his main bar's owner and his most trusted subordinate are all dead. The only thing that keeps his from completely sliding across the Despair Event Horizon is a reminder that Haruka is still alive and he is the closest thing to family she has.
  • Yakuza 0: The rights to the Empty Lot go to Sera, allowing him to foil everyone's power grab and clear Kazama's name while catching the actual Empty Lot killer, Majima is freed from his Gilded Cage in Sotenbori, and Makoto Makimura gets out alive and even recovers her eyesight. However, Tachibana and Oda are dead, Kiryu's decided to return to the Dojima family despite everything Sohei Dojima did to him, and Majima cuts all contact with Makoto so that she can have a normal life.
  • Yakuza 6: Kiryu is still alive, but to protect Haruka and those closest to him, he fakes his death; they will be safe, but he can never see them again. Daigo Dojima is also released from prison and the Tojo Clan is saved from destruction, but the road ahead for them will be fraught with peril.
  • Yakuza: Like a Dragon: Masato's plans have been stopped, his allies arrested, and Ichiban has clawed his way up back to the top. However, both Arakawas have perished (even if Ichiban was the real one instead of Masato), and the impossible has happened: Both the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance have been officially disbanded. Fifteen years have been spent defending the Tojo, only for it to amount to nothing in the end. In addition, while the Ijin 3 have lost most of their resources and will likely never be as strong as they once were, they are also on the road to rebuilding. Ichiban and his friends have also chosen to stay and act as its protectors, so the situation isn't completely hopeless. As one story with the Tojo clan and the traditional Yakuza way ends, another begins with Ichiban and his group. And while the Tojo Clan and Omi Alliance are both now disbanded, Daigo and Watase have joined together to form a legitimate security company staffed by former members of both groups, which can give them all an honest living, if nothing else.
  • Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name: Even when tempted with promises to be able to return to see his children in Okinawa, he keeps his promise to the Daidoji, the government faction that helped fake his death, and plays a key role in helping the Tojo Clan and Omi Alliance officially disband, even though it means being party to the end of the organization to which he had dedicated the near-entireity of his adult life. Even though he gets to see his old friends, like Daigo Dojima and Goro Majima, along the way, he is forced to maintain his Kayfabe as simply hired muscle with no relation to the legendary Dragon of Dojima. As part of his deal with the Daidoji, he also cannot return home to Okinawa, nor make contact with his children — something that hits him especially hard when his handler shows him footage of his children visiting his grave to show how well they were getting by in his absence. For a mercy, though, his exemplary work with the Daidoji earns him a boon: the privilege of taking a vacation wherever he wants (except for Kamurocho or Okinawa). Kiryu decides to take advantage of the opportunity and travel the world, saving the place he had once hoped to marry the love of his life, Hawaii, for last.
  • Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: Ebina and Bryce are brought to justice, and their plans to turn Nele Island into the world's toxic waste dumping ground are exposed and foiled. Yamai and Eiji have turned themselves over to the police while Lani and Akane are taking charge of Palekana to reform it. However, several of the heroes' allies have died (including Hanawa from Gaiden), Chitose now has to abandon the Tatara Channel for her father's company, and it's made clear that there will always be those attempting to revive the Yakuza. Furthermore, while Kiryu is still suffering from terminal cancer, he's now able to live under his own name, with Haruka and Haruto visiting him in the epilogue, and has decided to go through chemotherapy in order to fight for whatever time he has left with his loved ones.
• Little Nightmares: At the end of the game, Six finally kills the Lady, the tyrannical boss of The Maw. By devouring her corpse, she gains the Lady's shadow magic powers, which she uses the kill the Guests and exit the Maw. However, while Six has escaped the clutches of the adults who wanted to kill/devour her, there are still several other children being held captive, not to mention that the Twin Chefs are still alive and could potentially take up the Lady's legacy of keeping the restaurant alive.
• Little Nightmares II: Once again, Six manages to escape the TV world to safety... but for unstated reasons, her companion Mono, who risked both his life and limb to get her out, was left behind and condemned to become the Thin Man. And it's implied that Six deliberately dropped him. And it's hinted that this will happen over and over again.
• Live A Live:
  • The Imperial China chapter ends with Ou Di Wan Lee defeated, the legacy of Earthen Heart preserved, and the surviving disciple hailed as a hero by the people, but the Earthen Heart Shifu and the two other disciples are all dead.
