History DownerEnding / Videogames

* Both endings of the first ''VideoGame/{{Lisa}}'' game only serve to reinforce the game's main theme: Lisa can never escape Marty's abuse, no matter what.

* ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'' gives you two choices for an ending, neither of which is very upbeat. You can either let the tornado destroy the town to let your best friend (and depending on interpretations, love interest) live, or you can rewind time to undo all your meddling that kept her alive and thus prevent the various ClockRoaches from destroying the town. The town or your friend, which will you choose? Steam even keeps a global tally that records the percentage of players that have chosen each route through the story.

* ''VideoGame/{{Deltatraveler}}'' fully uses this trope during its ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' section. If you play the game's Obliteration Route, then by now, not only have you murdered most of Carpainter's cult, ''including'' Mr. Carpainter ''himself'', to achieve this ending fully, you have to murder Ness and Paula, Paula being your party member in any other route, [[WouldHurtAChild in cold blood]]. The game rightfully calls you out for this in the newly released chapter.

** In the "Ultimate Revenge of the Sith" alternate ending of ''VideoGame/StarWarsEpisodeIIIRevengeOfTheSith'' Vader kills Obi-Wan, and Palpatine declares that there is none left to oppose them (meaning Yoda possibly died). However, after Palpatine hands Vader his new weapon, a red lightsaber, [[TheStarscream Vader]] [[DroppedABridgeOnHim stabs Palpatine]] and declares himself the new emperor. And because Obi-Wan is dead, presumably [[ForWantOfANail Padmé would not be able to be taken to Polis Massa, and Luke and Leia would never have been born]]. And thus, the Jedi are completely dead and Anakin [[PyrrhicVictory has obtained ultimate power at the cost of everyone who ever cared for him]].

* In BossFightTheGame, the game ends with Sir Labo, the protagonist, taking over the kingdom. However, he is overthrown a few weeks later, and according to the future that Doggosmoke shows you, Doggo Industries will eventually take over the kingdom and leave it a polluted wasteland.

* ''VisualNovel/FourTwoEightShibuyaScramble'': The normal ending. While Shibuya is saved from being bombed, Kenji is fatally shot by Alphard, who later manages to escape from CIA custody thanks to her contacts there. And to add insult to injury Alphard's employers now have a full monopoly over the Ua antidote, which paves the way for it to be used in future bioterrorism attacks.

* The ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' series has several:
** In the bonus case of the original game, if you present the cloth at the wrong time, you will inadvertently and incorrectly prove Ema guilty of Neil Marshall's murder, resulting in Lana being convicted in the current murder case.
** In the fourth case of ''Justice For All'', if you fail to present the correct evidence to the correct person in the final parts of the case, you get a bad ending in which your client and murderer Matt Engarde goes free, the innocent Adrian Andrews is found guilty, Maya is never seen again, and Phoenix runs away from the courtroom. Unfortunately, the mood of this ending is [[{{Narm}} ruined by a typo]]: "The miracle never happen."
** The fourth case of ''Trials and Tribulations'' ends with your client, who you were just about to get off the hook, deciding to kill himself rather than let his girlfriend, who is the real murderer, get implicated. Fortunately, it's mitigated by the knowledge that the guilty party was finally nailed a year later, as played out in the game's ''[[AnachronicOrder first]]'' case.
** The verdict of the fourth case of ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'' is left entirely up to you. If you choose "Not Guilty," you get the normal, happy (and canonical) ending to the game, but if for whatever reason you choose "Guilty," the verdict is postponed until tomorrow, but in the meantime your client, who is in the hospital from being poisoned, dies, and the verdict is "postponed for eternity."
** ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies'' has three in the fifth case, and one in the DLC case. [[spoiler: Getting a game over in one of the two forced questions has [[AntiVillain Aura]] kidnap Athena. Getting a game over on Simon's testimony results in him being found guilty in Athena's place and executed. [[FromBadToWorse Aura vanishes with the hostages (including Trucy), Athena leaves the agency, Apollo is completely broken by the events, and Phoenix gives up being a lawyer.]] Lastly, getting a game over on [[BigBad Fulbright's]] final testimony results in [[BittersweetEnding Athena and Simon getting off the hook, but the phantom getting away clean and the failure to bring him to justice causing public opinion towards the law to sink even lower]].]] In the DLC case, getting a game over during [[spoiler:Rimes' Mood Matrix segment]] results in [[spoiler:Orla being found guilty and put down (Sasha does get acquitted, but as a result of something she hired Phoenix to prevent from happening).]]
** Continuing the tradition, ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice'' adds a few more. [[spoiler: If Apollo fails to keep the Founder's Orb out of [[CorruptPolitician Paul Atishon]]'s hands, Dhurke's dream of ending the Ga'ran regime is never realized and Apollo's friendship with Phoenix becomes strained. Getting a game over while guessing who was channeling [[DeadAllAlong Dhurke]] results in Dhurke being posthumously declared guilty and the cast never realizing who Inga's true killer was. Getting a game over after Amara's FalseConfession ends similarly to the previous ending, but with Amara going to trial as well. Getting a game over after accusing Queen Ga'ran results in Apollo and Nahyuta being forced into hiding and becoming the new leaders of the Defiant Dragons.]]
** In the fan-made case ''VisualNovel/TheEmptyTurnabout'', you lose the trial altogether after fighting for three chapters. Your client is found guilty even though he didn't do it, but he's okay with it. Furthermore, Athena is never punished for killing Blackquill, although it is revealed that she did so because Blackquill had killed her mother and got away with it thanks to her testimony... when she thought he was innocent. There's something positive, though: Apollo has figured out who really killed Arts and has called the police.

* As the name implies, the selling point of ''VisualNovel/BadEndTheater'' is its numerous bad endings. There are 41 bad endings in total, though many of them are simply a PerspectiveFlip of one another on account of the game having multiple protagonists. While there are a few {{bittersweet ending}}s and a couple of [[OnlyTheLeadsGetAHappyEnding protagonist-centered good endings]], each path ends with at least one protagonist murdered, and even if the protagonists make the morally correct choices, the background [=NPCs=] will be the ones to screw everything up. The only way to get an unambiguously good ending is to [[spoiler:trap all four protagonists in a room together, perform a DeusExMachina to save them all, and defeat the theater's owner in a boss battle]].

* ''VisualNovel/Case03TrueCannibalBoy'':
** In the normal ending, [[spoiler:Lily delivers a MercyKill to Sally, but this causes her to become emotionally numb to everything except hating evil spirits, resulting in her becoming a ruthless BloodKnight exorcist. Marty is arrested for the various serial killings and is never seen again. In a twist, this is a somewhat happier outcome for Lily than the true ending]].
** In the true ending, [[spoiler:it turns out that not all the victims were due to the Cannibal Boy. Some of them were actually Marty killing various women in order to find a new body for Sally, and Jade helps him kill Lily. Right before Marty beheads her, Lily swears to become an evil spirit to take revenge on Marty and Jade. Nya is pleased with Jade's work and "rewards" her by sending her to the world of the ''VideoGame/PeacemakerSeries'']].

%%* The Grim Fate in ''VisualNovel/{{Cinders}}'', [[EarnYourBadEnding though it's nearly impossible to get if you aren't trying for it.]]

* Most of the Normal (aka bad) Endings in ''VisualNovel/CodeRealize'' are more {{bittersweet|Ending}}, but Saint-Germain's is particularly grim. Saint-Germain is lethally wounded during his battle with Guinevere and dies in Cardia's arms; afterward, Cardia joins the AncientConspiracy and never contacts Lupin or her other friends again, instead allowing them to believe that she's dead. The only positive note amidst the tragedy is that Cardia makes it clear she doesn't plan to follow Omnibus's orders without question and will try to save people if she can, but even so, she will never be able to form connections with anyone outside of the order, and the final lines of the ending describe her entering London on a mission for Idea with a "mask-like smile" on her face. Some of the Game Overs also go the extra mile to twist the knife, especially the ones which occur late in the game.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'' can end with one such ending if you choose to pursue Kyoko's lie in the fifth trial, by pointing out that she could have used her special key to unlock the door to her room, resulting in her being convicted and executed. The remaining survivors remain trapped in the school for the rest of their (and their children's) lives, with the strong implication that Toko died at some point. However, this is quickly revealed to be a DaydreamSurprise and Makoto wakes up right before that point, allowing the player to progress as normal.
* The bad ending of the FanGame ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaAnother'' has protagonist Yuki getting ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice by [[KillerGameMaster Monokuma]], with the implication that the others followed suit. The true ending has [[spoiler:Yuki's EmptyShell [[TomatoInTheMirror true personality]] overwrite his own and attempt to sentence the others to death after deciding to BreakThemByTalking. However, they get a HeroicSecondWind thanks to [[BrainUploading Alter Ego]] and TheDragon Akane's HeroicSacrifice, and manage to escape with Yuki allowing them due to a subtle SplitPersonalityMerge. Yuki and Akane [[LoadBearingBoss die together in the collapsing facility]] as the others manage to escape, with the implication that Kinjo's fallen into his BlackAndWhiteInsanity once more and is going back down the path of a WellIntentionedExtremist. Plus, since the game is a StealthPrequel to ''Trigger Happy Havoc'', the nightmare is far from over.]]

* In the ''VisualNovel/DeathRoom'', [[spoiler:it's only possible for one person to get out alive. So, your options are either to die or let someone else escape.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/{{Ever17}}'', some of the GOOD endings are Downer Endings! The worst being Tsugumi's Good Ending: Tsugumi and the protagonist, Takeshi, are able to get out of Lemu before it implodes upon itself, thanks to a tiny submarine that will propel itself to the surface, where rescuers are waiting. Partway through the journey, it breaks and begins to sink again...breaking underneath fifty feet of water. Takeshi manages to lock Tsugumi into one section of the sub, and disconnects the part that he's in so that the lighter weight will carry her to the surface. Takeshi sinks to the bottom of the ocean and drowns, while Tsugumi floats to safety, pounding on the glass window, screaming and crying to Takeshi that she doesn't want him to die. Sora's ending is even worse: Takeshi drowns when Lemu collapses because he refuses to leave Sora behind, who cannot leave. Tsugumi escapes but she's mentally scarred from the experience, not least of which because of how her relationship with Takeshi turned out. The rest of the cast probably die of the disease that killed the staff because Tsugumi's blood was apparently never used to synthesize an antidote. It's notable that of all the endings this is the only one that plays no real role in the true ending.

* ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'': Some of the birds' true endings are this. Most notably, [[spoiler: Nageki, who turns out to be a ghost and disappears because your love enabled his spirit to move on]], and [[spoiler: Dr. Shuu, who dismembers you and flees St. Pidgeonation's with your severed head in a jar...[[LoveMartyr but that's okay, because you really loved him.]]]] Additionally, if you fail to romance a bird, [[spoiler: you are executed by the Hawk Party.]]

* Most endings in the VisualNovel ''VisualNovel/KanaLittleSister'' can be seen as Downer Endings, since in all but one of them the protagonist's beloved sister dies, often in some of the most tragically depicted death scenes in gaming ever. The fact that the makers tried to give most endings a [[BitterSweetEnding bittersweet lining]] doesn't lessen the sad fact that the protagonist fails to save the most important person in his life, even after offering one of his kidneys for transplantation, as happens in some scenarios. The one ending in which she doesn't die results in her leaving him after a while. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption The guy just can't win]].

* Makoto's route in ''VisualNovel/{{Kanon}}''. The only bright spot to Yuuichi feeling terribly heartbroken is that he has a new friend who understands what he just went through and that he will get better. Eventually. It's bad enough that it almost seems nicer to ''Makoto'' if she's just allowed to vanish and presumably die of exposure like in the other routes.
* Most of the endings in ''VisualNovel/KaraNoShoujo'' are pretty terrible, especially if you count the Bad Ends, which have extensive stories. There are only two endings that really qualify as bittersweet.
* In ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'', if Hisao fails to befriend one of the girls enough to seek out their company for the school festival(or makes the wrong choice at a critical point), he'll resign himself to giving his paranoid hallmate Kenji his company. [[spoiler:While on his way to meet with Kenji on the roof of the school, he finds himself annoyed by the festivities. Once he meets up with Kenji, the two spend the entire day eating pretzles and drinking whiskey. After spilling his guts to Hisao, Kenji starts invading his personal space. Hisao, heavily inebriated, tries to back away, only to end off slipping and falling off the roof. His last thoughts were of how this was a fitting way to end such a crappy day. Cue red flash, fade to black, roll credits.]]
** Every single route has at least one and possibly two Downer Endings. Emi [[spoiler:breaks up with Hisao after their argument, telling him that while she knows he's a good guy, they just cannot last together and he's not the kind of boy that can handle her]]. Hanako [[spoiler:lashes out at Hisao (and by proxy, Lilly) for pitying her and breaks up their buddying relationship]]. Lilly [[spoiler:goes to Scotland permanently, leaving behind her boyfriend Hisao and her best friend Hanako]]. Rin [[spoiler:either has a fall-out with Hisao in her atelier and their bonds are explosively severed, or leaves Hisao and everyone else she's close to behind to study art in Tokyo, even if it means changing herself (which could potentially result in her suicide)]]. Shizune [[spoiler:ends up alone, believing that she pushed Hisao and Misha away with her competitive personality, since they drifted apart from her. (And unbeknownst to Shizune, Hisao cheated on her wirh Misha, as a result of Misha having an emotional breakdown over her UnrequitedLove for ''Shizune''.)]]

* ''VisualNovel/LifesignsSurgicalUnit'' has this as a BadEnding if you fail to convince Suzu-sensei, or if you fail Professor Sawai's heart operation. In this ending, Dr. Tendo fails to save Sawai's life, and says that his death has left his family far behind. Suzu-sensei loses her job, and Tendo-san quits being a doctor. After a conversation between Aoshima-san and Hoshi-san, a shot of a newspaper (with the headline "Tragedy of the Holy Night!") appears with Aoshima-san saying that she still doesn't remember what really happened on the night Professor Sawai died, and "now everything is covered in darkness." Then the credits roll while showing old-fashioned pictures of various places in the game.

* ''VisualNovel/LongLiveTheQueen'': In a game where most of the people you meet want you either helping with their plots or dead so that they can take your throne, this is a given. Even if you make it to your coronation without being killed, you might still [[spoiler: be forced to [[HeroicSacrifice watch your father die]] (or become physically and mentally handicapped if he does survive), lose your fertility to your aunt's poison, unintentionally spark a rise in prejudice against Lumen, cause Merva to secede from Nova after you alienate them by executing your aunt's entire family...And the list goes on.]]

* For one whopper of a Downer Ending, look no further than ''VisualNovel/{{Planetarian}}'', which ends with RobotGirl Yumemi getting gunned down by a big mecha, after the protagonist hauled her out of the planetarium she still felt obliged to work for and where she had been waiting for her co-workers to return for ''thirty years''. The worst part is that she had a fair chance of surviving where she was - if the protagonist wouldn't have blown her power supply by letting her run all that heavy equipment for that one last show. Leave it to Creator/KeyVisualArts to make as depressing an ending as possible.

