Spoilers guyz.
*Note: this blog is having formatting difficulties. While you guys read this I'll be in the html editor trying to see what's up.*
**Note 2: I think it's fixed.**
The Ending(s)
There are plenty of possible endings to be found in Skyrim's expansive world. The player can complete the Mage's Guild quest, main storyline, Companion's quest, or any of the numerous Daedric quests. All of them end with some degree of satisfaction: The final quest entails entering the Nord's Happy Place (Sovngarde), defeating Alduin, and Torygg, the resident Butler of Sovngarde, giving you a pat on the back and sending you on your merry way.
The Daedric quests usually give you some pretty sweet loot upon completion, with most Daedric Lords saying they'll return in their usual demonic fashion. The land of Skyrim is free of Alduin's rage, the player has complete control over most factions known (and unknown), and wields the most powerful weaponry, gear, and items the land has ever seen.
Hmm, who should I clobber first?
The Aftermath
Thanks to Dragonborn's ridiculous, conflicting allegiances with various factions and gods, he has started what will essentially be "Hunger Games: With Magical Stuff Edition." Let me explain the non-supernatural side to this problem first: Dragonborn has befriended vampires, werewolves, thieves, professional warriors, professional assassins, and a whole school of mages. All of which love to covet rare, powerful loot.
And what are the rules once one dies in Skyrim? The dispersion of all possessions in a fair manner, or to the decree of the dead person's will. Will or not, it doesn't matter though. Keep in mind that most of these people kill and steal for a living. Do you really think that, because Dragonborn said the Dark Brotherhood gets a dagger, while the Companions get Wabbajack, the Dark Brotherhood are going to sit contentedly? Of course not, they'll probably say something like "That dude gets a staff that can turn a dragon into a cheese wheel, while we get a dagger? Ummmmmmmmmm...no I think I'll just kill the guy."
This is why they don't call them the Brotherhood of Rainbows and Happiness
Basically, the results of Dragonborn's death will spur decades of theft and murder, all in the name of the glorious loot the player hoarded.
Dragonborn's in for even hotter waters in the afterlife. Remember how I said Shor and most of the Daedric Pantheon had dibs on Dovahkiin's soul? Well, much like the physical world, these monsters of evil will want their soul damit. My guess is all of these Daedra will team up for a large-scale assault on Sovngarde. Thanks to Dovahkiin, many good, honest warriors will get even deader once impaled on a Daedric sword.
While skirmishes rage in the physical world below, decades of brutal war will ensue in the various Daedric dimensions and Sovngarde, made worse by the fact that none of the beings who claimed Dovahkiin's soul can be killed.
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The Ending
Andrew Ryan gives his famous "A man blahs, a slave blahs!" speech, and the player expresses their gratitude by firmly lodging the recreational end of a 9-iron into the side of Ryan's skull. That done, Fontaine reveals himself to be the master-planner behind the whole ordeal.
Confused, and no doubt pissed, the player comes face-to-face with the man himself, who's now more like a 12-foot-tall version of those street performers who pretend they're statues, except Fontaine is so jacked with Adam he practically farts fire. After a long battle, Fontaine gets Falcon-needled by a gang of Little Sisters the player saved. Fontaine dead, the player takes the little girls to the surface, and all live happily ever after.
"Unfortunately for you, I had a bean-broccoli burrito for lunch..."
The Aftermath
Except...not. Anyone who's been to Rapture knows it's not a happy place. There are still hook-handed, murderous Splicers all over the place. What happens if Rapture is discovered by the surface world? Plenty of people from the exploration team will be killed, but eventually Rapture, and all of its messed up scientific innovations, will be discovered and utilized.
The 'evil' ending also has something interesting to add to the mix: hundreds of nuclear-warhead-filled submersibles ready for deployment. I'm sure that'll go over well with any other nation that sees the discovery on television. It'll be a World War III, but thanks to plasmids discovered in Rapture's ruins, the average soldier will have superpowers to augment their already ridiculously lethal capacities.
The scene is much less touching when you realize what those women are addicted to...
What of Jack and his family of ex-Little Sisters? Well, remember how Adam is incredibly addictive? Those poor women will have acute withdrawal symptoms for the rest of their lives, not to mention the fact that most of these withdrawal symptoms include psychosis and/or death. At the end of Bioshock's good ending, an aged Jack lies in a hospital bed, surrounded by all of his girls, most of whom are married, as evidenced by their wedding rings. These mental-case time-bombs are loose in the world, and Jack's about to die without any way to warn anyone else. Heck, he probably doesn't even know that this will happen.