  • The Near Future chapter ends with The Conspiracy and Odeo defeated, and Akira having inherited Lawless' taiyaki stand and his motorcycle, but Lawless and at least 2,000 other people are dead because of the Conspirators' plan, the Steel Titan is once again dormant, Watanabe presumably doesn't know of his father's fate, and it's left unclear if Kaori's condition ever improves.
  • The Distant Future chapter ends with OD-10 defeated and the Behemoth killed, but Cube, Kato, and Darthe are the only survivors of the chapter's event, with the rest of the Cogito Ergo Sum's crew dead. Notably, this chapter's credits are accompanied by the song "Cry A Live", a somber song usually played over the game's sad moments, making it the only chapter where that's the case.
  • The game's Golden Ending is this. Odio is defeated, Oersted redeems himself, and the 7 heroes are returned to their original times, but Oersted still lost everything, robbed of a bright future, and ultimately dies, Lucrece has been rendered a Ghost Town due to Odio's rampage, and Oersted's dying words imply that, As Long as There Is Evil, there is always the potential that a new Lord of Dark will rise.
• Living Books: If you click on the lollipop at the end of "Arthur's Computer Adventure", the player character opens a candy store and becomes very popular, but then starts getting cavities, ostensibly from eating too much of the leftover candy.
• Loom: The protagonist, Bobbin, destroys the titular Loom to keep it out of the Big Bad's hand, then uses the Transcendence draft on himself to turn into a swan (apparently irrevocably). Together with the other Weavers-turned-swans, he is only able to save half the world by grabbing it and flying away with it into the void. Hetchel, the main character's mother-substitute and closest ally, sacrifices her life to teach Bobbin how to destroy the Loom. And worst of all, the Big Bad, Chaos, claims the other half of the world, swearing to torment and ruin it forever so Bobbin will be tormented by thoughts of the half of humanity he abandoned.
• In the game series Lost in Blue, one of the possible endings usually requires going through 365 days on the island without finding a way off. Suddenly there's a cut scene where the characters realize that they'll never get off this island, but it doesn't really bother them anymore.
• The Loud House licensed games:
  • If your meter is in the yellow when the game ends in Clean-o-Clock, it will be marked as a successful day, and Rita and Lynn Sr. won't be unhappy, but on the other hand, they won't be impressed either.
  • Depending on how long you took to complete Lights Out, Lincoln may miss some of his show but be able to watch the rest of it.
• In Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, the four Sinistrals are defeated, saving the world from their rule, with the heroes able to withstand one last attack from them in their dying breaths - with the exception of Selan, who soon dies in Maxim's arms. After his companions teleport away, Maxim dies after exhausting his energy to stop Doom Island from crashing into Parcelyte. The game ends with Maxim and Selan's companions celebrating their victory and anticipating the two's return, unaware of (or, depending on interpretation, unwilling to accept) their fate. Made even more bitter by the fact that Maxim and Selan had a son in Parcelyte, who will now live to see his future, thanks to Maxim's sacrifice, but will never know his parents. Averted in the DS version's secret ending. "Jeros, we're home!"
• Lunar: Eternal Blue "officially" ends with Zophar defeated and Lunar safe, but Lucia is forced to return to the Blue Star, leaving Hiro behind on Lunar. The epilogue allows you to find Hiro a way to travel to the Blue Star, but this only sets up another bittersweet ending: Hiro is able to be with Lucia, but at the cost of leaving his friends and family on Lunar, probably forever.
• Machina of the Planet Tree -Planet Ruler-: Gertheim and Apocalypse are defeated, but the Etherlight Network being unsealed means Ether technology will flourish and potentially cause another Ether imbalance for the planet.
• Mad Max (2015): Scrotus is dead and his reign of terror is over, but Hope, Glory, and Chumbucket are dead, the Magnum Opus is lost, and Max is now worse off mentally than he was at the beginning.
• Mad Rat Dead: Mad Rat frees himself from the Rat God's control, but he is inevitably going to die. However, Heart has been saved from the operation, and he uses his newfound freedom to save the people he and Mad Rat met along the way. At the end of his journey, he returns to the lab to comfort Mad Rat in his last moments.
• Mafia III has three endings (not counting that one choice having three different outcomes) that all fall under this in one way.
  • If Lincoln Clay decides to stay in New Bordeaux and rule over the city with his underbosses, he uses the money made from their rackets to develop the poorest parts of the city, becoming a Villain with Good Publicity, only to become loathed by the one person who truly cared about him; Father James Ballard.