* The "Nightmare" endings of ''VisualNovel/QueensGambit'' are pretty much relentlessly horrible, involving the deaths of a lot of the main cast and the loss of everything the protagonist values. The "Rookie" endings can also be pretty grim, though they usually provide at least some spark of hope.

* In ''VisualNovel/{{Rewrite}}'' most of the endings are downers, though some of them don't seem that way at first. Shizuru and Akane's routes end with the apocalypse, Lucia's route has the entire town destroyed and will ''also'' result in the apocalypse, except even worse this time. Kotori and Chihaya's routes seem to end well, but these routes will ''also'' result in the apocalypse, though at least the main characters will live out their lives before that. It's not until Moon and Terra that you get an ending that doesn't result in the world ending.

* ''[[VisualNovel/SavetheDatePaperDino Save the Date]]'' is a short game in which you attempt to go on a date with a girl, but the date is always cut short by her death. Literally every single time. No matter what you do to avoid the previous deaths, new ones will pop out of the woodwork. And the true ending, obtainable after you exhaust all other options? [[spoiler: You don't go on the date. The girl finds love with someone else. You are left alone.]] The only exception is [[spoiler:the secret ending that requires you to edit the game]].
* All three endings of the visual novel ''VisualNovel/SayaNoUta'' can be considered downers. One has Fuminori's brain returned to normal, only for him to be locked up and separated from Saya forever. In the next, Saya "blooms" and begins to transform the entire world into her own nightmarish species. Finally, the last ending kills off all but one major character, who's gone half-insane and will very likely commit suicide one day soon.
* ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'' is rather infamous for its bad endings, all of which involve gruesome and bloody murder (or suicide, in one case). The [=PS2=] "all-ages" port added several more bad endings and extended the existing ones. The game's sequels, ''Summer Days'' and ''Cross Days'', have bad endings of their own, though most aren't nearly as horrifying as the ones in the original.

* ''VisualNovel/ShinraiBrokenBeyondDespair'' has four of the MultipleEndings fall into this category, with the good ending being a BittersweetEnding.
** If you agree that Kamen Eiga, the current prime suspect, is the culprit, she'll be taken into questioning for the murders, and will never forgive the other survivors for abandoning her.
** If you accuse Runa Hikari of being the culprit, she'll be cleared after a blood test fails to find blood on her kimono. This results in Runa, Rie and Kamen refusing to speak to Raiko.
** If you accuse Hiro Shiratake of being the murderer, Raiko will also accuse Kamen of killing him in {{revenge}} for what he did to Momoko. As a result, Kamen gets arrested for something she did not do.
** If you choose the correct culprit, then choose a wrong answer when asked who the mastermind of the plot is, Taiko will stop listening to Raiko.

* In ''VisualNovel/StrawberryVinegar'', if you refuse to let Licia stay in your house, her older sister will come, prove she was indeed a demon, and reap your soul to Hell as punishment. Ouch.

* The first chapter of ''VisualNovel/{{Suika}}'' ends with Itsuki realizing she's dead, disappearing and leaving Akira all alone. His personality is completely broken and when he finally meets Sayo again, the girl they both thought was really dead, he refuses to introduce himself and runs away. Both the endings of the third chapter are also disturbing. Yoshikazu either ends up with the extremely controlling, manipulative Touko or gets stabbed to death by Akane, who hooks up with Touko instead after apparently hypnotizing her.

* ''VisualNovel/SweetPool'' is well-known for having no happy ending whatsoever, no matter what decisions you make. Only one among the six possible endings can be considered a BittersweetEnding at best, but nevertheless, [[spoiler: the protagonist either dies, ''will'' die soon, or suffers from a FateWorseThanDeath.]]
* ''VisualNovel/SyrupAndTheUltimateSweet'' has several.
** The Candibal End has [[spoiler: Syrup eat Gumdrop. Pastille is so disgusted he leaves and never returns, and due to dwindling sales Syrup has to close down her shop.]]
** The Frozen End has [[spoiler: Syrup tell Butterscotch she hates her which leaves Butterscotch unable to get them out of the icy cave they're in. They end up freezing to death in there.]]
** Bad End 1 has [[spoiler: Syrup give Gumdrop over to Butterscotch and refuses to help Pastille get her back, and he leaves her. The candy store goes into decline and Syrup's left with nothing and nobody.]]
** Bad End 2, similar to Bad End 1 has [[spoiler: Syrup give Gumdrop over and Pastille leaves her, but in this ending she hires Toffee to help out around the store. They and Butterscotch take it over and Syrup quits, resolving to never get close to anyone again so nobody can betray her like Pastille did.]]
** And the Worst End has [[spoiler: similar events to the Frozen End, except Pastille and Treat rescue Syrup and Butterscotch before they freeze to death. However Syrup tells Butterscotch she still hates her, and the own coldness in Syrup's heart ends up killing her.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/War13thDay'', the True End reveals that [[spoiler:the entire game is Wildfire's DyingDream.]]

* ''VisualNovel/YandereChan'' has a whole host of bad endings that all conclude with your untimely death, usually via scissors. The only ending that could be considered good is the one where the titular yandere gets sent to a mental institution.

* ''VisualNovel/ZeroEscape'':
** Every ending but the true ending in ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' ends with everyone dying, killing each other or having one character go ''AxCrazy''. The Coffin ending is the worst, just a cockblock to the true ending if you forgot to get the Safe ending. Even the true ending can be seen as bittersweet, since [[spoiler:June and Santa played a role in the deaths of three people.]] Granted, [[spoiler:Ace]] killed two of them, but [[spoiler:the 9th man]] was killed by his bomb, which could be connected back to "Zero." Thus, two characters are fugitives and Junpei [[spoiler:may never get a chance to spend a happy life with June]] because [[spoiler:she]] is on the run with [[spoiler:her]] accomplice. Also, per WordOfGod, [[spoiler:it's heavily suggested that Junpei [[DidNotGetTheGirl never does find June]], and spends the rest of his life pursuing her. At least, until the events of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', when both of them are old.]]
** Also, in its sequel ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', nearly every ending. The game includes a number of outright bad endings that give you a game over screen. It also includes at least 10 "locks" that have a role similar to the Coffin Ending of the first game... these endings force you to come back after learning something in a different timeline. Even the non game-over endings tend to have things like [[spoiler:the entire complex exploding, people dying of the Radical-6 virus, bracelets injecting you with chemicals that kill you, escaping out into a blank, featureless desert...]]. However, the final few endings [[spoiler:are even bigger downer endings, as you discover that nearly the entire population of Earth was killed off by the Radical-6 virus and the detonation of the anti-matter reactors.]] However, [[spoiler:Phi]]'s ending includes a SequelHook that implies [[spoiler:you may be able to fix things in the next game.]]

* Whilst most of the (actual) endings to the game are [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]], the Normal End of the Heaven's Feel route in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' is truly heartbreaking and tragic. Shirou sacrifices the ideal he'd been living for to protect his girlfriend Sakura halfway through the story and ends up with progressively worse brain damage in his attempts to keep her safe and get her back. At the end, it finally kills him. That's bad, but then it switches to the perspective of Sakura, who never moves on and never accepts that he's dead.

* ''VideoGame/AssaultShell'': The [[ArrangeMode Void Arrange]] mode has this for the Type Sigma fighter. Whereas compelting this mode with any of the other four characters results in a good ending where your copilot is removed from the Psycho Frame and is allowed to live a normal life with you, here, it's revealed that your combat data was being used for the mass production of ''millions'' of Psycho Frames, and that JOKER was using you for world domination all along, as Suzy performs a [[YourSoulIsMine soul-stealing kiss]] on you as the last thing needed to power these frames.

* ''VideoGame/AssaultShell'': The [[ArrangeMode Void Arrange]] mode has this for the Type Sigma fighter. Whereas compelting this mode with any of the other four characters results in a good ending where your copilot is removed from the Psycho Frame and is allowed to live a normal life with you, here, it's revealed that your combat data was being used for the mass production of ''millions'' of Psycho Frames, and that JOKER was using you for world domination all along, as Suzy performs a SoulSteal kiss on you as the last thing needed to power these frames.

* ''VideoGame/AssaultShell'': The [[ArrangeMode Void Arrange]] mode has this for the Type Sigma fighter. Whereas compelting this mode with any of the other four characters results in a good ending where your copilot is removed from the Psycho Frame and is allowed to live a normal life with you, here, it's revealed that your combat data was being used for the mass production of ''millions'' of Psycho Frames, and that JOKER was using you for world domination all along, as Suzy performs a SoulSteal kiss on you.

* The original ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUs'' ends with Joel delivering Ellie to the Fireflies, only to discover that the operation to extract the parasite will kill her. He then kills all the Fireflies standing in his way to save Ellie, thereby destroying any hope of a vaccine to the Cordyceps being made (which was rather slim to begin with, [[MadDoctor as Ellie wasn't the first person they tried this on]]). Ellie suspects he's lying when he claims that the Fireflies couldn't make a vaccine, harming their relationship. To make matters worse, his murder of the doctor who'd headed the operation results in the doctor's daughter [[SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome killing him near the start of the sequel]].

** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': If Caesar's Legion end up winning the Battle of Hoover Dam and driving the NCR out of the Mojave territory, it's certainly a DownerEnding as most minor groups get wiped out or enslaved, including the Great Khans, the Kings, the Boomers, and the Brotherhood of Steel. Even more so if Caesar dies and his AxCrazy second-in-command Legate Lanius takes the helm, as he warmly embraces MurderIsTheBestSolution and adds the pacifistic and idealistic Followers of the Apocalypse to the list. For the Great Khans, the only happy ending for them is brought about by convincing them to flee the Mojave, where they later move into Wyoming and try their hand at nation building — the alternatives are allowing them all to die in a pointless LastStand, being assimilated or exterminated by the Legion, or convincing them to ally with the NCR, [[UngratefulBastard who reward them for their assistance in the battle by forcibly evicting them to a barren reservation]].

* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'''s "bad ending"; the one you get if you can't activate the machinery underneath your city. Which you can't get if you let the old man in the Eye Machine die. The old man just happens to be protagonist Ryu's father. In it, Ryu takes his mother's place as the living seal to the Dragon World. He has to take her place because she literally gave her life to open the gate to let your party go after the BBEG. ''[=BoF2=]'' rivals ''Terranigma'' as the biggest continuous downer game in Nintendo history.
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'' gives you the option of merging back together with Fou-Lou, which results in Ryu killing his friends, turning into a massive dragon, and then leaving with the implication of ridding the earth of humanity.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' and its expansion, ''[[VideoGame/HalfLifeOpposingForce Opposing Force]]'', Gordon is placed into stasis as some sort of mercenary by the [[HumanoidAbomination G-Man]], and Adrian is apparently frozen for eternity, respectively.
* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2: Episode 2'' ended with Eli Vance getting brainsucked by tentacled Advisors while his daughter and a helpless Gordon Freeman watch, horrified. Fade To Black with her weeping over his body.

* The bad ending to ''VideoGame/{{Winback}}'' is considered a DownerEnding, While fighting through the terrorists Jean-Luc is held back long enough from preventing the terrorists from using the GULF satellite to destroy the Pentagon and the White House, and he later finds Jake and Lisa (Who normally survives in the good and normal endings) dead and swears revenge on the terrorists. Later, he confronts Cecile in the control room, who tells him that he wasted his time, as the satellite had broken up in orbit after it's third blast and destroying the Pentagon, meaning he could have prevented this, and the deaths of at least 1 of his other team mates if only he had been faster. After defeating Cecile, Jean-Luc confronts Kenneth, and after a short conversation with him. Kenneth commits suicide to prevent capture. Only Jean-Luc and Keith survive the mission and some of the terrorists (Some of whome you fight as bosses.) remain at large/. Oh, and Dan, the SCAT team leader, remains missing.
* ''VideoGame/TheWitchsHouse'': As it would turn out, Viola and the Witch actually switched bodies. At the end, Viola's father comes along and, unknowing of this, shoots Viola in the Witch's body, killing her.
* ''VideoGame/XenoSaga Episode 3''. All the connections between worlds have been severed, KOS-MOS drifts alone and broken, four other major characters are killed or disappear (not counting all the villains, many of whom are {{Anti Villain}}s), and humanity still hasn't found Lost Jerusalem. Definitely setting up for a fourth offering, but said offering hasn't happened yet.
* ''VideoGame/{{XIII}}'', the cel-shaded first person shooter based on the first half of the comic series of the same, ends with a CliffHanger after TheReveal of the conspirator, with the protagonist in an impending doom situation. Due to poor sales, the developers declined to adapt the rest of the story in game format.
* Very few of the endings for ''VideoGame/NotForBroadcast'' are what could be considered "happy endings", and unless players make the right choices, the ending you'll get will be [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]] at best, downright bad at worst. Such outcomes include the dictatorial powers that be retaining their power, violent terrorists seizing power, untenable population decline due to a SterilityPlague, civil war, outright societal collapse, and[=/=]or [[EverybodyDiesEnding every major character (yourself possible included) dying]].
* ''VideoGame/RoadOfTheDead'': Congratulations! You escaped from the zombie-infested city before it got nuked! Too bad the nuke doesn't do a damn thing to stop the zombies.
* ''VideoGame/TheDeadMines'': The player character is sent into a mine leaking toxic gas, with the goal of sealing the burst pipes. He succeeds, but succumbs to the gas.
* ''VideoGame/DoItForMe'': Four out of five endings have the students be killed by either of the two main characters. Only "Awake", the GoldenEnding, has everyone survive.
* ''VideoGame/TheOuterWorlds'': If the player chooses to side with [[MegaCorp the Board]] and help them gain total control over the Halcyon system, the colonists still trapped on the ''Hope'' will be jettisoned into space and killed, the laborers currently living in Halcyon will be forced into cryostasis chambers, and the colonies in the system will fall into ruin.

* ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'' ends with the lead character ceasing to exist because he destroyed the evil entity that was the source of his life. He is 'rewarded' for this by ThePowersThatBe by being allowed one last day in his pre-heroic life along with his old friends - all of whom will cease to exist along with him - before dying. The credits are superimposed over the last dream of the protagonist as he fades away. It's implied that, as the world cycles back and forth, Ark's spirit is the one with the "duty" to perform this role. Every time.
* ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'' features Downer Endings for most of the game's main default cast (the endings for the DLC characters tend to end on happier notes):
** Filia asks the Skull Heart to give Carol (aka: Painwheel) a shot at a normal life. The wish was ''mostly'' selfless: it was tainted by Filia's own wish for redemption. Hence, she would become the next Skullgirl. On the bright side, though, her transformation would be slow, so she gets to see Carol have the normal life she deserved.
** Cerebella finds the Skull Heart. Ms. Fortune finds her and attacks, boasting that the Life Gem would allow her to survive anything Cerebella throws at her. Cerebella uses Vice-Versa's super strength to crush Ms. Fortune until she is completely and utterly destroyed, recovering the Life Gem in the process. With both the Skull Heart and the Life Gem, she wins Vitale's favor, but feels tremendous guilt over killing Ms. Fortune.
** Peacock is forced to fight and destroy Marie, the Skullgirl. Before she dies, the two former friends have a friendly exchange, and Peacock vows to continue Marie's war against the Medici crime family.
** Parasoul wishes upon the Skull Heart to spare her sister Umbrella from ever becoming a Skullgirl. Her wish is granted, but in time, Parasoul would become the next Skullgirl. Parasoul decides to use what time she has left to train Umbrella to fight her once she transforms...
** Painwheel wrists free from Brain Drain's control and destroys the Skull Heart. She tries to return to her family, but is shunned because of how hideous she became as a result of Lab Zero's experiments on her. She sulkily returns to Brain Drain, but promises the man who turned her into a monster: "You're next!"
** Valentine reaches a dead end upon defeating the Skullgirl. Knowing that no good could come of wishing for her friends from Last Hope back to life, she asks the Skull Heart to make her the next Skullgirl. She vanishes along with the Skull Heart, leaving an unmasked Painwheel to [[TakeUpMySword take up Valentine's bonesaw]]...
** Ms. Fortune decides not to wish her old gang back to life, finding peace with her new friends back in Little Innsmouth. However, when she returns back home she finds out that the Medici mafia has kidnapped many of the residents in town, mostly all being children. She meets up with Irvin, Big Band's old partner, and agrees to help him investigate the situation as the game shows Black Dahlia, one of the Medici mafias most dangerous enforcers, holding the children hostage at gun point.
** During the course of Eliza's story, she takes Ms. Fortune prisoner, murders Cerebella in cold blood, then destroys the Skull Heart. When Filia and Squigly ambush her in her own nightclub, she's far too powerful for them to stop thanks to all the blood she took from Gehenna, and takes them both prisoner as well. She then turns into a gigantic blood monster and marches on Medici Tower, declaring war on them. It's a classic case of TheBadGuyWins. Only this time, ''[[PlayerPunch you're playing the bad guy]]''.
* In most ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'' games, the normal ending (that is, the ending you get if you didn't recruit all 108 stars of destiny) tends to be [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]]. This is not the case for the normal ending to Suikoden 2, which is [[TearJerker depressing]].
* In ''VideoGame/SuikodenV'', if you have recruited less than 60 stars of destiny, the main character goes over the DespairEventHorizon and wanders off into the frozen mountains alone, utterly broken by his experiences.
* ''VideoGame/ClockTower'':
** ''The First Fear''. Sure, Jennifer survived, but her three friends are all dead, and she's very nearly lost her sanity.
** The sequel is bad too. Jennifer is adopted by Helen and goes under therapy, only for Scissorman to attack her ''again''. In three of the endings, she fails to defeat Scissorman and dies, in one she kills him but dies in the process, and in one she kills him and survives. Even in the good ending, Scissorman has still killed some of the people she knew. Helen's endings are no better, as there are '''four''' endings in which she dies and Scissorman lives, and only one where he is defeated and she survives.
** ''Clock Tower: The Struggle Within'': The game has 13 endings, 12 of which are more or less just {{Nonstandard Game Over}}s. In the best ending, Alyssa survives, but Ashley Tate, a close friend of yours? Turned into a monster and was killed by her father, also a close friend of your family, who goes insane and gets killed later on. The mysterious woman Alyssa meets a few times throughout the story? Turns out she is your sister, but unfortunately, she commits suicide in front of your eyes right before the revelation. Your father? Turns out he isn't your real father. Your real father buried you alive because you were possessed, and this guy dug you up to take revenge. Oh, and he dies, of course. Your real father? Turns out he is the main slasher villain of the game. And yes, he dies too. The policeman you befriend throughout the game? He actually survives, but he prefers to stop the zombie apocalypse over your company. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, but there's a ZombieApocalypse now, ''and'' you're still [[CursedWithAwesome possessed]].
** In First Fear's "S" Ending, Jennifer and one of her friends get to live this time. However, it is still a bit of a downer, since Lotte is Jennifer's '''best''' friend, and she can't survive no matter the circumstances, and that ending isn't canonical anyway.
* ''VideoGame/{{Splatterhouse}}'':
** The first game ends with the protagonist, Rick Taylor, giving his back to the burned-down remains of the titular house, after having to kill his DamselInDistress girlfriend possessed by an ugly grand-guignolesque demon and probably scarred for life. The Mask of Terror, which helps him on his quest only to try to kill him at the end (releasing from a tomb the FinalBoss) and which he broke to pieces, just puts itself back together with a nasty cackle. In ''Splatterhouse 2'', we learn that Rick still has the power to bring his girlfriend back to life by returning to the mansion from the first game by literally fighting hell itself to save her.
** ''Splatterhouse 3'' has [[MultipleEndings three downer endings]], where Rick loses one or both of his wife and son, and one good ending where he saves both and destroys the Mask forever, depending on whether or not the player beat the stage-specific time limits. Thankfully, [[WordOfGod Namco]] confirmed that none of the bad endings are canon.
* ''Franchise/SilentHill'':
** The first ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'' had two downer endings, one with Harry and Cybil trapped in Hell together, the other being the famous DyingDream ending. Both Bad Endings have somber credits music (different from the good endings) to go with them, but the worst ending has a vocal ending theme, "Esperandote" ("waiting for you" in Spanish).
** ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'' has three downer endings (one of which is a secret ending). Specifically, in one ending the main character, James, commits suicide, in another he leaves the town accompanied by a sinister simulacrum of his dead wife who might be dying of the same disease she suffered, and in the secret ending he is seen rowing his dead wife's corpse to an island on the middle of a lake, with the declared intent of invoking the dark powers of the town in order to bring her back to life. But if you do things just right, he does get out okay, by choosing forgiveness and moving on. Even Laura is implied to have forgiven him.
** One of the endings of ''VideoGame/SilentHill3'' involves Heather failing to kill the God, instead becoming possessed by it and shooting Douglas.
** Three of the endings in ''VideoGame/SilentHill4'': Henry moves back into his still-haunted apartment, Eileen dies, or Walter completes his 21 sacraments and both of the protagonists die.
** And the movie ending: Alessa merges with Sharon, then she and Rose leave Silent Hill, but are still stuck in the other dimension where no one can see them, which can imply that the Dark Alessa has expanded the "nightmare" beyond just Silent Hill. How's that for a Downer Ending, having a vengeful, bordering-on-demonic spirit expanding her reality-warping, nightmarish anger and hatred over the whole world? There's a reason why people call this game "the scariest game ever", simply because the implications seen throughout the series are very depressing.
** The first game's remake, ''Shattered Memories'': all of the endings are a variation on the DyingDream ending. One ending shows that the entire time, Harry was a weak guy who was abused by his wife, one shows that Harry was a worthless drunk the whole time, and another shows that he was a proud adulterer. Although, in the last two, Cheryl makes up with her mother. Thankfully, it's also possible and likely to get the rather heartwarming Love Lost ending, where Harry and Dahlia peacefully divorce and assure Cheryl that they both still love her, but just can't stay married to each other anymore.
* ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' video game has a downer ending if the Stooges paid less then $5,000. The evil banker (named I. Fleecum) blurts to the Stooges that they did not raise enough money to save Ma's Orphanage, and the Orphanage is shut down for good and I. Fleecum gives out his last evil laughter. No Ending Credits is shown.
* All of the endings in ''VideoGame/DeusExInvisibleWar'' are downers to some degree. Either all of humanity link up with the AI Helios and give him a Borg-like HiveMind, a perfect democracy at the cost of the individual self (BittersweetEnding), the Illuminati take over the world, the Templars wipe out all biomodification and create an oppressive theocratic world government, or humanity [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt fights itself to extinction]], leaving only the Omar cyborg race.
** The endings in ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'' are all downer endings by analysis. They all seem like they could lead to a better future for humanity: You could choose Darrow's option of telling the whole truth, thus getting the world to all but stop pursuing science and technology, and instead focus on their humanity and morals. You could choose Sarif's option of blaming the whole thing on Purity First and the anti-aug protesters, thus allowing humans to "steal fire from the gods," and by extension, become gods ourselves. You could choose Taggart's option of not revealing anything to the public, allowing the world to be run carefully and responsibly by trustworthy people unseen. Or you could simply blow up Panchea, killing Sarif, Darrow, Taggart, and yourself in the process, and leaving humanity to make their own choices. These all sound like perfectly good endings. That is, until you remember that Human Revoluton is a ''prequel'' to the CrapsackWorld of VideoGame/DeusEx. It doesn't actually matter which ending you choose, since the world ends up going to hell anyway.
* ''VideoGame/{{Orwell}}'' has you spend the entire game spying on the members of a terrorist group known as Thought and [[BigBrotherIsEmployingYou uploading their personal information to a database known as Orwell]]. You learn that their leader once worked for the government and you're ordered to stop investigating further. If you ignore the warnings and proceed anyway, but decide to continue with your mission after learning the truth, the terrorists are arrested but [[HeKnowsTooMuch you're branded as a traitor and have a warrant for your arrest]]. Alternatively, you can reveal Orwell's existence to the world and get it shut down, but the ending implies it'll still be used under the table.
* The ending of the ''VideoGame/DungeonSiegeII: Broken World'' short story, "[[http://www.2kgames.com/brokenworld/home.html Bound Together]]".
* Some of the endings of ''VideoGame/TacticsOgreTheKnightOfLodis'' are quite the downer endings. In one of them, the hero's lover sacrifices herself to kill the BigBad, the hero's best friend dies thanks in no small part to the hero, and said best friend's father, a duke, sends his army after the hero, forcing him to go into hiding. The game's secret ending (which is also the canonical one) is hardly any better, as all of the above happens and the hero is rewarded by the Pope for killing the BigBad with a new name, Lans Tartare, which reveals to fans of the series that this game was a prequel, and that the hero is an antagonist in ''Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together''.
* The Sierra adventure game ''VideoGame/LighthouseTheDarkBeing'' has what could probably be called a Fridge Downer Ending. In what the developers [[EsotericHappyEnding presumably thought was a happy ending]], you capture the otherworldly BigBad and rescue the main NPC, the inventor Krick and his kidnapped daughter, to eventually bid them farewell back in their home by a cosy fire. However, there are a couple of other implications that the developers apparently never thought of, since Krick vows to destroy the machine he created that links to the fantastical other world. Not only is he abandoning the most spectacular scientific development in history, despite the fact that in rescuing him you made said fantastical world perfectly safe to visit and explore, and you must presumably now return to your mundane existence as an author in this world; more seriously, there's another major NPC, a paraplegic girl in a life-support machine unable to travel, whose former companions were all killed in a tragic accident long before and, without the continued companionship of the player character whom she befriends and helps capture the Big Bad, won't have anything else to do apart from potentially making friends with Martin's Birdman, assuming she's capable of reprogramming him.
* The game ''VideoGame/TwelveThirteen'' ends with the eponymous lead character finally escaping...only to discover that what he's escaping to is an Earth seemingly completely devoid of life after the atmosphere turned completely toxic for reasons that are unclear to everyone, and he and his clone siblings -- now all irredeemably insane or dead -- were created specifically to seek out and contact any survivors that might exist. The game ends simply on a scene of the devastation, before there's any sign of survivors...although, in a small concession to hope, it ends before the possibility is completely eliminated, either. Worse, it is implied that the actions of the player in the first part of the series (in escaping from the quarantined part of the facility he accidentally unleashed zombies on the whole place, plus the fact that the villain took out several members of the place's leadership over the course of the game) have ensured it doesn't possibly have the resources to engineer another human capable of surviving out there, and might not even be able to sustain themselves. Worst of all, is that the last human on earth is unstable in such a way that he will not be able to remember anything for more than a week (including his identity, what's going on, and where the game took place) and is doomed to wander forever in a desolate wasteland he won't even be able to remember. And that's ignoring the hallucinations.
* ''7 Days a Skeptic'', from the VideoGame/ChzoMythos series of games: the PlayerCharacter turns out to be an impostor who killed a man and took his identity to fulfill the dream of being in space. As if that wasn't disturbing enough, he gets arrested for 6 murders, 5 of which (those of his crewmates) he didn't commit.
* ''6 Days a Sacrifice'', not only is it revealed that the protagonist of ''7 Days'' ended up as Destiny's slave, the player character of ''that'' game kills the woman he's in love with (who had been possessed by John [=DeFoe=] during the sex scene, implying that you had killed John [=DeFoe=]), then becomes fused with John [=DeFoe=]'s ghost to become Chzo's new Prince. On the plus, he was already dead. The fact that Chzo ''actually won in the end'' is a shocker in itself, too.
* ''VideoGame/{{Outcast}}'': Your skeptic hero is fighting TheDragon in an all-out battle in the palace gardens. After dispatching him and his mooks, the ending cut-scene begins. Your semi-love-interest comes around as the hero is going up the stairs to face the BigBad. Cue love interest getting shot by a cloaking pack-wearing BigBad. What follows is the god destroying the palace and dragging the main boss down with it. The game ends with a eulogy and funeral service for your love interest, and a sad hero returning to Earth. Accompanied by one of the saddest pieces of game music ever (Heaven on Adelpha by Lennie Moore).
* The Terran and Protoss campaigns in the original ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' certainly qualify: In the Terran campaign, Raynor helps Mengsk defeat the Confederacy, only to see him become a tyrant and war criminal as evil as the Confederates. At the end of the Protoss campaign, the Overmind is dead, but their homeworld is a smoldering crater and still swarming with newly rampaging Zerg.
** The expansion pack, ''Brood War'' is a classic example by any standards. The game ends with the Zerg triumphant, the Protoss and Terrans scattered (in the final cutscene the Terran commander shoots himself, having penned a farewell note to his wife back on Earth) and most of the characters who could loosely be classified as "good guys", either dead or having abandoned the fight.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fahrenheit}}'' (also known as Indigo Prophecy in the USA) has two negative endings.
** In the first, the Purple clan (a race of intelligent machines) wins -- the temperature on the planet continues to drop, leaving 3/4 of the world population dead, and even if the rest of humanity manages to thwart the machines' reign, they will still be forced to live underground because of the cold. Very bad ending.
** In the second, the Oracle (a Mayan sorcerer) wins -- although there is no immediate effect, the protagonist still occasionally sees through the eyes of the Oracle, and knows that bad things are yet to happen.
* Then there is ''VideoGame/{{Klonoa}}: Door to Phantomile''. Not only does he lose his grandpa halfway through the game, after striking down the Big Bad, he finds out that he was just summoned there just to help by his friend in the ring, and was nothing more than a "dream" character, and that he is instantly whisked away back to his "dimension" while pleading to his friend to remain in Phantomile.