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The Ending
Marcus and Co. reach the top of Marcus Senior's techy lighthouse and begin the process that will commit the genocide of two of Sera's races. The Locust Queen (Myrrah) is understandably not very pleased with this turn of events, and tries to kill the COG with a larger-than-life housefly, equipped with a death-ray.
Once defeated, Myrrah practically walks into Marcus' knife, dying suddenly. Marcus' father, filled with the infection his machine is supposed to eradicate, disintegrates into charred confetti. The COG are victorious, the Lambent and Locust are defeated, and humanity is free to breathe easier after decades of tireless war.
Too bad Clayton couldn't impart lessons in being a bad-ass to his brothers
The Aftermath
Marcus' papa definitely didn't think his Lambent-Locust-killer process through enough: it kills already-infected Lambent organisms just fine, but it also kills non-infecting versions, called Imulsion. Imulsion was the main source of fuel for the planet Gears takes place on, Sera. Prior to the fuel's discovery , Sera was experiencing a harsh energy crisis. Imulsion was the perfect solution. Now it's gone.
Basically, anything that runs on pre-Imulsion fuel or Imulsion itself will run out of gas, leaving the humans in a world with plenty of machines, but no fuel to run them with. Think about what this means: Seran way of life may very well be stuck in the age of pre-oil Earth until someone comes up with an alternative fuel solution. In the meantime, industry stops as Imulsion drilling machines bring nothing up, all forms of transit relying on fuel become useless, and any form of electricity becomes a rare commodity.
Replace the pistol with a chainsaw-tipped Lancer and the dog with a...Seran equivalent. Probably has muscles.
We have a Road Warrior thing going on at this point, but instead of metal boomerangs thrown by little boys, we have chainsaw bayonets wielded by ex-convicts. General raiding becomes a common thing, until Seran society eventually builds itself back up. Reaching former glory will be delayed, since most important people were housed in a place called Azura, and massacred upon the Locust's arrival. Seran humans have no fuel to run their industry on, and all of the brightest minds humanity had ever seen lie dead. The comeback's gonna be a long, hard one; if it happens at all.
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The Ending
For those of you who don't know what Arkham Asylum is like, imagine mental hospitals you've seen in horror films, and then add some super-powers and crazy costumes to the mix. Imagining what Arkham City is a matter of scale: imagine the aforementioned hospital, and blow it all up to roughly 10 times the scale. Yes, include the amount of crazy people in that equation. Batman finds himself imprisoned in Arkham City, and the only way he will get out is to solve the question of who's running the show, who wants him imprisoned, and what their plans are for the Caped Crusader.
After plenty of thug-crushing, balloon-popping, and boss-fighting, Batman realizes that Dr. Strange plans to kill all of the criminals in Arkham, those convicted of legitimate crimes and those wrongfully accused to further Strange's power. Realizing that Strange's penchant for massacring those who displease him will not stop after Arkham, Batman takes flight to Strange's lair and uses his thug-crushing skills to beat Strange into submission. Monologues are made, Strange's employer is revealed to be Ra's Al Ghul, and long story short, Batman survives, fun-sized bits of Strange end up all over Arkham City, and Ra'as is conveniently impaled by his own sword and a giant, pointy "Arkham" sign. Ouch.
Walk it off
I forgot to mention that Batman was also terminally ill throughout this whole ordeal, and once Strange, Ra'as, and the Arkham Massacre have been stopped, he goes on a final thug-crushing quest for the cure. This ending isn't really part of my beef with the way the game ends things, so I'll leave this plot thread untouched.
The Aftermath
Strange's personal guard, the Tyger Guard (the 'y' really makes them seem like they're trying too hard to seem original), were the only line of defense between Arkham City and the outside world. Once Strange, the head of Tyger, and Ra's, his employer, are killed, that leaves Tyger leaderless. Arkham City leaves off with Tyger disbanding the Arkham City facility. So...who's guarding Arkham City?
Remember how I told you that Arkham City was basically the stereotypical horror-movie crazyhouse, but 10x larger and filled with superhuman crime bosses? Say what you will about Strange wanting to kill people for messed up reasons, but the man got stuff done: he incarcerated many of the crime bosses and their goons, and only one person was able to escape without getting filled with led. Now there's no Tyger security guard to watch over the inmates.
How these guys can shoot at night with pairs of sunglasses on, I have no idea.