  • If Lincoln Clay decides to kill all his underbosses and rule the city alone, he will immediately get killed in a car bomb upon leaving the plantation. The perpetrator is revealed to be Father James, who was disgusted by the fact that Lincoln turned out to be not so different from Sal Marcano.
  • If Lincoln Clay decides to leave New Bordeaux, he effectively disappears from the public eye to live a normal life, only to turn back to a life of crime, before becoming a complete vagabond. However, Jonathan Maguire reports that there has been various sightings of Lincoln across the world, with Lincoln occasionally sending postcards to Father James. This also results in three different outcomes for the three underbosses, depending on who had the most control of New Bordeaux.
    • Cassandra's fate ends up being unknown; she ends up with a bounty placed on her head by many gangs across the South, as no one takes her seriously due to being both black and a woman. However, she defeats all of them, drawing the attention of the state government. She ends up assassinating the state governor after he declares martial law, causing the government to cut off federal aid to New Bordeaux. New Bordeaux is eventually destroyed by a hurricane thanks to this. According to rumours, she survived the hurricane and secretly rules what remains of the city from the bayou.
    • Burke's fate has him strike it rich at first, even getting onto the government and renaming New Bordeaux to Bourbon City, only for his violent temperament to start various gang wars. He is assassinated in 1984 by a rival gang, but this leads to never-ending gang wars in New Bordeaux as no gang can remain in power for so long.
    • Vito's fate has him legalize gambling in Louisiana (as Sal Marcano wanted to do before him) and transforming New Bordeaux into "the Las Vegas of the East". A fast forward to the present shows he is still alive, ruling over New Bordeaux from Sal Marcano's planned casino. And after all the crap he went through between the last game and this one, he definitely earns it.
• The old Super Famicom shooter Majyuo have your hero, Abel, on a Roaring Rampage of Rescue after the forces of darkness whom had abducted your wife and daughter. In order to do so, you must consume the souls of demons, turning yourself into a monster (a process which is irreversible if taken to extremes). You fail to save your wife, and after killing the demon and Final Boss, you realize your daughter is a succubus, and you're both stuck permanently as demons - but you vow to create a world for both humans and demons to co-exist in peace.
• Manafinder: In the Frederick or Starkas endings, Lambda leads the Settlement citizens to a new home, either Tuonela or Manahill, and becomes the queen of her people. However, Landon, the Oracle, Frederick, and Starkas die over the course of the story. Additionally, Behra reminds Lambda that she's bound to her duty of ruling over her people forever, which hints that Lambda runs the risk of losing sight of her goals and becoming as tyrannical as Vikar.
• Mass Effect 2:
  • A possible ending to the game is that the Collectors have been stopped, and the Normandy escapes the Galactic Core, but at the cost of Commander Shepard, his team, and the Normandy's crew, aside from Joker. And the Reapers are still going to invade, with no-one left to stop them. This ending isn't canon, though, as the canonical ending has Shepard and at least two of the team left to defend the galaxy.
  • Any ending other than the Golden Ending is going to be bittersweet, as well, and they can be imported. You could, for instance have Shepard survive, but lose the Normandy crew and all but two of your squadmates in the process, possibly including Shepard's love interest. Sucks to be you, Shep.
  • Even the Golden Ending is bittersweet. You've killed the Collectors, but hundreds of the most powerful star-battleships ever devised are coming to wipe out all advanced life in the galaxy:
    Harbinger: Human. You have changed nothing.
  • Discounting the other eight potential endings, even if you did absolutely everything, complete with 100% Heroism Rating and 100% Completion, Mass Effect 3 gives you three final options on how to deal with the Reapers. These are given to you by The Catalyst, the controlling intelligence behind the Reapers, which lives in/as the Citadel. Regardless of which choice you make, there will be sacrifices involved.
    • "Destroy", in which Shepard destroys The Catalyst, sending out a wave that will destroy all synthetics in the galaxy. The Reapers, as well as the Geth and EDI, will die, and galactic civilization will have to rebuild on its own. However, this is the only ending where Shepard seems to survive, if the Effective Military Strength rating is high enough. If the EMS is low, the relays are heavily damaged, possibly beyond repair, and it's stated that the outlook for the surviving civilizations looks bleak.