* ''VideoGame/DreamfallTheLongestJourney'': One of the heroines gets stabbed and disappears without a trace, possibly dead. The male hero finally sees the light and turns to the good side, only to be captured by the bad guys. The evil mind-control plan you sabotaged and thwarted? Only delayed; the final cutscene shows the public going crazy about the product without knowing what it really does. The main character's ex-boyfriend who she still had feelings for? Most likely dead, replaced by a clone without anyone knowing the difference. The guy who the main character fell in love with during the game? Disappeared, presumably dead. The main character herself? In a coma and about to die after being duped by the bad guys. With her father crying by her side as her life fades away. Not to even mention the heartwrenching scene where your plush toy/pet android, if you put his batteries back into him after using them elsewhere, talks with one of the [[BigBad big bads]] right after you've fallen into a coma about if you're going to wake up ever again. It also counts that about a billion seemingly really important things are left completely unanswered by the time the game ends.
* ''VideoGame/Mother3'' ends with the main protagonist Lucas confronting the Masked Man in a final showdown in order to pull the last needle to awaken a Dragon that will undo the damage done by the big bad. The catch? The Masked Man is Claus, his brother that died early in the game (at the age of nine, incidentally) and was revived as a cyborg by big bad Porky to pull the needles in order to destroy the world, and brainwashed him into commanding his army. Claus slowly regains his senses after his father takes a spell aimed for Lucas, and takes off his helmet to reveal his face. Cue sad music as Claus commits suicide, firing one of his instant kill lightning spells at Lucas (which is reflected by an item that he was wearing) and dies in Lucas' arms, saying that he was glad that he could be with his family before he died. Lucas then pulls the final needle, which ends the earth; the difference in this case being that everyone is implied to survive and that the world will regenerate as it was before Porky's interference. For a game in a series that largely focuses on children fighting absurdist enemies like hippies...
* In the fantasy video games ''VideoGame/DungeonSiege'' and ''VideoGame/DungeonSiegeII'', the heroes' final victory over the Big Bad results in a cataclysm and TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Twice.
* ''VideoGame/ShadowMan'' ends with the main character being trapped in the land of the dead, unable to return to the land of the living. Not as much of a downer ending as you'd expect though, since the narration suggests that he's ''happy'' about it, and it was immediately undone in the sequel, where the first thing Mike does is recover [[WarpWhistle Luke's teddy bear]] that lets him return to Liveside after it had been lost following Asylum's destruction.
* ''VideoGame/KaneAndLynch: Dead Men''. In the "damned if you do" ending, Kane winds up alone on a small motorboat at sea with a dying Lynch and his dead daughter, despite the game giving you the illusion of there being a way to keep Kane's daughter alive all the way to the ending by making you protect your daughter through the last area. Even if protected flawlessly, she ''will'' get gunned down at the docks, and Lynch will take one in the chest while you get your boat started, and be dying. The one member of your crew you ''did'' save curses your name, rushes ahead, and grabs a second boat, ditching you. In the "damned if you don't" ending, Kane abandons Lynch in South America, with his crew being burned out of a church, certain to die, with his daughter vowing to hate him forever for abandoning the crew to save her life. For a game that seemed to be about Kane's redemption, that's two epic {{Downer Ending}}s that some people ''intensely'' disliked.
* The 2008 ''VideoGame/AloneInTheDark'' game has a "pick your poison" pair of downer endings. Giving the player an option to choose which one is kind of like twisting the knife. Although the Path of Light ending may have been planned to be a SequelHook, the follow-up ''Alone in the Dark: Illumination'' was a sequel InNameOnly and ended up [[FranchiseKiller killing off the franchise]].
* Activision's ''VideoGame/{{Apocalypse}}'' for [=PS1=] doesn't even give you a "lesser of two evils" ending. Trey Kincaid ([[InkSuitActor portrayed by Bruce Willis]]), after defeating the four horsemen, comes face to face with the BigBad himself. He says "see you in hell", but before he can fire, the Rev blasts Bruce with a bolt of lightning, [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie turning him into a "demon" himself]], complete with glowing HellishPupils. Who knows what he will unleash upon the universe.
* ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun'' has the mothership Penta being taken over by the Stone-Like, and everyone is killed except the quirky robot Creator, who resurrects the 2 main characters through cloning, and keeping the StableTimeLoop happening indefinitely.
* ''The 11th Hour'' also has a "pick your poison" set of endings: if you pick Marie, she turns into Stauf and eats you alive, if you choose Robin, she has actually been turned evil and will murder you, so the only way to survive is to choose Samantha, a BittersweetEnding, as Robin is destroyed in the burning mansion along with the BigBad (she had irrevocably turned evil, anyway).
* Given that ''VideoGame/LufiaIIRiseOfTheSinistrals'' is a prequel, and the final confrontation was shown at the start of the previous game, anyone who played the first game will know that Maxim and Selan die in the Fortress of Doom after the battle with the Sinistrals. While this was inevitable, the writers decided to make the blow even harder by showing that the comrades they fought alongside throughout the game are totally confident that Maxim and Selan found a way out somehow, and are definitely going to return. The remake ''VideoGame/LufiaCurseOfTheSinistrals'' has the same ending with a slight change (and better graphics), with Selena (as she was renamed) dying along with Maxim instead of after the original boss fight. Their child, Jeros, still cries when their spirits hover over the city. If you play through the game a second time, however, Erim shows up just before they drive the Dual Blade through the final crystal and you have to fight her. If you win, Maxim and Selena warp away and Erim dies instead. It's her spirit that visits everyone in the second ending. Also, the scene where Jeros cries starts out exactly the same... only Maxim and Selena walk in and Selena holds her baby and comforts him, letting him know mommy's okay.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'' - the demonic Burning Legion are defeated; however, most of the human kingdoms have been destroyed, their population transformed into undead monsters. And the World tree, which helped maintain Night Elves' immortality, was destroyed in the process, although it started to regrow soon afterwards.
** Also in the expansion pack, where [[TheDragon Arthas]] fuses with [[BigBad Ner'zhul]], creating one of the most powerful villains in the franchise. Things haven't gotten a whole lot better in the universe since then either. If how many [[SealedEvilInACan Sealed Evils In A Can]] have become unsealed, or close to it since then, is any indication, things have gotten a whole lot ''worse''. Not even ''World of Warcraft'' made a single effort to solve this.
** There's also the novel trilogy ''War of the Ancients'': the demons are repelled, but the Well of Eternity implodes, tearing the continent in half, the dragons are weakened by treachery, and Illidan secretly smuggled some of the water from the Well and makes a new one. Worst of all, the real villains (known as the Old Gods) even manage to gain something from these events, transforming the drowning Highborne into their servants, the Naga.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'', [[MultipleEndings two of the three endings]] are {{Downer Ending}}s:
** Bad Ending (essentially a NonStandardGameOver): Emil commits suicide because he terribly wounded Marta.
** Normal Ending: Emil is sealed away with the world tree, Yggdrasill, for 1000 years.
* ''VideoGame/GregoryHorrorShow'' for the [=PS2=]: After dealing with the terrifying guests who were out to kill you, finding out their even more disturbing habits, wandering through a dungeon-like maze under the hotel, obtaining all of the souls within the hotel, dealing with Gregory's witch-like mother, who uses the souls to keep herself "beautiful", and fighting to remain sane throughout the whole affair, we come to the ending explaining that the hotel was a dream, a mental formation breeded by the weakness within all human hearts. Now, they could have ended it with the burning down of the hotel due to the sacrifice of [=NekoZombie=], but oh no! The narrator reveals that the harsh reality of life may force him/her to return there. To make it worse, a CG clip at the end reveals that the hotel rebuilds itself, Gregory comes back from the dead, and that, yes, you really did come back to the hotel. [[CruelTwistEnding Talk about a cruel twist.]]
* ''VideoGame/SplinterCellDoubleAgent'' has several:
** Enrica being killed by one of Fisher's own men. He kills the agent and is now on the run from his own agency.
** Either Sam loses it and sides with the JBA, becoming a terrorist, Sam retains his sanity but gets caught for terrorism and put into a trial he cannot possibly win, or Sam retains his sanity and utterly destroys the JBA, but also loses all contact with the NSA, forcing him to go underground until such time that he can prove his innocence...which may never happen. None are particularly happy, but some are at least slightly more hopeful than others.
* ''Literature/BraveStory: New Traveler'' kinda has a downer ending too. Sure, you save the girl from a evil, strangely hot-looking, half-naked, super emo, top-half-sticking-out-of-a-giant-toad's-mouth goddess, but in the end, the whole of the land you just visited was all an illusion, your new friends will soon disappear into nothingness, and you yourself will eventually forget the entire journey.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{STALKER}} S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl]]'': After 20 hours of wandering the Zone, killing mutants, shutting down machines that destroy people's minds and barely surviving, you finally approach the Wish Granter and make a wish, and then either die in a horrible way, or go blind, depending on your actions throughout the game. There is a better ending, too, but many players get too frustrated by the Wish Granter endings to even try and play the game any more. All the Wishgranter endings are downers, as is the bad ending from the true final area. The true ending, though, is a HappyEnding. Until ''Call of Pripyat'', the direct sequel to that true ending, where [[HappyEndingOverride you see that the Zone got out of control and is hell]].
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'':
*** The main character abandons everyone that cares about her and sail off alone into uncharted space to wage a futile battle against an [[GreaterScopeVillain ancient, omnipotent evil empire]] alongside the hero of the [[VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic first game]]. And the redeemed Mandalorians? Doomed ([[Film/RevengeOfTheSith in about 4000 years]]). Mira dies in a HeroicSacrifice after helping the other party members restore the Jedi Order, Visas' planet is still dead, and [[EvilInc Czerka]]'s still dicking around (for now). That's the ''good'' ending, and in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' [[FromBadToWorse things just got worse for them from there]].
*** The DarkSide ending. In TheExile's absence half your party become aimless {{Serial Killer}}s wreaking havoc wherever they go [[EverybodyDiesEnding (unless you got them all killed)]] while Dantooine lies in ruins, Czerka's influence turns Telos into a WretchedHive, Nar Shaddaa becomes an even ''worse'' one than it already was with [[TokenEvilTeammate Goto]]'s absence creating an EvilPowerVacuum, and TheRepublic as a whole is on the verge of collapse while the Jedi remain extinct.
** ''VideoGame/StarWarsRepublicCommando'': The squad successfully completes the mission, but at the last moment [[ColdSniper Sev]] is attacked by an overwhelming number of enemies and goes MIA. The Squad was going to go after him, but the higher orders forced them to fall back and leave him. His fate isn't resolved to date.
** In the "Ultimate Revenge of the Sith" alternate ending of ''VideoGame/StarWarsEpisodeIIIRevengeOfTheSith'' Vader kills Obi-Wan, and Palpatine declares that there is none left to oppose them (meaning Yoda possibly died). However, after Palpatine hands Vader his new weapon, a red lightsaber, [[TheStarscream Vader]] [[DroppedABridgeOnHim stabs Palpatine]] and declares himself the new emperor. And because Obi-Wan is dead, presumably [[ForWantOfANail Padmé would not be able to be taken to Polis Massa, and Luke and Leia would never have been born]]. And thus, the Jedi are completely dead and Anakin [[PyrrhicVictory has obtained ultimate power at the cost of everyone who ever cared for him]].
** ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'' duology's DarkSide endings. In the first game, Starkiller [[SkewedPriorities prioritizes his revenge on Vader over saving his allies]] which results in the budding [[LaResistance Rebellion]] getting crippled before it even leaves the ground and Starkiller [[TrappedInVillainy being forced to become Vader's replacement]]. The events of ''Film/ANewHope'' [[InSpiteOfANail go mostly unchanged]] as the Rebels are still active, Obi-Wan Kenobi still mentors Luke Skywalker (but is killed before they even get off Tatooine), and Luke still destroys the Death Star. It isn't until the Battle of Hoth that things truly diverge, as Starkiller reveals the truth of Luke's heritage to him and [[WeCanRuleTogether takes him on as his Sith apprentice]]. In the sequel it's even ''worse'' as the [[EverybodyDiesEnding entire cast of the original trilogy]] is killed by Starkiller's DiabolusExMachina clone who gets a BolivianArmyEnding once Palpatine learns of his existence.
* ''VideoGame/DoshinTheGiant'', surprisingly. The islanders construct the Tower of Babel, which blocks out the sun and causes the island to break apart. Doshin holds the tower up long enough to let the humans run, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere for them to go, and the entire island sinks into the sea while Sodoru contemplates the fact that he is dying. In the end, Doshin falls face-down dead into the water and becomes a new island.
* ''VideoGame/{{Exmortis}}'' gives you a choice of two intensely depressing endings: having found out that you're actually the Hand of Repose, a prophesied living gateway for the Exmortis to return to Earth through, you can either decide to ScrewDestiny and run for it, or [[YouCantFightFate give in and become the Hand.]] If you decide to run, you make it as far as the forest before being jumped by an Exmortis demon, whereupon you wake up exactly where you began the game, with no memory. And if you choose to give in, you're stuck watching your new masters obliterate the human race for the rest of your life. Either way, you're screwed.
** ''Exmortis 2'' is even '''worse'''. At the behest of a [[MysteriousInformant shadowy benefactor]], you travel across a world ruled by the Exmortis, picking through abandoned houses for clues and getting scared shitless by ghosts, demons, and the bodies they left in their wake: at the end of it all, you get to put the Hand of Repose out of his/her misery and send every last Exmortis tumbling back into the Spirit Realm, freeing the human survivors from their reign of terror. And then you meet the shadow benefactor, who reveals that he's actually Lord Vlaew, the master of the Exmortis; apparently he wanted to avoid being betrayed by his own minions, and now that you've succeeded in removing the only creatures capable of killing him, he'll be able to rule the world as he sees fit. As if it couldn't get any worse, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Vlaew congratulates you for your help]] and gives you a reward: [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness a quick death.]]
** ''Exmortis 3'' (which isn't as well known due to requiring ''$20'' just to play it), goes even lower: While at the beginning you return from the Spirit World with [[EmpoweredBadassNormal incredible new powers]] given to you by one of the suffering Ancients, Azrael; when you finally defeat Vlaew once and for all, he opens a portal and [[CollapsingLair his lair collapses around him]]. Going through this portal sends you eons into the past, long before humanity rose, [[ShootTheShaggyDog dooming you for good]].
* ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2008'' has Elika dying, and the Prince screwing the world over to bring her back. It gets points for being a SequelHook, though, the game's 'proper' ending in the Epilogue DLC doesn't end things on a much better note. Namely, Elika hates the Prince for bringing her back and setting Ahriman free, soon nowhere will be safe from his touch and the Corruption, and after successfully navigating the Temple to the lands beyond that are (currently) untouched by Ahriman, Elika tells the Prince he can do what he likes and then abandons him to go find her missing people.
