A good cliffhanger is hard to come by. The lazy way to make on is to abruptly end a narrative arc on the cusp of its climax, and call it a day until next year comes around. Most TV shows play this card. Other media that doesn't inherently come in a season-by-season format, like games and movies, can't easily afford to create loose ends that may never be resolved.

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Because of this, writers and directors have to carefully evaluate the pros and cons that come with leaving things open-ended. Few games manage to create enough build-up and expectations that are befitting of a cliffhanger. But these 10 games somehow captured the most frustrating lightning in the most inviting bottles.

10 Doom

The ending screen of the original Doom.

The ending of the original Doom accounts for one of the earliest cliffhangers in gaming's history. After the Doom Marine, or Doomguy, defeats the Spider Mastermind in the final level, a brief cutscene plays and informs you that a secret portal back to Earth has opened. Wishing to return home and leave the horrors of hell behind, Doomguy goes through the passage.

Cheerful music plays as a bunny calmly sits atop hill's overlook during the sunset's golden hour. The camera slowly pans to the left, revealing a structure in flames as the soundtrack picks up with dissonant notes. The head of another bunny, or perhaps the same one, is impaled on a crude spike. That's Daisy, Doomguy's pet rabbit, dead at the hands of an unexpected demonic invasion on Earth. Then the credits roll. This single event sets Doomguy on the course to become the Doom Slayer we see in id Software's latest game.

9 The Walking Dead

A promotional image for Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1.

Telltale's long-running game series on The Walking Dead broke grounds with its first installment. After all, is said and done, Clementine can either shoot Lee or let him turn into a zombie. As far as heart-wrenching moments go, this one holds a record in most players' hearts. After Lee dies, regardless of what you choose to do, Clementine is stranded alone as she roams a countryside's plain.

In the distance, she begins to make out the silhouettes of two people. She is saved, as a transitory moment of hope brims through her eyes. Until she realizes that those may very well not be people, but walkers. She clutches the gun Lee gave her, while her eyebrows frown and grow with worry. The camera suddenly cuts to black, giving no hints as to what her fate holds.

8 Batman Arkham City

The ending of the game, where Batman carries Joker out of Akrham City.

Arkham City undoubtedly accounts for Batman's highest point in the gaming scene. The other Arkham games are still good, but this one truly takes the cake when it comes to narrative proficiency. After the final confrontation with Clayface, Batman gets literally stabbed in the back by Joker and drops the only vial of serum capable of curing the Clown Prince Of Crime of Titan Disease. This befitting irony results in Joker's death.

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Batman proceeds to walk out of Arkham City as he carries Joker's dead body, while Gordon asks him what happened. The game ends on this note, refusing to say any more about the Dark Knight's future without his archenemy.

7 Assassin's Creed 2

A promotional poster for the game.

The Assassin's Creed games dabble with strange science fiction elements that are somehow able to tie into interesting historical contexts and settings. Nothing makes this more evident than Ezio's discovery of the hidden chamber underlying the Vatican. In this moment, the game literally goes haywire with its crazy conclusion.

Ezio meets Minerva, who gives him an important message meant to guide Desmond, who sees through Ezio's eyes, in the fight against the Templars. Once she's done with her massive exposition dump, Ezio literally bids her to explain more. Alas, both he and Desmond are left with more questions than answers, and the former is only resolved in later Assassin's Creed titles.

6 Outlast 2

A screenshot taken with the camcorder in one of the flashback levels.

Horror games best lend themselves to short and sweet cliffhangers. Finishing Outlast 2 brings relief to your soul since you can stop worrying about having to change your pants every now and then. All jokes aside, games like this can seriously make you anxious to be home alone at night. Its ending is even more haunting.