    • "Control", in which Shepard transcends beyond his/her mortal coil and supplants the Catalyst as a more hands-on controller of the Reapers, rebuilding and tending to the galaxy at large - but leaving behind their humanity and all their companions due to his/her vastly expanded consciousness. A Paragon Shepard will vow to use the Reapers to protect the galaxy, while a Renegade Shepard will use them to enforce peace as he/she sees fit.
    • "Synthesis", the third option, in which Shepard sacrifices themself to introduce their DNA to the Crucible, sending out a wave through the Mass Relay network that transforms all life, both synthetic and organic, into hybrids of the two. Changed and with their reason for invasion gone, the Reapers cease hostilities and help the survivors to rebuild. With access to the nearly limitless knowledge of the previously harvested civilizations, it's possible the galaxy will enter a new golden age. However, Shepard is gone for good, and his/her crew can do nothing but mourn for them.
    • In all three options, galactic life is guaranteed to take a hit, but as the Distant Finale shows, life will go on and the races of the galaxy will recover.
    • The Extended Cut brings in a fourth ending, in which you effectively tell the Catalyst "screw you" and do nothing. This results in the Reapers winning and destroying you, all your friends, and all of the galactic civilizations, but a light is flung into the future and The Stinger reveals that in the next cycle, the Reapers are beaten permanently.
• The Max Payne series frequently displays this:
  • The first Max Payne ends with Payne finally getting revenge against Nicole Horne and the Valkir business. After murdering the woman who offed his wife and infant daughter, and even shooting his way through the mafia and a skyscraper of mooks, Max finds that Woden meets his end of the bargain and gets him off the hook; however, this doesn't change the fact that Mona Sax is dead, that Max is still addicted to alcohol and painkillers, or the fact that he will never get his family or life back.
  • Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne ends with Max finally coming full circle with his revenge, with him killing his "friend" Vladimir Lem and getting closure on his family's murder. To counter this, Mona Sax came back from the dead only to fall in love with Max and die permanently, Max was forced to kill Winterson, Vinnie Gognitti died horribly despite being a chump in over his head, and (as the next game shows) Max feels horrible guilt over the three dying because of his actions.
  • Max Payne 3 opens with Max at his lowest point, but the ending lies on the happier end of the scale. Max has to murder his way through corruption and a freaking organ harvesting ring, all while watching the people he has to protect die due to his failings. On the lighter side, however, Passos comes through and saves Max (getting to leave and start a family), de Silva helps him bust the villains, justice is served, and Max finally comes to peace with his demons and addictions (earning himself a holiday in the process).
• MediEvil: Dan defeats Zarok, who then spitefully collapses his lair in a last-ditch attempt to crush Dan and kill him once and for all, only to get crushed himself in the process. Zarok's death releases all the souls he previously captured and the magical brainwashing that had enslaved the people of Gallowmere, but since Zarok's magic was what was sustaining him, Dan has to go back to his crypt and return to his eternal rest. The people of Gallowmere will never know what Dan did or what happened, but he's finally proved he's a real hero. But if you collect all the Chalices, Dan gets to go to the Hall of Heroes and gets his own statue.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man X: X has defeated Sigma and ended his Maverick uprising, watching his floating fortress sink into the sea and explode from a distant cliff. But X, an inveterate Martial Pacifist, can only think of the destruction and death wrought by both him and the Mavericks, his best friend Zero being among those killed by them. He wonders why he chose to fight and whether there was another way, and resigns himself to the knowledge that this won't be the last time.
    How long will he keep on fighting? How long will his pain last? Maybe only the X-Buster on his hand knows for sure...
  • Mega Man X5: Regardless of the outcome, the game will end with both X and Zero successfully destroying Sigma, but the latter dies in the process due to sacrificing his own life for the former. Furthermore, while the Colony Drop disaster has been averted, pieces of it still fell to the earth, which devastated a good part of the ecosystem and created pollution everywhere. The bad ending puts further emphasis on the bitter as X's memories of Zero has been wiped so that he won't remember the pain of losing his closest friend.
  • Mega Man Zero 4: Neo Arcadia is destroyed with heavy casualties, finally freeing humans and reploids of its tyranny. Its leader Dr. Weil is killed as his Kill Sat burns up in the atmosphere. The war is also over, with the humans and Reploids finally reaching an understanding, breaking the boundaries between the two races. But Zero couldn't escape Ragnarok in time, because he chose to stay behind to finish off Weil instead of evacuating the satellite. With Zero's tendency to come Back from the Dead, we're treated to a scene of his helmet lying broken on the ground, signifying that this time he's really gone.