* The indie adventure game ''VideoGame/TheWhiteChamber'' (sic) has several endings. Four of them result in Sarah dying, but both of them are all too easily avoidable. The other three...Holy fuck. You learn that ''Sarah'', the person you've been playing as, murdered the entire crew just for the sake of getting the artefact's power, and she's been forced into a loop in order to redeem her sins. And that's part of ''both'' endings. The bad ending results in Sarah failing to redeem herself and being forced into the loop again, the ''worse'' ending ends with her being tormented by zombies, and the good ending? Not that much better. She redeems herself, the station explodes, but she's isolated on an island on the nearest planet. And the artefact is still around. Sure, you get {{Fanservice}}, but the music doesn't help either.
* ''Franchise/DeadSpace'':
** In the finale of the [[VideoGame/DeadSpace first game]], it's revealed that Isaac's girlfriend had been dead (committed suicide to apparently avoid death via necromorph) since before the game began; and he was hallucinating her presence all the time. After finally managing to kill the hive mind and narrowly escape, Isaac replays Nicole's message and turns it off prior to her suicide. He's then attacked by undead Nicole (though this too was an hallucination, per WordOfGod). So the hero's dead or mad on the edge of space, the marker that was keeping the necromorphs at bay is apparently destroyed, and the Ishimura remains drifting in space, full of necromorphs (the kicker is that the Ishimura would've been destroyed, had it not been for Isaac fixing it). The real downer (and something most people forget) is the fact that the marker isn't the original marker. The marker in the game is one created by the Earth government from one discovered on Earth. So, even if Isaac had somehow been able to completely destroy the hive mind, all the necromorphs, and the marker itself, there would still be the original and maybe even more copies.
** ''VideoGame/DeadSpaceExtraction'' similarly ends on an ambiguous DownerEnding. [=McNeill=], Weller, and Murdoch escape from the Ishimura, but at the end one of the characters (it's not shown who) turns into a Necromorph and attacks Murdoch. ''VideoGame/DeadSpace2: Severed'' eventually answered which one turned into a Necromorph with the return of only Weller and Murdoch. But then at the end of ''Severed'', Weller is hit with a grenade and sacrifices himself to open the bay doors to let Murdoch escape.
** ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3: Awakened'' has the first hopeful ending in the franchise, with Isaac appearing to sacrifice himself to stop the Moon from completing. While ''Awakened'' shows that he and Carver survived, the [[EldritchAbomination rest of the Brother Moons]] have awakened, and they fail to stop them or get ahead of them to Earth, and they've already begun to attack the planet, ending with one of the Brethren Moons looming over their ship before the credits roll.
* ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3'' and its expansions offer several endings depending on Geralt's choices, many of them depressing.
** If Geralt has been a less-than-ideal father figure to Ciri, the game can end with Ciri [[HeroicSacrifice dying while saving the world]] from The White Frost, and Geralt mourning after retrieving her Witcher medallion from Weavess while a swarm of monsters rush into the house he's in.
** In the ''Hearts of Stone'' expansion, unless Geralt decides to take action the story ends with Gaunter O'Dimm [[DraggedOfftoHell taking Olgierd von Everec's soul]] and rewarding Geralt for helping him do it.
** The ''Blood & Wine'' expansion has three endings, two of them bad. If Geralt allows Detlaff to kill Syanna, then regardless of whether he kills Detlaff or not Geralt will be thrown in prison and narrowly escape life imprisonment thanks to the efforts of Regis and Dandelion. The Duchess now hates Geralt even if he reveals Syanna's plan to murder her, [[UngratefulBastard refuses to pay him the full reward he was owed for stopping the murders]], and if he let Detlaff go then many in Toussaint resent him as well. If Geralt doesn't figure out why Syanna wanted the Duchess dead and convince them to reconcile, then Syanna stabs the Duchess in the back at her trial before being immediately shot in the neck with a crossbow bolt. The two sisters are placed side by side in the same crypt, and Geralt goes to place roses on the Duchess' coffin while lamenting the deaths he failed to prevent.
* ''Condemned''
** ''VideoGame/CondemnedCriminalOrigins'' ends with Ethan Thomas managing to defeat the apparent source of the city's madness (a demon-ish entity with lots of metal implanted in its skin); but as he and Malcolm are driving away, Ethan realizes that Malcolm's nephew, Leland aka SKX, is still alive and locked up in the back of Malcolm's car. Ethan can either choose to take his revenge on SKX for ruining his life or have mercy; but SKX does take a bullet on his head, while more of the metallic freaks are seen. Ethan is seen later at a diner, his life still ruined, the one person he trusts admitting to wearing a wire, and apparently transforming into one of the freaks.
** ''VideoGame/Condemned2Bloodshot'' ends on a higher note, but still a pretty ominous one. Ethan, a burned-out alcoholic, manages to defeat the Oro, the cult that apparently included the metal-jawed demonish guys from the first game. He and two friends escape, and apparently all is happy. Except it's revealed that the President of the United States is a member of the Oro. And SKX? He survived his gunshot, killed his Uncle, and is accepted into Oro-dom, including all that cool metal dentistry.
* ''VideoGame/{{Geneforge}} 4''. The three major endings are: [[ShootTheShaggyDog letting the Shapers win and in doing so make the whole rebellion completely pointless]], help the rebellion release the Unbound so that the war spreads to the other half of the continent, or force a stalemate that results in the PC being executed or enslaved.
** It is possible if you have the right amount of hidden stats for you to be merely imprisoned and have a lot of people come to agree with your ideas. And in some of the shaper endings, it's possible for them to have a reform of their code that allows more of an amnesty for Serviles.
** Even if you force a stalemate (which is the canon ending), ''Geneforge 5'' reveals that the Unbound stopped keeping the peace and started to wreck the world again anyway. The victory that the PC had been imprisoned for still ended up making everything worse in the end.
** The majority of endings in the ''Geneforge'' series are downer endings to some degree. There are very few good ones, and they're typically hard to get.
* The ending of ''VideoGame/LaMulana'' can be seen as this. Mother is unable to return to the heavens. All that can be given to her is the peace of death, in the form of the player. And Lemeza finally gets the treasure, and the power to create life, but in the end, his father steals it from him. ''La-Mulana 2'''s backstory seals the deal on Lemeza's end via HarsherInHindsight: yeah, he saved humanity and all, but he also destroyed a World Heritage Site and the public doesn't believe his reasoning, so he's a wanted criminal.
* The ending of ''VideoGame/RobotechBattlecry'': The game is narrated by your character. At the end of the next-to-last mission, the Zentradi ship husk that acts as the backdrop for the fight suddenly engages a space-fold, taking the enemy fleet and you... to ''Saturn''. The last mission is in space, where you finally kill the BigBad Zeraal. And then you find out that all of your narration is just your character's final minutes, recording how he got there as he runs out of oxygen.
* ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin]]'' is a downer as it gets. The game ends with your entire squad except Morales and possibly Stokes killed, and Alma is still free and running about. Also, Alma rapes you.
* ''VideoGame/{{Killzone}} 2'' ends with you showing up in the Helghast Emperor's palace in order to arrest him. However, he points out that the ISA have lost millions of soldiers and entire fleets during the war, while the Helghast have lost "nothing" and only his leadership is keeping them in check. In anger, resident EthnicScrappy Rico [[NiceJobBreakingItHero kills him, only for you to find out he wasn't lying, as a substantial Helghast fleet, that had been kept in reserve, begins its vicious counter-attack.]]
** ''VideoGame/{{Killzone}} 3'' has a mixed ending wherein Stahl is escaping Sev and the ISA after an orbital battle, so the obvious solution is to drop a nuke on his now in-atmosphere ship which sets off an explosion that sweeps the entire planet. Cut to the protagonists noting that no more comms traffic - military OR civilian - is coming from the planet, and Sev openly wondering how many people were down there. During the credits, a scene is shown of some Helghast soldiers opening some kind of pod claiming 'We've found him'.
** ''VideoGame/{{Killzone}} Shadow War'' ends with your former mentor executing Stahl, then he shoots you in the face. Then he declares war on the Helghast when both sides are on the verge of destroying their own civilization. Then your sidekick makes a martyr of him. You basically saved both sides and restarted the galaxy-wide thermonuclear war.
* The Unreal series had a habit of using these:
** ''VideoGame/{{Unreal|I}}'': you're stuck in an escape pod with little hope of rescue.
*** Upgraded to BittersweetEnding at the Return to Na Pali ExpansionPack. You manage to find another shuttle and escape back to civilization, but since you didn't got eliminated by the marines stationed at that sector[[note]]They rescued you from the faulty escape pod from the above ending, specifically because, as an death-row convict, you're that much expendable. And following the plotline objectives, now you know more than you should.[[/note]], you're on the run from the law. Again.
** ''VideoGame/{{Unreal II|The Awakening}}'': you're stuck in an escape pod with little hope of rescue and your crew is dead.
** ''[[VideoGame/UnrealTournament2004 Unreal Championship]]'' had your character getting locked in one of the tubes on an arena, and then being shot by errant fire.
** ''VideoGame/UnrealTournamentIII'': Akasha is dead, but so is Reaper's entire squad, except for Reaper himself. The last thing we see is Reaper, surrounded, about to fight his way out or die trying. Cut to black. Even if he succeeds, how the hell is he getting home?
* In ''VideoGame/ForHonor'', the BigBad Apollyon is defeated, however she [[TheBadGuyWins ultimately succeeds in inciting war between the three factions]] and it's years before their leaders realize what truly happened. While Cross, Stigandr, and Ayu agree to try and end the war, they admit that it will be extremely difficult and likely get them killed, and the collapse of peace caused the ForeverWar in multiplayer. Worse still, the Order of Horkos would continue to sabotage any attempts at peace.
* ''VideoGame/AnotherWorld'' (aka ''Out Of This World'') ends with [[AnotherDimension otherworldly]] [[UnlikelyHero researcher]] Lester Chaykin unconscious, after being injured while escaping from enemy troops. This could also wind up under NoEnding or maybe a {{cliffhanger}}, since nothing is ever finalized, but Lester's alien buddy shows up to carry him off into the sky to destinations unknown, [[SequelHook leading to the sequel.]] It gets more depressing in the [[UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis Mega CD]] sequel, ''Heart of the Alien''. Lester never gets back home and is in fact killed by one of the evil aliens, forcing Buddy to cremate Lester's body at the end.
* For such a relaxing game, ''VideoGame/DreamChronicles'' sure has some sad endings. The first one ends with the heroine being whisked to a magical prison, and the second ends with her getting amnesia and forgetting her husband and child.
* In both the Playstation and DS re-releases of ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', an additional cutscene was added post-credits in which, despite saving the entire world, the heroes' home kingdom is burned to the ground and the citizens are killed. The whereabouts of the heroes is left ambiguous. The sequel, ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', implies they were also killed, as they are only seen as ghosts. To top it off, some of the characters you can play as are implied to have had a role in the incident.
* In ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', the [[MultipleEndings Dragon god ending]] is stunningly bleak; it implies that the dragon god, in alliance with the demi-humans and dwarves, killed all the humans on El Nido, Serge and friends included. The game ends showing Harle walk through Serge's hometown, being looted and occupied by the non-humans, as she stops at the grave his alternate-self had been buried at. She lays flowers at his grave and says farewell, cue credits.
* In ''VideoGame/OperationFlashpoint'', the main character, David Armstrong, gets sent to a desolate island in the middle of nowhere, has his all friends massacred by the Soviets (twice), and generally has a pretty awful experience. The game's epilogue, however, states that the entire incident between the US and USSR was passed off by Moscow and Washington as a "misunderstanding", the Everon War being given a small footnote in an obscure military history book. Seems [[ShootTheShaggyDog all his friends died for nothing in the end]], and were completely forgotten.
* In ''VideoGame/ArmyMen: Sarge's War'', the game ends with every green soldier except Sarge and a few other minor grunts dead. It doesn't help that most fans consider this to be the last game in the series and all others as InNameOnly. "War is hell, and hell is for heroes".
* The end of ''VideoGame/KirbysDreamLand'' sees Dedede flung from his castle and falling to the ground. You're then shown the code for the "Extra Game". Completing ''that'' shows Dedede thrown to land on his ''head''. He then runs around the screen ''crying in pain'' before collapsing. It's a wonder he ever "plays" with Kirby ever again.
** Similarly[[note]]by virtue of essentially being a remake to the "Extra Game" just like how ''Spring Breeze'' was to ''Kirby's Dream Land''[[/note]], after clearing the ''Revenge of the King'' game in ''VideoGame/KirbySuperStar Ultra'', instead of showing Kirby's victory, the ending cinematic shows a defeated, depressed King Dedede walking a lonely road. At least his Waddle Dee friends come one by one to walk beside him. Yes, the game actually makes you feel guilty for winning, although seeing a Downer Ending for your opponent might be satisfying.
* ''VideoGame/MetroExodus'': In the game's second DLC, Sam's Story, Sam has been on the mission to find a way to leave Russia and head back to his hometown of San Diego in the United States via the U.S.S. Mayflower submarine by Tom. Except, in the ultimate finale of the DLC, he was ''actually'' being tricked ''all along'' by Tom, when the captain knew about the existence of nukes inside the submarine, which is one reason why one of the nukes has been ''rigged'' with bombs. What makes the DLC's ending especially sad is by the fact that both choices, although with different outcomes, seem to border on the sad. Choice A is to blow up Tom's submarine, but Sam '' completely loses his means of transportation'' back home to the United States, while saving the world from impending nuclear war by Tom. Choice B is to NOT blow the submarine which gives Sam a transportation back to the United States, but Tom will launch a nuclear war by launching the nukes from the submarine. Either options will both lead to a downer ending.
* ''VideoGame/PunchOut'' for the Wii has one, and it's terribly depressing. If Little Mac loses 3 matches in the mode "Mac's Last Stand", he will keep his word in retiring from boxing for good. The game then shows Doc Louis in a room that shows various photos of Little Mac's victories over the boxers he faced. Doc Louis then rings the bell on the bike that was Little Mac's. If that wasn't enough, Doc Louis looks up at a photo of him and Mac during their training, saying to himself that he is proud of Mac. And just to make sure that the point is driven home, players cannot play the career section in their profile since it is literally "retired."
* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}''.
** The first game starts with the noble king being corrupted and his kingdom destroyed. Then you have to kill the undead king, plus demons are killing people, and the prince has been kidnapped. After 16 annoying levels of demon slaying, you finally make it to the boss and beat him...you find out that the kidnapped prince you were tasked to find and rescue was Diablo all this time, and you just killed him. To top it off, you became Diablo and took his place, bringing the world back to the way it was when it started and making your whole quest pointless.
** ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}} II'': Diablo is dead, yay! And then the last cinematic plays, and it turns out the being Marius was talking to the entire time was not the Archangel Tyrael, but the last Prime Evil, Baal, who just got back his own soulstone and is about to wreak havoc.
** The ''Lord of Destruction'' expansion: Baal is dead, yay! But the worldstone is unstable and must be destroyed. Tyrael says there's no telling what will happen next. In the next game, we find out that one of the effects was that Mount Arreat has been reduced to a smoldering crater.
* ''VideoGame/{{Saints Row|1}}'' ends with your character [[NotQuiteDead supposedly dying]] in a boat explosion, shortly after reaching his goal of helping his gang take over the entire city. To make matters worse, in the second game, you learn that one of your best friends organized the whole thing. Also, in ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'', where you get to choose between two endings -- one of them involves letting two of the player character's friends die in a conspiracy plot, intended to make the Saints appear as terrorists. However, this is more of a BittersweetEnding, as the Saints return to their old ways (from the second game), and declare Steelport an independent state.