Yes, in the final cutscenes of the game the police, led by Gordon, are surrounding the facility. But really, when have Gotham's cops been any good? Any fan of Batman's lore will know how easily Gotham's cops are corrupted. Even if they aren't, they're incredibly easy to kill; to maniacs like Joker, a cop is just a blood-filled chew toy wearing a blue uniform. A squad of cops guarding a part of Arkham City's perimeter aren't going to be enough to stop Bane, Two-Face, or any other maniac. Batman has also subdued most of the major criminal bosses in the game as well. However, it's pretty well-known that when Batman jails a criminal, they usually break out somehow.
Gotham has enough organized crime as it is; even with a flying raccoon guy to watch over them, Gotham has never been a safe place to live. Basically, all the inmates Batman's pissed off ever are going to go right back to what they do best: killing people, and committing other forms of crime. But this will be a huge influx, as hundreds, or even thousands of inmates flood the streets.
"Put them in jail, then" you may say.
What jail? Blackgate Prison is already full to capacity, and Arkham Asylum was closed down by Gotham's mayor once Arkham City was constructed. I guess the Asylum could be re-opened, but who knows how much time that would take, especially with a bunch of criminal maniacs, some of whom were never incarcerated in Arkham City in the first place, are still running around.
Yes, it seems like a miniature city of inmates should probably have been kept under tighter guard, especially after Batman's victory. Good luck Bats, ya' did well.
The Ending
The present-day and the past both have their own storylines in Assassin's Creed III, and each have their own conclusions. The present-day storyline has Desmond and his band of Assassin's use the Sketchy Virtual Reality Examination Bed Thingie 2.0 to send Desmond back in time. Beside the fact that going back in time is inherently awesome, he also searches for answers for how he's supposed to stop an incoming apocalypse.
Basically, Sol giveth life, and Sol killeth life with fire: Earth may resemble that marshmallow you accidentally hold too long in a campfire, and pull it out to realize it's engulfed in flame. Unlike that marshmallow engulfed in flame, you can't blow air on Earth to put out the fire, and burnt Earth doesn't taste very good in a s'more.
TOST-YY!
An ancient race locked a door that blocks Desmond's path to saving Earth, so he goes back in time to see if his ancestor knows what's up. Haven't those ancient aliens heard of the term "hideakey"? Just saying.
Long story short, Desmond's shown the location of the key that unlocks the door, gets the key, unlocks the door, and prepares to save mankind. Unfortunately, he gets in the middle of a cat-fight between two really old holograms of two dead women. They present to him two options: give the evil, really old, hologram woman (Juno) the key to "ultimate power" and save Earth, or let earth burn. "It's okay," the good, really old, hologram woman tells Desmond, "You can leave a guide for surviving humans to follow. It'll get turned into a Holy Book, which will be used for generations afterward to kill, rape, and maim in your name, but at least you don't give that other really old hologram woman the key to 'ultimate power.'"
Desmond chooses the former option, and for the lulz, he dies in the process. Seriously, ACIII's writers could have just said "We decided to kill Desmond because we don't like him much either." That would have been a better reason to kill the poor guy off than just "You save Earth, you will die."
I had no idea what the heck was going on right about now. I ate a hamburger.
Now let's talk about "Connor." In Desmond's ancestor's timeline, Stabby McStabstab (Connor) goes on a quest to stabby-stab his enemies before they...well, before they...um, you know what, the game isn't really too clear on that.
Originally, McStabStab goes on his quest out of revenge for the bad guys burning down his village and killing his mother, but the game's reasoning gets more and more vague as McStabStab gets further along in his quest. In the end, McStab has killed everyone. He then wanders around until his mentor dies, and proceeds to build up the We Like Shanking People Order (aka, The Assassins) to its former glory.
The Aftermath
ACIII's endings are vague and confusing enough as it is. But what we do know by the end doesn't spell well for either those in the present or the past. Desmond's dead, the Assassins are down to a mere three people, and there's an evil, old, holographic woman on the loose. "How do you know she's evil?" Well, she basically spells it out to you before you die. Besides that she is evil, we don't know what her plans are. She does save the planet, yes, but her race specializes in dominating humans. That's literally their crown achievement. So I would bet Ezio's expensive Renaissance Playboy Mansion on the "MIND CONTROL ALL THE HUMANS!" option.
"Tell me Desmond, do you like marshmallows?"
As for McStabbyStab, he's a Native American. Anyone who knows American history knows that the US Government, and any settlements, will slowly push the natives off their land and kill any who resist. The future of both the We Like Shanking People Order and the livelihoods of his people are pretty bleak. Sometimes, even though you can parkour the sh*t out of everything, you still can't escape a terrible fate.
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Well, that's about it. Hope you enjoyed,and happy gaming!
*This article is based off of a Cracked.com article by a similar name. It's hilarious, and better-written than my knockoff, so go take a gander. You can find it here.