  • In Mega Man Battle Network 3, MegaMan.EXE sacrifices himself to stop the Big Bad of the game, although the post-credits scene shows him returning to Lan/Netto. Of course, since everything was back to normal in the next game, it's obvious this one didn't stick, and was obvious even at the time of release because Battle Network 4 had already been announced with the same cast.
• In Metal Black, should you lose all of your remaining lives to the Final Boss, the game does not give you a chance to continue, and instead you get an ending where humanity, inspired by your sacrifice, mobilizes all 20,000 of its remaining Black Fly units and strikes back against Nemesis.
• Metal Gear Solid:
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: Raiden stops the terrorists and is reunited with Rose, his girlfriend, but in the process several members of the supporting cast die, he's forced to reconfront his past as a child soldier, and he is left with the words of a psychotic AI, taunting him that everything he has done has gone exactly as planned. Meanwhile, series Big Bad Ocelot is still at large, as are The Patriots, the shadow government that has set up the game's events. If it weren't for series protagonist Snake showing up at the end to offer some words of wisdom and a lead on the Patriots, it would be a downright Downer Ending.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: The good news is that Naked Snake defeats Col. Volgin, destroys the Shagohod, averts a nuclear war, and is given a hero's welcome back in the states, but his mentor/mother-figure is forced to take the fall for Volgin's crimes, and it turns out the whole thing was orchestrated by the US Government as a part of its plan to get its hands on the Philosopher's Legacy. Plus, this is Naked Snake's Start of Darkness where he becomes Big Boss, the Big Bad of the first two games.
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots ends thus, with the Patriots' rule finally ended and the war economy ending, saving the world and humanity. However, although Snake doesn't commit suicide, he dies not long after of the accelerated aging and shortened lifespan given to him before his birth. On the bright side, Snake himself doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that he's going to die. He has a year to live his life free of outside influences, and in The Stinger, he even sounds happy that he has that chance.
• Metroid, ever since Super, displays these:
  • Metroid Prime: The corruption has stopped spreading on Tallon IV, but Samus' actions have created Dark Samus. She also mourns the destruction of the Chozo Temple, which was their last great work. The game ends with her just sadly staring at the smoking ruins of it. Prime 3 expands upon this with a scan log indicating that the planet is slowly healing after the Phazon was purged, but it will take a very long time to heal and it may not be habitable by anything other than the organisms that were already living on the planet.
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes: Samus has destroyed Dark Aether, but Dark Samus is still about and causing havoc. Also, the Ing have already wiped out the GF Marines and a large portion of the Luminoth population.
  • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: Samus has finally defeated Dark Samus and destroyed all Phazon, but, in the process, had to kill three of her friends and fellow bounty hunters.
  • Super Metroid: Samus has killed Mother Brain, but has lost the closest thing she has yet had to a child, as well as her childhood home in the process.
  • Metroid: Other M: The Bottle Ship and its evil (or misunderstood) AI are destroyed, but at the cost of the lives of Adam and most of his men. And the people who made this bioweapons lab mostly get away with it.
  • Metroid Fusion: Samus has destroyed the X parasite by blowing up a space station and the planet it orbited, but openly admits she's probably a fugitive for destroying Federation property.
• Middle-earth: Shadow of War:
  • At the end of the main campaign, Talion is betrayed by Celebrimbor after Mercy Killing one of the Nazgul instead of dominating him. With Celebrimbor transferring himself to Eltariel and taking the Ring of Power with her, Talion begins to die until, at Shelob's suggestion, he takes the Ring of Power from the slain Nazgul to stay alive, allowing him to retake Minas Morgul as Eltariel helps Celebrimbor trap Sauron in the flaming eye of his tower. With the influence of the Nazgul's ring gnawing away at his soul, Talion decides to use Minas Morgul as a bulwark against the forces of darkness with what time he has left.
  • At the end of the Shadow Wars, Talion is revealed to finally give in to the Ring's influence after a few decades, becoming one of the Ringwraiths. Thankfully, his prior efforts pay off when Frodo and his companions succeed in their quest to destroy the One Ring and defeat Sauron once and for all, with Talion finally dying and being allowed to cross over into the afterlife.
