don’t gate narrative closure behind multiple playthroughs of a game. it can be a nice bonus for dedicated fans to be able to unlock stuff by completing the game multiple times, but the first ending that players see should not feel like a bad ending or like it’s deliberately unsatisfying

this post inspired by Gato Roboto and Silent Hill Lowercase F

also don’t do whatever the fuck Inception was trying to do with its ending. I will complain about that ending for ten thousand years

@kasdeya Hades is kinda interesting to mention in this discussion. As a roguelite, it does technically require beating the content a couple times, but both games have a reasonable end point tying up the main character motivation after ten or so wins. There is a second “true” ending later on with its own conditions, but that’s kinda a different thread the player can just decide to not get into, which is neat.
Hell, it’s interesting for having an ending at all, given the genre.

@flesh I was thinking about adding some nuance to include games that can be beaten in like 30 minutes to 1 hour or so, where part of the point is to play them repeatedly. but I eventually decided against it lol

but yeah Hades is actually a great example! I only played for around 8(?) hours but I can totally see how getting the ending could require “beating the game” multiple times