In short, Blake, the protagonist you play as, eventually saves his pregnant wife, Lynn, from a strange cult. He unknowingly helps her give birth to a prophesized Antichrist child. With her dying breath, Lynn utters, "There's nothing there," referring to the child — she can't see him. Just what did the developers intend with this ending? Is Blake having a massive hallucination? Perhaps a future sequel will shed some light on this unsolved mystery.

5 God Of War

The secret ending of the game, where Thor reveals himself.

The God Of War reboot that came out on PlayStation in 2018 clearly set the grounds for a sequel, with its open-ended conclusion. Before Kratos and Atreus scatter Faye's ashes in Jotunheim, our beloved godly dad of the year discovers a relief on a wall that foretells his death. Shortly after, both father and son realize that Atreus's Norse name is Loki — yes, that Loki.

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If that's not enough of a cliffhanger, you can return home and let Kratos and Atreus fall asleep to trigger the secret ending of the game. After the iconic duo sleeps for an unknown, but long amount of time, they are suddenly awoken by an incredibly violent storm. They run outside to check the situation and find Thor waiting for them. There are many unsolved mysteries for God Of War: Ragnarok to address.

4 BioShock Infinite

The Elizabeths of infinite universes unite to drown Booker DeWitt.

The BioShock series is amazing. After Booker battles alongside Elizabeth through Columbia, they finally come to the place of Zachary Comstock's birthday via time travel. Wanting to prevent Comstock, Bioshock Infinite's antagonist, from being born, Elizabeth tells Booker that they must dispatch him then and there. Things take a turn for the unexpected immediately after this.

Elizabeth reveals that Comstock is actually Booker from another universe, another timeline of events in which Booker takes a symbolic baptism and eventually becomes evil. To stop that from happening again endlessly, Elizabeth drowns Booker and breaks the cycle. After we are led to believe that he is dead, a brief post-credits scene shows Booker back in his apartment, walking over to his daughter's crib and calling her name. So is he alive or dead? Is this a big Schrodinger's cat experiment in a video game?

3 Five Nights At Freddy's: Sister Location

The Springtrap animatronic ending.

Five Night's At Freddy's titles are littered with secrets, abrupt jump scares, and spooky cliffhangers. Sister Location has so many different endings that it's hard to make sense of what's really going on. Few games manage to have such cryptic background lore that retains a strong element of intrigue.

Any one of the endings in Sister Location can be considered a cliffhanger. However, the scariest one of them all is the Springtrap cutscene. This special ending triggers only if you beat the Golden Freddy preset in Custom Night. Good luck with that. If you manage to do so, you'll hear a strange voice telling you: "...I've been living in shadows. There is only one thing left for me to do now. I'm going to come find you. I'm going to come find you." That's one of the most ominous, open-ended conclusions in gaming.

2 The Last Of Us

Joel carrying Ellie out of the Firefly hospital via the elevator to the parking garage.

The journey Ellie and Joel go through is hard to parallel. The countless moments you play through, filled with suspense and danger, forge an incredibly meaningful bond between these two remarkably human characters. The ending of The Last Of Us represents a perfect type of culmination.

After Joel saves Ellie from the Fireflies, the game has you walk through a forest surrounding a homestead camp, featured in the second installment of the series at length. Just before the screen cuts to black, Ellie asks Joel if he's telling the truth about the Fireflies not needing to pick apart her brain to develop a cure for the Cordyceps infection. He lies by saying yes and spares her the details of how he robbed humanity its only chance of guaranteed survival. The unresolved tension in this final exchange fueled gamers' expectations for years.

1 Half-Life 2

The mysterious G-man from the game series.

What on Earth did the G-Man mean when he said he would be taking away Gordon Freeman's liberty of choice? What was going on with his time-stopping and reality-halting abilities? When is Half-Life 3 coming out to answer all this?

The ending of Half-Life 2 is easily one of the most iconic cliffhangers of all time. With the more recent and overwhelming success of Half-Life: Alyx, the mysteries sent forth by the G-Man's final appearance are in even more dire need of resolutions.

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