• Midnight Fight Express: The Big Bad is dead and his operations are dead and destroyed, but Babyface took a mortal wound from a sniper's bullet and couldn't make it onto a helicopter to escape the collapsing, burning building. Droney expends a lot of their energy to save him, and is at the risk of shutting down. The game ends with the two of them living long enough to watch the sunrise, but with an Uncertain Doom.
• Mind Scanners: In the rebel (Moonrise) path, you overthrow the enslaving regime but get a looooot of people killed. A Full-Circle Revolution takes place because the outside world hasn't stopped being an apocalyptic, monster-infested hellhole, and the city requires extreme authoritarianism to isolate itself indefinitely. But at least the new government is a major improvement from its old incarnation, so you and your daughter can help people instead of ruining them.
• In Mirror's Edge, by the end of the game, Faith's best friend Celeste turns traitor and is helping the CPF hunt down Runners, and may have had a hand in killing her beloved mentor Mercury. On the other hand, she does rescue her sister from Jacknife (by kicking him out of an airborne helicopter!) and temporarily shut down the city's oppressive surveillance servers. Still, both she and Kate are now branded criminals, largely alone and facing down the newly-trained Project Icarus Runner-hunters.
• Mitsumete Knight: Depending on how well you fared in Level Up & Medals-wise, and in your relationships with the girls you met during the story, you can get Knighted as a Holy Knight (the most prestigious title of the country you're fighting for as a foreign mercenary), and recieve the confession of love of one of the girls (and maybe even one from the Princess of the country). But no matter what, after you win the war for the country, the ungrateful rulers of said country will pass a bill enforcing the expulsion of all foreigners, which means you're included in the lot, and neither the (puppet) king nor the aforemented princess can do anything about it. And if you scored a girl, while most of them will follow you, two of them won't be able to, one being too young, and the other too Delicate and Sickly, so the only thing you can do for those two is to make a promise to meet again a few years later when they'll be older / healed.
• Moonrise: In this interactive novel, the werewolf player character may join the Masquerade faction (who work to maintain Masquerade) or the Rogue faction (who work toward The Unmasqued World). During the final battle, if the player character chooses to wipe out their entire opposing faction, the call of the forest becomes too hard to ignore, and they must give up their human life to live as a wolf. If the player aligned with the Masquerade and killed all the Rogues, the love interest and former Rogue leader Chika will join them in the wilds. Everyone else she knows is dead, after all.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Mortal Kombat 9. Raiden succeeds in fulfilling his future self's warning to prevent Armageddon, but in the process, the majority of the heroes end up dead, leaving only him, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade as the only survivors (and occasionally Scorpion, depending where his moods swing). On the other hand, the villains only lost Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung, and Quan Chi is still out there, planning to initiate the return of Shinnok as per Mortal Kombat 4, and has already turned the fallen heroes into brainwashed undead revenants. Even worse, Liu Kang, long considered The Hero of Mortal Kombat, is accidentally killed by Raiden, and dies firmly believing his formerly beloved mentor betrayed him and all of Earthrealm.
  • It gets even worse in Mortal Kombat X, where Raiden manages to restore a few of the fallen heroes (Jax, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion; all three of them are traumatized by their experiences as revenants), and is desperate to restore the remaining revenants to the side of good. However, Scorpion's Revenge Before Reason dooms them to stay in the Netherrealm and releases Shinnok from his amulet. Shinnok then goes on to corrupt the Jinsei, but is defeated by Cassie Cage; Raiden then purifies the Jinsei despite being in a battered state, but gets corrupted in the process. He has been carrying a big Guilt Complex around since Liu Kang's death in 9, and is stressed out after being put through multiple rounds of hell, but the Jinsei's corruption ultimately becomes the final straw and drives him to a Face–Heel Turn, where Raiden vows to go on the offensive as part of his Disproportionate Retribution against anyone who threatens Earthrealm. And to show Liu Kang and Kitana, now the rulers of the Netherrealm, that he isn't screwing around, he presents them with Shinnok's severed, yet still-living head, warning them that there are Fates Worse Than Death.
  • Mortal Kombat 11: Both the story's normal and best endings are this, but they're notably much happier than the previous games. Assuming that you lose one round in the final fight, Kronika is ultimately successful in causing a Time Crash, rewinding history back to the dawn of time and wiping all of Liu Kang's friends and allies from reality. Liu Kang, now a god, is still able to defeat her, however, and with control over her hourglass, he can reshape history, with the now mortal Raiden helping him along the way. But if you manage to win both rounds against Kronika, she's defeated after rewinding time back to the prehistoric era, and with Raiden's urging, Liu Kang summons Kitana to his side to help him make a better timeline. Either way, everyone they know is still gone and all the Character Development they went through was for nothing. But at least with Liu Kang now watching over time, they may never have to suffer again.
