I've recently been playing Skyrim since picking up a Series X. I've played it many times before, and one thing that kind of annoys me is that there is no actual end to the game. At no point does the game ever tell you that you've done enough. At no point do NPCs stop calling you a "milk drinker" and at no point do guards ever stop saying "let me guess, someone stole your sweet roll?". Even after I've done all six quest lines the game offers out of the box: Main Quest (dragons returning), Civil War, Fighters Guild (Companions), Mages Guild (College of Winterhold), Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood (assassinations). Expansions add two more: Dawnguard (vampire hunters vs vampires) and Dragonborn (the last Dragonborn, aka you, vs the first Dragonborn). Even the short expansion, Hearthfire, which lets you adopt up to two children (as it adds four homeless children) and build a home for them to live in. Do everything the game has to offer, including all the side quests... and the game never ends.
Bethesda made Skyrim this way on purpose. In their previous game, Fallout 3, when you got to the end, it told you that if you continued, the game would end, so if you had anything else you wanted to take care of, to put off the main quest until you had done so. Otherwise, you were railroaded into the ending. And people didn't like this, so they made an expansion that allows the game to continue. And now, if you play the "Game of the Year Edition" of Fallout 3, the game never ends, just like Skyrim.
The official Fallout 3 spinoff, Fallout: New Vegas, is widely considered to be the superior of the two. It's two years newer, has newer features despite being the same game engine. And it has an ending. It has four expansions, none of which change the ending. New Vegas let you lock out all the endings but one (Yes Man/Independent Vegas), but once you reached that point, the battle at Hoover Dam, it told you, this is the end.
Cyberpunk 2077 has a similar feature. The problem with Cyberpunk 2077 is that it tries to force you to rush the main quest, and when you go to "Meet Hanako at Embers," all of a sudden it's telling you you're at the point of no return? And you're like, "but I ain't really done shit?". At least you can say no and put that quest on indefinite hold. But isn't that kind of the same problem? Cyberpunk 2077 is pushing a narrative that you are dying due to a choice you are forced to make. However, the only times you seem to be having a rough go of things is when you do the main quests. Otherwise, you're perfectly fine. Fallout, the very first one, may have had the best implementation of this. You have so many hours to go find that water chip, or you doom your vault to death. Once you get it, and return it to the vault, you no longer have a timer. I believe The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask had a similar thing, you had so many hours to beat it, or you lose. The PlayStation (1st gen) game D was even simpler. In 90 minutes, the game ends one way or another. You completed your task, or you didn't. There was no saving. The game was effectively paused when you weren't doing anything. Timer ran regardless. The multiple discs made the timer somewhat stressful, but it was a game like Myst or The 7th Guest with QuickTime videos that played whenever you moved from Point X to Point Y. So the discs were mostly movie data. The game itself took like an hour tops, with speed runs doing it in around 40 minutes. So you did have enough time.
So, getting back to Skyrim (and games like it, such as Fallout 4). How would you end it? I think of The Walking Dead and how it would constantly tell you "Clementine will remember this." And then that last choice, I'm not going to spoil it, but it changed the dialogue to "Clementine will never forget this." That little change gave an emotional scene so much more weight. Like the weight Cowboy Bebop said we're gonna carry. (Every episode ended with "See You, Space Cowboy" in text along the bottom right, I think a few said something else, but the series finale said "You're Gonna Carry That Weight." And carry it, we did.) The emotional weight of a solid ending that sticks with you. The Walking Dead did it right.
So how could Skyrim have done it? I think once you beat the game, once you've literally done everything, you could have been given a game mechanic, such as through a scroll you couldn't drop that would sit at the top of your inventory, or a torch you could light. This would be similar to the Wait function, where time passes much faster to get you to a desirable time. There's a bench just outside the mine at Knifepoint Ridge, where the Daedric (demon) prince Boethiah sends you to do her dirty work (don't ask why the female demons are called princes, I didn't write the lore). You can just sit there and you get this spectacular view of a wooded valley. At sunset, it's majestic. I had a different ending in mind, and I've done this before. I wait until evening, and I put my adopted kids to bed. (They always ask if they can stay up late, I say no.) I wait for them to get in bed (they don't change clothes or get under covers, they just lay on top of the bed in the clothes they wear all day, every day), and then I get up and walk away. I let my character watch over his or her children as they sleep, for at least 1-2 hours of in-game time. Then I quit the game and delete all saves associated with that character. But getting back to the scroll/torch thing, I think there should be a way to say "I'm done" and fast forward 10+ years and show us where everyone is, the changes you made, while credits roll. Of course you could reload an earlier save and continue, but I think the game should have a valid ending. I'd love to see what becomes of the kids you adopt. Do they marry and have kids? Do they pick up your weapons when you can no longer carry them and become heroes? What of those you saved?
Fallout 4 sort of attempted this. When you defeat the Institute, or when siding with the Institute, when you defeat the other factions, you're yanked out of the game and shown a cut scene where your character looks back on everything that's happened and where they want to go from there. And yes, each ending — there are a few — ends with the catch phrase "[...] war... war never changes." Except it has weight to it that feels just right. It's more like... and this is not a spoiler, the line is given in the trailer... "because I know war... and War. NEVER. CHANGES." But then it jumps back to the game, which then goes on forever. You can give your character a similar cinematic ending. I like to go up to Vault 111, there's a ridge that overlooks Sanctuary. If you made that your main settlement to build, you probably got a pretty good view. And you can have multiple lovers and paramours there, as well as pets and even your own child, sort of, but also kind of not? Since we're in a spoiler tag, I'm talking about Synthetic Shaun.
The discussion I offer the forum for the weekend is this: Should games have a definitive ending? If so, should there be a clearly marked point of no return, or is it just over when it's over? If not, when do you decide to stop playing? And do you do anything ceremonious about it? Or do you just drop it and never return?