  • The Aftermath DLC of Mortal Kombat 11 takes it a step even further, as the neutral ending where Liu Kang defeats Kronika at the dawn of time is the canon ending. At the beginning, Shang Tsung (alongside Nightwolf and Fujin) appear, telling Liu Kang that in defeating Kronika, he destroyed her crown, so, without it, the hourglass will shatter, and all realms will be lost. When Liu Kang sends the three into the past, he has to watch many of his friends and his loved ones (especially Kitana) suffer due to Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn, and Sindel's actions. Afterwards, when Shang Tsung kills Shao Kahn and Sindel, he kills Kronika. When Liu Kang appears, he stops Shang Tsung, and choosing Liu Kang will result in Liu Kang killing Shang Tsung by erasing him and taking his crown, wherein he resets the timeline, in which the rebooted trilogy is no more. Moreover, Liu Kang chooses Great Kung Lao as his champion.
• Moshi Monsters:
  • It is possible to win the "Big Top Ballyhoo" mission but fail to give Captain Squirk his sandwiches he'd been wanting since the beginning back. However, the next mission mitigates it by him saying that he has the sandwiches back even if you didn't give them to him.
  • "Sandy Drain Shenanigans" ends with First Officer Ooze rescued from Frau Nau Brownkau, but still out of sorts due to her abuse to him.
  • At the end of "Super Weapon Showdown", the eponymous weapon is destroyed, but Elder Furi is missing.
• Mother:
  • In the fangame Mother: Cognitive Dissonance, the Applechasers catch up with Giygas as he is taking form, and manage to bring Niiue and Giegue back together as one being with the same force that tore them apart. However, Giegue admits that his sanity is only temporary, and helps the party escape before he returns to his madness, leaving the heroes forgotten but safe in a different time while starting the events of EarthBound (1994).
  • In Mother 3, Lucas was forced to fight his reanimated, mind-controlled, twin brother, Claus, who he hasn't seen in nearly four years. He and his dead mother are able to wake him up, and he promptly kills himself in order to join their mother in the afterlife. And then, Lucas pulls the final Needle and wakes up the Dragon, which ends the world and either creates a new one or killed everyone in the game, leaving them in the afterlife. The game leaves this up to interpretation. Whatever happened, in the epilogue, the characters talk to the player and claim that they are all fine. If it turns out that another world was created, that means everyone survived, and all evil is washed away for good. But even then, it's a bittersweet ending, as it seems that everyone who died before the needle was pulled stayed dead, and the villain is still alive, but can't harm anyone now. But, Hinawa's spirit proves that there is an afterlife, and eventually, Lucas and his remaining family will join Claus and Hinawa in the afterlife. Overall, the heroes reunite with friends and family, but the world as they know it is destroyed.
• Muramasa: The Demon Blade:
  • Momohime's second ending is this. Jinkuro and Kisuke score a Mutual Kill on each other in the final battle and Jinkuro uses the soul fusion art to save Momohime's life. Months later Momohime is shown living a quiet life in the country with an elderly couple, alive and healthy but stricken with Identity Amnesia - and possessing instinctive mastery of the Oboro style. She proceeds to leave on a journey to discover who she was after rediscovering her skills.
  • If not for the purposefully ambiguous hope that Arashimaru might be saved and Shirohebi freed, the Seven Ghostly Nights' Curse's second ending would be dark as all get out.
• In MySims Agents. No, really. After getting the Nightmare Crown back, Morcubus suddenly comes in and takes it and is about to open the portal to the Nightmare Realm when Evelyn suddenly comes in and stops him... by sucking them both into the Nightmare Realm. And she had just been reunited with her father. Ouch. And wait, there's more! If you complete all of the dispatch missions, you'll be able to go and save Evelyn. But to save Evelyn, you have to save Morcubus. And when you do, he escapes. Great.
• Mystic Warriors: Hooray! The evil Skull Enterprises has been finally rendered defunct! Too bad one of the True Companions had to die for it to happen, rendering the entire mission to save them pointless, and the other four are quite clearly traumatized by it.