* ''VideoGame/ShovelKnight: King Of Cards'' has [[VillainProtagonist King Knight]] betraying everyone he allied with, dooming the land, kicking out father-figure King Pridemoor while forever shaming his mother, after learning that the titular "King of Cards" reward was a sham, and getting sick of shoulder-bashing for people who don't even help him fight and even King Knight himself seems ashamed of alienating his mother, and is trying to bury it in his victory. The epilogue ends with [[TheHero Shovel Knight]] confronting him, making everything he did AllForNothing.
* ''VideoGame/TheQuestOfKi'' ends with Druaga splitting the Blue Crystal Rod into three and [[TakenForGranite turning Ki into a rock]]. Since this is a prequel to ''VideoGame/TheTowerOfDruaga'', it is rectified in that game when Druaga is defeated and Gil restores Ki to her original form.
* ''VideoGame/InTheHunt'' has a very nasty variation of MultipleEndings: In the first, you fail to escape the enemy HQ and are destroyed along with it, in the second, you become the new leader of the evil organization you were trying to destroy throughout the entire game, and in the third, both players sink to the bottom of the sea endlessly. To get the GoldenEnding, you have to reach the final form of the final boss on ''[[DoWellButNotPerfect more than one credit]]''.
* ''VideoGame/HostileWatersAntaeusRising'' has a pretty hard-hitting ending. In the final mission, after much effort, your ship, converted into a makeshift nuke, destroys a structure designed to launch genetically engineered alien creatures into space. ItMakesSenseInContext. Anyway, in the credits, you and your crew go down with the ship. The ship's nanotech creation engine hits the ocean floor with the alien launch platform, which promptly beings to assimilate it. As if this weren't bad enough, they show that the aliens managed to get into space anyway. Congrats, humanity's last weapon was sacrified for basically nothing except spare time (which the humans won't use because they think they've won), and if those aliens decide they want to come back home, the human race is '''fucked'''.
* The first chapter of ''VisualNovel/{{Suika}}'' ends with Itsuki realizing she's dead, disappearing and leaving Akira all alone. His personality is completely broken and when he finally meets Sayo again, the girl they both thought was really dead, he refuses to introduce himself and runs away. Both the endings of the third chapter are also disturbing. Yoshikazu either ends up with the extremely clingy, manipulative Touko or gets stabbed to death by Akane, who hooks up with Touko instead after apparently hypnotizing her.
* The games of ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' series each have a "good ending" and a "bad ending":
** In the [[VideoGame/ShadowHearts1 first game]]'s bad ending, Alice dies to the Four Masks' Curse. It's canon for the sequel, by the way.
** In ''[[VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant Covenant]]'' the bad ending means that Yuri's memories and personality are fully devoured by the curse of the Holy Mistletoe, leaving him a vacant shell. In the good ending, he chooses to [[DyingAsYourself die with his memories intact]], but gets to return to the past and, presumably, save Alice.
** In the bad ending for ''[[VideoGame/ShadowHeartsFromTheNewWorld From the New World]]'', Shania becomes completely corrupted by Malice, and looks more than ready to use it to cause havoc.
** The bad ending achieved from losing against the final boss in ''VideoGame/{{Koudelka}}'' after getting the titular heroine's pendant will lead to James committing a HeroicSacrifice in order to subdue her. Like the bad ending of the original ''Shadow Hearts'', this ending is canon, and also leads to the game's story.
* In ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', after struggling across New Austin and Mexico to safeguard his family's future, John Marston sacrifices himself in a futile stand off with the US Army, buying just enough time for his wife and son to escape impending slaughter. In the same climactic battle, Uncle, another member of the Marston family, gives his life, and three years later, Abigail, John's wife, dies. Following his mother's death, (the adult) "Jack" Marston seeks out, duels, and kills the man who forced his father's execution, Edgar Ross. Satisfying as this revenge might at first sound, it means that Jack has taken up the very lifestyle that his father was trying to protect him from.
* In ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemptionUndeadNightmare'', the game world is ravaged by the undead. John risks everything to return a cursed mask to an Aztec burial site to stop the plague. Shortly thereafter, he dies as predicted by the main game, and Seth steals the mask again, restarting the ZombieApocalypse. AndThenJohnWasAZombie, but completely unintelligible, with no family, and no way to stop the current apocalypse.
* The ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'' series ultimately ends with [[GoldfishPoopGang The Bonnes]] and The Volnutts having [[DefeatEqualsFriendship finally made friends]] and teaming up to rescue Mega Man, who is still stranded out in space. Originally this was a SequelHook to pave the way for the third game, but it was unfortunately [[CutShort cancelled]].
* Two of the three endings to ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' have the protagonist slaughter the Little Sisters and lead an army of splicers to take over the surface world. Likewise, it applies for two of the four endings to ''VideoGame/BioShock2'', where the protagonist turns Eleanor Lamb into a bloody, cynical monster who only cares about her own survival at the costs of others' lives.
* ''VideoGame/{{Singularity}}''. You have three endings to pick from, and none of them restore the original timeline.
** Killing Barisov results in [[PlayerCharacter Renko]] becoming Demichev's [[TheDragon Dragon]] and helping him solidify his rule over the world. Eventually, Demichev becomes jealous of his new protege and sets up a new seat of power in North America, resulting in a world divided between two dictatorships.
** Killing Demichev results in Renko going back to 1955 and correcting his original mistake (saving Demichev). At first, things seem to have gone back to normal as the game replays the helicopter ride sequence from the beginning. However, this time the helicopters bear hammer and sickle insignias and there's a statue of Barisov in the distance, implying that Soviet Union still controls the world.
** Killing both Barisov ''and'' Demichev results in Demichev's empire falling into chaos while Renko takes over the former United States as a military dictator.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Dreamweb}}'', the PC gets shot to pieces by the cops even if he manages to stop the plot to control the Dreamweb itself. Heroes don't last long in this cyberpunk universe.
* ''VideoGame/DivinityIIEgoDraconis'' has a major one. You fight the BigBad… only for him to effortlessly trounce you and seal you in diamond. He then mockingly reveals that your only ally is actually his girlfriend and has been stringing you along for [[EvilPlan his plot to free himself all along]]. Literally ''everything you've done'' throughout the entire game was all in the villain's benefit. The villain and his girlfriend then leave you stuck in diamond to conquer the world, but not before making it so you can watch them do it. The game ends with the hero being unable to do anything but watch as the villain rules the world with an iron fist, ''forever'', and forced to "live" with the knowledge that ''it's all their fault''. Thankfully rectified to an extent by the expansion, ''VideoGame/DivinityIIFlamesOfVengeance''. You escape your prison with the help of a demon, save Aleroth from Damian's forces, kill the demon when he tries to backstab you, and finally, ''finally'' enact vengeance/justice on Ygerna, Damien's aforementioned girlfriend who strung you along like a puppet the entirety of ''Ego Draconis''. And to top it all off, you manage to save Lucian the Divine Hero while you're at it, fully restoring the honor of your disgraced order. The only [[BittersweetEnding negative]] aspect of this is that [[SequelHook Damien himself is still alive and scheming, none too pleased about his girlfriend's (second!) death.]]
** The other games didn't exactly end well either. [[VideoGame/DivineDivinity The first game]] seems happy enough in that [[TheHero The Divine]] kills the villain and saves the young child the villain was going to use for his plans, but as veterans will know, this infant would become Damien, the BigBad of the entire series. Not only that, but the Divine's victories ultimately come to nothing as he is ultimately betrayed and murdered by the Dragons.
** ''VideoGame/BeyondDivinity'' ends with the sarcastic Death Knight, your only companion and ally throughout the game, revealing that he is in fact Damien himself. Despite your best efforts, he escapes to plot his scheme for ''2'', leaving your character to wonder just what the hell they even managed to accomplish. The ending becomes even worse when you consider that -- if certain characters in the game are to be believed -- you could have saved the entire world just by dying, literally at the ''beginning of the game'', as Damien was still soul-linked to you.
* The ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' series is quite actually prone to this.
** In ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianDawn Tiberian Dawn]]'', even if GDI wins (which is the canonical ending), the world is still devastated from the war, and Tiberium infestation will only grow into the years ahead. The Nod ending could be seen as the intro before the GDI campaign — and no matter what, something in the world is getting levelled by that Ion Cannon.
** ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert Red Alert]]'' is even worse. Soviets ending — they control all of Europe, only for you to become Premier by assassination from a familiar figure. Allies win, they comb through Moscow, with General Stavros personally crushing Stalin with large debris.
** ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]'''s Soviet ending is downer in a way. You are Premier of the world, but Yuri still apparently lives. Yuri's Revenge has a crapsack beginning, but not end.
** Surprisingly, the canon ending to another installment, ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianTwilight Tiberian Twilight]]'', averts this. While there will be losers in the struggle, the Earth, which seemed on the brink of succumbing to Tiberium, is still a mess, but with the uneasy cooperation between the GDI and Kane (who eventually leaves the Earth on his own terms), Humanity regains control, and Earth now has a fighting chance again.
* Every single ending in ''VideoGame/PsychicForce'' is really depressing if you like the word 'justice to the world'. Characters suffer/fail in their mission and/or get killed, the world just got worse. (Except probably Wendy in the sequel, which is more or less a BittersweetEnding).
* Choose either ending of the Demon Path of ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters''. Having the protagonist sealed in the Onyx Blade is the lesser of two evils, mind you.
* ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}} 2'' plays this extremely straight. The game ends with the main protagonist Nathan Hale finishing his transformation into a Chimera and [[IronicEcho even repeats the very first line you hear from the game's]] BigBad. You also see a large mysterious Chimeran object or building in the background and many Chimeran air-crafts off in the distance. Joe Capelli then tells Hale "I'm sorry sir. It was an honor." (a complete change from his earlier attitude towards him) and shoots Hale in the head, killing him. The entire scene also implies that the Chimera have [[TheBadGuyWins defeated the human race]], which the setting for ''Resistance 3'' confirms.
* ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'' is full of this, but probably the best example is in ''for Answer''. One of the possible endings has you killing 100 million people, and when the remaining Lynx units come to take you out, you destroy them, thus leaving the biggest monster in history running amok.
* The ending of Siter Skain's ''VideoGame/RefleX'' was this or {{bittersweet|Ending}} at best.
* The campaign in the original ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' ends with the Blood Ravens Imperial Space Marines and their Eldar allies victorious over Sindri Myr and the Alpha Legion Chaos Space Marines, only to have Blood Ravens Captain Gabriel Angelos [[SealedEvilInACan smash the stone imprisoning the demon lord]] in the belief that this would destroy the demon forever. Only to learn, of course, that because so much blood had been shed in the war for Tartarus, the demon had actually been set free by smashing the stone. Since this is a ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' game, [[CrapsackWorld this is hardly surprising]].
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', which somehow manages to be even DarkerAndEdgier than the first game, takes this trope and rides it off a cliff. In the last hour or so of the game, the real plot kicks in, in which there's a massive escalation of the game-long tensions between Kirkwall's mages and their Templar oppressors. Both sides are hopelessly corrupt and have a batshit crazy leader, despite a handful of good people in the rank and file. No matter what you do, any parties that could help settle the dispute peacefully are systematically eliminated, the final straw being Grand Cleric Elthina's assassination by Anders when he blows up the Chantry. Regardless of which side Hawke picks, s/he will be betrayed by Anders, and the game will end in a continent-wide war between the mages and the Templars. Hawke goes on the lam, eventually separated from all his/her friends (except the love interest, if any), and has disappeared along with the Warden from ''Origins''. Loose threads insinuate that Ferelden is on the cusp of another war with Orlais after being weakened by the Blight, that the Tevinter Imperium is on its way back to being the power that it was and they're still as brutal and insane as before, the war between the mages and Templars appears to be set to spread across the world, and it's not looking good for anyone. Except Flemeth. Which really means the world's screwed.
* In ''[[VideoGame/AirForceDelta Air Force Delta Strike]]'', you have Jamie's ending, which is a HeroicSacrifice, allowing the rest of the Delta Squadron to launch into space. This comes on the heels of his concerted efforts to learn jet operations just so he could join them in the space combat phase of the game.
* ''[=CyberGames=]'' ends with your character becoming champion of the eponymous BloodSport, only for the resident sponsoring MegaCorp to collect on their contract and, in order to find out just what makes you so good, repossess your body and have you dissected. [[https://youtu.be/LFhpDP0Xb78?t=2395 Have a nice day!]]
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro'' trilogy: The second game had a rather surprising one that clearly indicated to the player [[DarkerAndEdgier this series]] wasn't going to be all about happy endings. Realizing that he can't win, rather than fighting [[BigBad Malefor]] and his legions, Spyro [[TakeAThirdOption opts]] to protect himself and his two present allies, and let the world fall into ruin around him, only emerging from stasis years later, at the start of the next game. A game which [[AvertedTrope averted]] its own downer ending at the last second. Spyro and Cynder appear to make a HeroicSacrifice to save the planet, but after the credits it's [[TheStinger revealed]] they're still alive, somewhere. Still possibly a downer though, as Ignitus is dead or at least removed from the world, the Chronicler is dead and gone, the world is still in bad shape, and Sparx, Spyro's brother, partner, and best friend, may never see him again.
* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarII: The End of the Lost Age''. The subtitle isn't there just for kicks: sure, you destroy Mother Brain and save the human population of Motavia. But Mother Brain destroys Palm in the midgame (along with the majority of the Algol system's population), your destruction of Mother Brain also destroys the technological base that Algol's society depends upon, the original problem that set you off on your quest (biomonsters being released on Motavia) is still unsolved (and will still be unsolved a thousand years later), and the ending has you killing the last survivors of Earth, [[BolivianArmyEnding possibly dying in the process]]. This is not a happy story.
* One of the endings of ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'': if Travis Touchdown doesn't get all the beam katana upgrades, he will end the game with an assassin ready to murder him in his own apartment while he's on the toilet, which immediately cuts to the closing credits. The other, canonical ending plays out the same way, except that Henry kills the assassin and you'll end up [[TrueFinalBoss fighting him]]. And in the sequel, it is implied that they [[DefeatMeansFriendship stick together]].
* Every ending in ''VideoGame/DeadRising''. Even the overtime ending counts as a BittersweetEnding. And every ending except S in ''VideoGame/DeadRising2''.
* You get these if you die in a wave in ''Portal Defenders''. Dying in wave 3 might count as a BittersweetEnding, though, because even though you die, the enemies all end up killing each other anyways.
* ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose'': It is revealed that Jennifer is the sole survivor of an airship crash, and the entire game was her literally reliving her traumatic childhood memories. Everyone else, including her beloved dog Brown, is actually dead. And even worse, if not getting the good variant of the ending, then it is implied that she is ''stuck'' in that trauma, having to relive it again and again.
* ''VideoGame/{{Scorn}}'': After spending the entire game evading and killing monsters, nativating the DeathWorld, ridding his body of the Parasite, and mutilating other sentient creatures as well as ''his own body'', "Scorn Guy" is attacked by the Parasite mere meters away from reaching salvation. The Parasite permanently latches itself back onto "Scorn Guy's" body and traps him inside of an organic cocoon, [[AndIMustScream all while "Scorn Guy" is still conscious and can do nothing but stare ahead knowing he'll be stuck like this for the rest of his life]].
* In the Flash game ''Trick-or-Treat Adventure'', the protagonist goes to great lengths to get his candy… only to die from an undiagnosed case of diabetes.
* In the Flash game ''Super Ryucopter'', the heroes save the world from a bunch of monsters, only to die from crashing into the moon.
* The bad endings in the ''VideoGame/{{Oddworld}}'' series. The one for ''Munch’s Oddysee'' is likely the worst of them all, as Abe and Munch are attacked by the Fuzzles as punishment for not rescuing enough, allowing the Vykkers to capture and kill them. Do even worse and a newspaper shows that everything the duo worked to try to prevent came true: the Gabbiar was sold and consumed, the Glukkon Queen got her new lungs (from Munch’s body, might we add), and the remaining Mudokons are being returned to slavery with their hatchlings forced to join them.
* The ending of ''VideoGame/{{Killer7}}'', for the first time in the entire game, presents players with a choice. Depending on their selection, either 1) the United States will nuke Japan off the face of the earth, or 2) Japan will launch an attack on the US, starting WorldWarIII. Either way, 100 years later Harman and Kun Lan will begin their battle all over again and it is implied that [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld China becomes the world's next great superpower]].
* ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheUnwoundFuture'' has a particularly tragic one. Throughout the game, there are flashbacks to Professor Layton's earlier years, where he was in love with a woman named Claire. Sadly, Claire was killed in an accident involving an experimental time machine. He does, however, later meet her younger sister. Near the end of the game, he finds out that the woman isn't her younger sister -- it's Claire herself, flung forward in time ten years by the same time machine that killed her. However, [[ButNowIMustGo she can't remain in this time period because it would cause a paradox]]. The ending is Layton ''begging'' her to stay, giving up all pretense of [[StiffUpperLip gentlemanly composure]] in favor of InelegantBlubbering, while she slowly fades away only to reappear in the midst of a fatal explosion. She gives him one last kiss before fading forever, and our final shot is Layton taking off his hat and [[SnowMeansDeath crying into the snow]].
* In the web game ''Heir'', based on ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'', after beating chapter three, a cutscene plays in which [[UngratefulBastard the King kills the Pale Man]], rather than making him his heir, as promised.
* ''VideoGame/{{Rayman}} VideoGame/RavingRabbids'': Rayman escapes, but the many baby Globoxes are still captives of the sinister yet phenomenally stupid rabbits, and then Rayman's attempt to go back and rescue them is brought to an abrupt halt when he gets stuck in the hole.
* ''VideoGame/HauntingGround'''s worst possible ending involves the death of Fiona's only companion, Hewie, and Riccardo successfully capturing and impregnating her, which drives her completely insane.
* ''VideoGame/ProjectZomboid'' has no rescue or cure to the zombie plague. The developers repetitively stated that the point of the game is to show how you've died, but no matter what, you will die.
* ''VideoGame/TheDarkness'' ends with Jackie killing his Uncle Paulie for Jenny's death, but by doing so, the titular entity has taken him over completely. There's worse to come in the sequel when Jackie goes to Hell to save Jenny's soul from the Darkness. But in doing so, the Angelus has taken her over and leaves him and the Darkness behind. Way to go, Jackie.
* ''VideoGame/GunsOfIcarus'' ends with the death of the main character and the destruction of the eponymous aircraft.
* In ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'', the ending where you defeat Satan in Sheol has your character climbing into a chest and locking himself in.
** The ending after defeating Isaac in Cathedral where Isaac reads an ambiguous book that is likely a bible, sees in the mirror that he is actually demonic, and gazes sadly at the chest which brought him home.
** A later ending, after defeating ??? in The Chest, wherein a series of photographs within the chest reveal the story of Isaac's lifetime, going through the loss of his sister (or possibly Isaac dressing up, it's not clear if the character in question is Isaac or not), his parents' divorce, and his mother's wrath, before depicting his own corruption.
** The remake adds two more endings, which makes things even worse. The ending where you defeat The Lamb in The Dark Room shows that Isaac has gone missing and that Mom is frantically searching for him.
** The second ending manages to outdo the first. In it, achievable by defeating Mega Satan in either The Chest or The Dark Room, Isaac is shown slowly dying in a chest, shifting between a human and demon form. As he spends less time in human form, he starts whimpering and his heartbeat goes up. Then, he goes to demon form and stays there, with his heart stopping and his whimpering replaced by growling.
** Ending 20, the "Final ending", added in Afterbirth+, is a brutal MindScrewdriver that somehow manages to top all the above. It goes through the above, OnceMoreWithClarity, confirming beyond doubt that Isaac did climb into an airtight chest and suffocated to death, the entire game throughout all its endings was his DyingDream, and Isaac's mother found him too late. He wasn't the antichrist, he wasn't chased into a hellish labyrinth of a basement, and his mother might not have even been abusive. He was just a kid who blamed himself for his parents' failed marriage, went insane, and viewed himself as a demon, leading to his suicide.
** ''Repentance'' adds two more endings. Ending 21, where Isaac unsuccessfully tries to hide a drawing of the boss Mother, causing his actual mother to lock him in a closet, leaving him to hyperventilate as a statue of Satan appears behind him. This is likely the origin story of the Tainted Characters.
** Ending 22, however, notably [[AvertedTrope averts]] this by giving an unambigously happy ending. After The Beast is defeated, it's revealed that the events were all just a bedtime story he was writing along with his dad, who suggests a happier ending, and then the intro story is retold, with a few differences. The first one being that Isaac's parents are together. Even if taken with previous endings with Isaac dying, it at least means he has finally left behind all self-blame he had for a situation he had no fault in, and moved on to a Heaven of his liking.
--->'''The Narrator a.k.a. Isaac's father''': [[BookEnds Isaac and his parents lived in a small house on top of a hill...]]
* The ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage 3'' route in ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRageRemake'' ends badly no matter what you do. If you fail to beat [[TheDragon Shiva]] before the bomb goes off, you and him die, along with a fair portion of the city destroyed as well. If you beat him in time, the bomb still goes off and destroys a portion of the city, with our heroes watching the destruction from afar. Disarming the bomb and beating Shiva results in Mr. X escaping to wreak havoc another day.
* The bad ending to the [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog28Bit 8-bit version of]] ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog28Bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]''. You fail to rescue Tails from Eggman, who gets away scot-free. The ending shows Sonic running in a darker environment than what is shown in the best ending until the credits end, showing Sonic looking up in the sky, seeing Tails' figure. Many interpret this ending as Tails ''having been killed by Eggman''.
** The bad ending from ''VideoGame/KnucklesChaotix'' manages to one-up this by leaving out any ambiguity of the villain's actions. If you fail to gather the Chaos Rings, the game will immediately cut to a scene of Metal Sonic destroying the island and hovering over a burning city while horrifying music plays.
* The [[MultipleEndings pessimist ending]] of ''VideoGame/IMissTheSunrise'' [[GainaxEnding might]] be this. The Black One claims that the events that transpire in it will ''[[ApocalypseHow destroy all of reality]]''. If he is correct, this trope definitely applies.
* ''VideoGame/{{Somari}}'s'' ending is implied to be this, given that Dr. Robotnik has all of the chaos emeralds. As they only appear in the ending and there's no way to collect them in game, {{Failure is the Only Option}}.
* Mia's route in ''VideoGame/DuelSaviorDestiny'' has three different endings, technically: A, B, and C. C is an early ending that basically means 'way to fail at scoring the other heroines, player' while B is a mandatory ending required before you can see the good ending A. In it, Taiga accidentally kills his sister and commits suicide.
* The finale of the second game in the ''VideoGame/ArcTheLad'' series (which is more of a continuation of the first game than a sequel) has the death of Arc and Kukuru, and the utter annihilation of the world itself. [[TheLancer Elc]] puts it best.
-->'''Elc:''' It just makes me wonder what we were fighting for. Arc died, and for what? So we could inherit this desolate and hopeless future? We didn't stop the world from ending, we survived it.
* All three installments of the ''VideoGame/RaySeries'' counts:
** ''[=RayForce=]'' ends with [[TheHeroDies the heroine's fighter being destroyed in the wreckage]] after destroying [[AIIsACrapshoot Con]]-[[BigBad Human]], which [[EarthShatteringKaboom causes the Earth to explode]].
** ''[=RayStorm=]'''s Extra Mode seems to be a BittersweetEnding due to the enemy forces and their billions of inhabitants being destroyed by having their space colony -- with a population of ''7 billion humans'' -- dropped into the sun, but if you're playing on the 13-Ship Mode, the ending goes FromBadToWorse, as you get this ending text after the end credits:
--->Earth and Secilia have vanished. Likewise, those that developed the "RAY" technology and all evidence of its existence have been wiped away. No record of R-GRAY craft was found, and no R-GRAY craft has ever returned.
** ''[=RayCrisis=]'', [[DoomedByCanon being a prequel]] to ''[=RayForce=]'', has you going into Con-Human's core and you fighting and defeating Dis-Human and its core [[TrueFinalBoss Infinity]], [[ShootTheShaggyDog only to find that the damage that Con-Human has caused has already been done]], thus necessitating the events of ''[=RayForce=]''.
* Several ''VideoGame/DonPachi'' games:
** The plot of the first game is that you were fighting your comrades the whole time (and apparently you knew it). At the end, [[http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/arcade/d/donparun.htm take]] a moment of silence for all those you have killed.
** In the sequel, should you access the second loop, Colonel Longhena reveals that you were fighting your own comrades the whole time once again, and that there was never any mechanized aliens to begin with. [[BittersweetEnding But in slaughtering his own allies and the Commander's special forces, the player character ironically solved the problems of overpopulation, environmental pollution, and arms races. As to whether this was what the commander wanted, not even the protagonist knows]].
** Several of ''Dai Ou Jou'''s endings include Shotia's memory being deleted bit by bit until the last memories in her are of her human days and she smiles fondly of them as they go too, and Exy goes crazy and chokes her operator to death while crying blood, then goes and does things leading to ''Dai Fukkatsu''.
** ''Dai Fukkatsu'' has probably the worst of them all, as not only is your carrier destroyed by Colonel Longhena before the TrueFinalBoss fight, but when you return to the present after defeating Hibachi, you find that while you had tried to prevent the Blissful Death Wars from happening, Next EXY tried to do the same by going back in time by destroying the VideoGame/DonPachi Corps, but she ends up causing it. Then, in the present, Longhena not only leads the war, but he also ends becoming the new leader of VideoGame/DonPachi as General Longhena. Because of this, [[ShootTheShaggyDog the entire plot of DFK was absolutely pointless]].
* In ''VideoGame/BorderDown'', the only difference between the 6-D ending and the level 6 NonstandardGameOver is Frank's brain got fried by the RAIN system and left in a vegetative state. 6-C is a ''[[BittersweetEnding little]]'' more hopeful; Frank's at least somewhat back in a properly conscious state, although the immediate terraforming is emphatically not going to work out. Also, it seems Frank's willing to give RAIN another go. Considering that he successfully wiped out the Earth conspirators' own version of Antares, and he has a better grip of what RAIN does… the question is whether the conspirators can still control RAIN's output.
* The ending of ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII''. Earth may have been saved from the worst of the solar flare damage, but Juno and others like her have been released into the world with the desire to enslave all of humanity. Oh, and Desmond, the hero, is dead, forced to choose between this future and one even worse (a post-apocalyptic nightmare in which he brings the survivors back with the words of peace and warning, only for the words to be twisted into a ReligionOfEvil by his successors). Additionally, Connor's ending is also at the very least [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]]. His mentor, Achilles Davenport, is dead. His people have been forced off their land by the new American government, which has utterly forgotten Connor's contribution to the Revolution. In the epilogue, Connor also notes that, while the British may have been driven off, there is still plenty of injustice (e.g. slavery) in these lands. There are also the words that keep haunting Connor no matter what he does:
--> '''Connor''': It is not enough!
--> '''Several characters''': It never is.
* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedSyndicate'' the story ends happily for the historical characters since they recover the {{Macguffin}}, decide that ''NoManShouldHaveThisPower'', and put it back where they found it. However, the modern characters then try to retrieve the same artefact based on the recovered information, attempt to keep it out of the hands of their enemies, fail, and sustain serious casualties in the process. Everything the player did was pointless.
* ''VideoGame/DrawnToLife'' had a sad ending, but it's taken up a notch and then some in its sequel, to the point where 5th Cell rereleased it with a lighter, happier ending.
* The end of ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine.'' Everyone in Dubai is doomed to a slow painful death by dehydration, both Lugo and Adams are killed (along with basically every named character in the game), and depending on the ending you pick: Walker has become a shellshocked mess wandering aimlessly in the desert; Walker is shot dead trying to kill a rescue squad; Walker is detained and probably court-martialed/commited to an asylum; or, failing the above, Walker has shot himself in despair. As a bonus, the truth of what happened in Dubai might still get out, causing the entire Middle East to declare war on the US and most likely win, though the possibility of this particular thing happening is implied to be the delusions of a man suffering the same sort of SanitySlippage Walker was.
* This comes up a lot in the ''Franchise/FarCry'' series:
** ''VideoGame/FarCry2'' had two endings, both of which boil down to whether the mercenary chooses to take the detonator or the diamonds. If the player chooses the detonator, he dies setting off the explosives in a HeroicSacrifice. Choosing the diamonds isn't implied to be much better: The player is suffering heavily from malaria and The Jackal gives him a gun with which he is supposed to commit suicide once the player uses the diamonds to bribe the border guards to allow the innocent civilians to escape the country. Oh, and prior to all this, the player's buddies (as in all of the other mercenaries the player didn't choose to play as) betray the player and are killed, as is almost ''every other named character in the game''. Even The Jackal is dying from cancer. So, unless you assume the player managed to get treatment for his malaria in the bribe the border guards ending and doesn't commit suicide, this game doesn't go well for anyone, save possibly the civilians The Jackal decides to save.
** ''VideoGame/FarCry3'''s bad ending. Jason is driven insane by the [[BarbarianTribe Rakyat]] lifestyle and his quest for vengeance, and is now no better than the AxCrazy RuthlessModernPirates he fought against. Tempted by Citra, he slaughters all of the friends he set out to save and begins having sexual intercourse with her, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness only for Citra to fatally stab him to death once she's pregnant]]. The ending implies that Citra will raise Jason's unborn child as the leader of the islands. Thankfully, the good ending [[BittersweetEnding is much more pleasant]].
** ''VideoGame/FarCry4'': You can just let the bad ending happen if you aren't ready to take a stand. Pagan Min can pull a ScrewThisImOuttaHere, Amita will turn Kyrat into a communist state (complete with slave labor and child soldiers, and she killed her little sister figure) if she becomes the next leader, and Sabal will begin a purge of all "heretics" (and the purge includes most of Kyrat since they were forced to pay lip service to Pagan Min) if he becomes the next leader. If you don't like it, you can kill any of the three and call it a day, but Ajay will have to live with himself, knowing that he killed all these people trying to fight for a greater cause, only to end up the barbarian leader himself.
** In every ending of ''VideoGame/FarCry5'', TheBadGuyWins. You can either choose to let Joseph Seed go (then later succumb to his brainwashing), or attempt to take him in. In the latter case, following a FinalBoss battle, nuclear bombs go off in Hope County and across Montana. In the end, seemingly the only people left alive are you and Joseph Seed, who adopts you as his new "family" and gloats about how he KnewItAllAlong. You can also opt to not put Joseph Seed in irons at the beginning of the game and walk away, leaving him to continue his dark schemes unabated. The nuclear bomb ending turned out to be the canon one (before this was retconned by ''VideoGame/FarCry6''), as it ended up being a prelude to ''VideoGame/FarCryNewDawn''. However, the game does rectify 5’s ending by allowing the game’s protagonist to finally kill Joseph, though he can be [[CruelMercy spared and left to suffer with the knowledge of the horrible things he’s done]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Tenchu}} 2'' ends bad regardless of whether or not you clear the final mission as Tatsumaru.
* ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}'' has two endings, and both are smiliarly bitter-tasting. The only difference between being in one, the shopkeeper Zacharie, the Judge, a single Elsen, and MAYBE a drugged-out [[{{Superboss}} Sugar]] are the only survivors in a barren and broken world. In the other ending, most of the world's inhabitants have been killed at the hands of the Batter, and whatever remained is destroyed by the Batter pulling the switch.
* Despite the fact that ''VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon'' canonically ends with [[TheBadGuyWins Shao Khan winning]], it's even a DownerEnding for ''him''. He winds up in a VictoryIsBoring situation and is driven mad as a result. It seems the whole franchise truly had ''no'' winners, and the alternate timeline of ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'' could only improve it ([[BittersweetEnding as best it could]]).
* ''VideoGame/BlazBlue''.
** The character-specific story modes all have bad endings which usually result with the character dying or suffering a FateWorseThanDeath, or the bad guys achieving their objectives, or the character otherwise being put in a hopeless situation. Fortunately, thanks to the GroundhogDayLoop, the bad endings don't stick. The {{Canon}} endings as well, for both games:
** The first game, ''Calamity Trigger'', ends with all characters failing to make much of a difference in [[BigGood Rachel]] and [[BigBad Hazama]]'s CosmicChessGame. The only exception to this is [[WildCard Arakune]] and [[SmallNameBigEgo Bang]], but they're not in much place to change much to begin with.
** The arcade mode for ''Continuum Shift'' results in Hazama successfully transforming Noel Vermillion into [[PersonOfMassDestruction Mu-12]]. [[SequelHook You need to play the home console version to get the rest of the plot]].
** The story mode ending for ''Continuum Shift'' reveals that Mu-12 was just a distraction to keep the main characters busy from Hazama's real goal: the destruction of Takamagahara, which he succeeds in. In other words, [[TheBadGuyWins Hazama manages to escape alive with all his goals successfully completed]]. This sets up the events of the third game, ''Chronophantasma''.
* If you press A when ''VideoGame/TheHalloweenHack'' narrator tells you to kill the monster. Even though Dr. Andonuts was going to die in the "good" ending anyway, the game mocks you for being a puppet. That, and Varik was implied to have died too.
* The normal mode ending of ''Super House of Dead Ninjas.'' Nintai defeats the One Armed Ninja and Abarghus, only for Abarghus' spirit to possess her when she tries to leave the tower. The game ends with Abarghus mockingly asking Nintai if she truly thought she could just leave his tower as [[BodyHorror mouths and tentacles erupt from her body]]. Averted in the hard mode ending, where Nintai manages to banish Abarghus for good as well as redeem the One Armed Ninja.
* Of the four games in the ''Franchise/SlyCooper'' series, only [[VideoGame/SlyCooperAndTheThieviusRaccoonus the first]] has a happy ending. Despite Clock-La's death, ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves'' is a complete DownerEnding with Bentley becoming crippled and Murray leaving the gang before the events of ''VideoGame/Sly3HonorAmongThieves'', blaming himself for what happened to his friend. In particular, ''VideoGame/SlyCooperThievesInTime'' ends with Sly himself missing in action, his friends looking for him, and [[SixthRangerTraitor Penelope]] escaping from prison. The secret ending reveals that he's in Ancient Egypt, which would've made it a mere cliffhanger if not for the fact that Creator/SanzaruGames has stated they will not make a sequel. [[FanonDiscontinuity The fandom did not take that well]].
* ''VideoGame/GemCraft'' has it at least twice.
** In chapter zero, you free the Forgotten to possess you and terrorize the countryside.
** In chapter one, you beat the Forgotten's minions, only to get possessed by her.
* ''Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon'' is equal parts Downer Ending and [[WhamEpisode Wham]] in lower difficulty levels. After Strike Team Lightning successfully kills the Ravager Queen and activates the bomb, they are informed by Ops that they are acceptable losses on the mission. Their Ops contact refuses to give up on them, and gives them coordinates towards a possible escape route, leading to the mother of all [[BossRush Boss Rushes]], forcing the squad to take on ''all'' the game's previous bosses more or less simultaneously, with new bosses (including 2 Hector [=II=]s) appearing to fill in as other ones are wiped out, all while an alien mothership strafes the area with laser fire. All that seems for nothing, as the escape route is blocked, but then a dropship pilot from earlier missions arrives to ferry the team out. At the very last second, however, the ship takes a hit, can't escape the bomb in time, and the whole squad is killed when the bomb goes off. The last lines in the game are your Ops contact yelling for you over the radio. Mission over, game over. If the game is completed on Hard or Inferno, the ending is extended to show that Lightning Squad and Sully miraculously survive.
* ''VideoGame/KravenManor'': You manage to defeat William Kraven by destroying the orbs binding his soul and the souls of his victims to the mannequins and seemingly condemn Kraven [[DraggedOffToHell to hell]], but just before you can flee the burning manor, you're struck by a piece of debris and knocked out. When you awaken, you find yourself in Kraven's secret lab and discover that you yourself have become a mannequin, and when you look back up, you see Kraven and two of his mannequin minions staring at you. Cue cut to black as your character screams in pure terror. [[spoiler:Even the Good Ending is [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]] at best, and TheBadGuyWins in both endings.]]
* ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami2WrongNumber'' ends with the entire USA getting nuked by Russia after both countries' presidents get assassinated and the army takes control. Effectively killing every single character in the game (that hadn't been murdered already). The only possibly exception is Biker, but if he ''is'' still alive, he’ll have to live with the fact that he could have stopped all of this and failed.
* ''VideoGame/SamuraiShodown IV'' had a time limit for defeating Amakusa. If the player fails to reach or beat Amakusa before the time limit, their character dies when his castle suddenly explodes. The epilogue states that although Amakusa was killed as well, the devastation he wrought upon Japan was extensive.
* Both of ''VideoGame/EdnaAndHarveyTheBreakout'''s endings. One is much more obvious -- obeying Dr. Marcel leads to Edna willingly having her personality erased -- while the other is less so: choosing to instead push Dr. Marcel down the stairs leads to an epilogue that implies that she died trying to escape. [[VideoGame/EdnaAndHarveyHarveysNewEyes The sequel]], meanwhile, ''also'' features multiple endings, which follow a similar pattern. Choosing to obey Dr. Marcel again leads to Lilli being {{brainwashed}}, choosing to stab him leads to an ending implies that [[TheUnfettered Lilli abandoning her morals as the cost of being free, and the slightly hidden "contradict" ending has Lilli openly abandon the scene, with absolutely nothing being resolved.]]
* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys4'' has the child's torture at the hand of his brother and his friends end with them picking him up and placing his head inside Fredbear's mouth, resulting in the child being bitten. [[note]]This is a different bite incident and occured in 1983, not the infamously mentioned Bite of '87[[/note]] The last scene depicts the child in darkness, with a Golden Freddy plushie telling him that he'll make sure the kid gets better… and then you hear the child flat-lining.
* ''VideoGame/GodOfWarIII'' ends with the world in a state of total chaos and destruction. A flood covers everything except the highest mountains, the dead and monsters roam the Earth, plant life has died, plagues are rampant, and storms feel the skies blocking out the sun. Kratos attempts to commit suicide both to return Hope to the world and to offer one last insult to Athena; humanity is now free of the gods. Yet there is no one left to use Hope, and a TimeSkip proves that Greece is completely and utterly '''''FUBAR'''''. [[VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4 Welcome to Midgard]].
* ''VideoGame/PretentiousGame''. The first game ends with Blue losing Magenta, whom he loves, to Gray, and the second game ends with Blue getting killed by a drunk driving Gray. What makes the second game's ending worse is that Blue had ''just'' found love again with Peach.
* It's possible to get a bad end in each of the ''VideoGame/DontEscape'' games.
** In the first one, if you fail to take precautions for the main character turning into a werewolf, he bursts free and kills a large number of villagers before being killed himself. It's also possible to have another villager get bitten, starting the cycle over again.
** In ''Don't Escape 2'', the main character and the two survivors you can recruit can all be torn apart by the oncoming zombie horde, sometimes including your best friend Bill.
** In ''Don't Escape 3'', even the best ending has the main character dying, killing themselves to remove the malevolent crystal that contaminated the ship and yourself. If you escape, you just end up inadvertently infecting another ship.
* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'':
** The worst ending takes things one step further and makes it so that future attempts at the best ending will be tainted. You have to sell your soul to [[HumanoidAbomination the Fallen Child]] if you go through with a Genocide run, and if you get the True Pacifist ending after that, the Fallen Child makes their move and ruins everything you were working toward. However, you can make things right if you meddle with the game files and prevent synchronization with the Steam Cloud.
** The worst ending is only achieved after you kill every single monster in every single area, including the major characters of the game. All the people who were friends with you in the pacifist route will now treat you like a freak and some will even [[YouShallNotPass try to stop you themselves]], but you can almost all of them in one hit. The world will become very empty as everyone is trying to escape from you, there's barely any music, no funny interactions, no minigames, and tons of soulless grinding. When you finally get to the castle, the final boss fight against Sans is intentionally unfair and difficult. Winning doesn't earn you any sense of accomplishment and only means you've just killed the guy who's been there for you since the beginning. What's your reward for all of this? You meet the Fallen Child, who was awakened by your actions and who will now erase the world, whether you want them to or not. Since the world has been destroyed, you can't replay it...not without selling your SOUL to the Fallen, which guarantees you will never earn a happy ending on your own again. Trying to get the best ending after this one manages to make things ''even worse'', because there, with the barrier destroyed, now the Fallen is free to destroy humanity as well. Oh, and the means to get the worst ending means that obtaining it by accident is highly improbable.
** Even some of the Neutral path endings can result in this depending on who you kill and who you leave alive.
*** Sparing Toriel in any ending besides the Pacifist-Neutral ending results in her attempting to instill a "humans are friends" philosophy, only to have it harshly rejected by the remaining monsters, who soon stage a revolt against her. To avoid further conflict, she steps down willingly[[note]]Provided Undyne isn't left alive. Otherwise, Undyne spearheads the rebellion and ends up throwing her out of the castle (likely literally).[[/note]] and spends the rest of her days exiled to the Ruins. [[PetTheDog At least she has Sans to keep her company.]][[note]]If Papyrus wasn't killed, that is. If he was, his last line before hanging up implies that he'll be joining her.[[/note]]
*** Sparing Undyne and Mettaton results in the former being crowned empress of the Underground, and doing everything in her power to bypass the barrier, wage war on humanity once more, and personally see you dead. Any humans located under her rule are to be ''killed on sight'' because of this.
*** Alphys seems to have it the worst in the neutral endings. If you spare Undyne and kill Mettaton, she's heavily implied to have been DrivenToSuicide, with Undyne suffering from a HeroicBSOD as a result. Papyrus tries to get her out of her funk by convincing him to go after you, but she rejects the offer, saying that doing so "won't bring anybody back". Sparing Mettaton and killing Undyne results in her still missing, with Mettaton building a statue in her honor. The only ending where she ''isn't'' implied to be dead is when you bail on a genocide run at the last second. In that ending, she's crowned as the Underground's new queen and savior with Sans as her advisor. Despite being decent with her new position, she misses her friends and curses herself for not killing you when she had the chance.
*** Speaking of Mettaton, sparing him while killing Undyne and Toriel leads to him being the leader of the Underground and brainwashing the monsters with his TV Show. Papyrus, if you left him alive, mentions that anyone who doesn't worship Mettaton is never seen again, which bodes poorly for the future of the Underground.
*** Killing off ''all'' potential rulers as well as some monsters results in the remaining monsters losing all hope of escaping the Underground, instead coming to the conclusion that they'll perish trapped in its darkness. Sans refuses to take the crown because he's reached that same DespairEventHorizon long ago. At the end of this sobering message, he'll either sign off with "See ya" or, if you killed 20+ monsters, wish for you to "go to hell" instead.
* ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaMk2'' and its remake ''[=Re;Birth2=]'' have the infamous Conquest Ending. In this route, the only thing that can stop the [[BigBad Deity of Sin Arfoire]] (Hanzaishin/Crime God Magiquone in the Japanese dub) is the legendary sword Gehaburn that was never used in history. This sword is in fact a cursed sword that only gains power by killing [=CPUs=], also known as goddesses. Since the heroines experienced that her four QuirkyMiniBossSquad and even a small fragment of her soul were very hard to handle, and the time of Arfoire's upcoming resurrection is very soon, the heroines realize that the cursed sword is the most effecient and only way too ensure their victory and save the world. However, when Nepgear tries to find a better alternative, it only brings up controversy among the [=CPUs=], resulting that they split apart. Due to unfortunate circumstances, Neptune and Nepgear kill the other six goddesses and cannot turn back to waste their sacrificed lives. And to maximize the strength of Gehaburn, Neptune sacrifices her life by the hands of her younger sister Nepgear with the sword. And when Nepgear finally faces Arfoire, Arfoire makes no attempt to resist her, since she knows what Nepgear sacrificed just to use the sword. Even though Arfoire dies, her goal of the world's destruction and chaos has been set-up by Nepgear beforehand. With only one CPU left and only one nation, Nepgear will rule over the world in peace, without strive, without conflicts, without competition. This will result in that society will not advance and will not evolve; the world will stagnate and rot and people will eventually rebel against their sole ruler. And Arfoire will eventually resurrected again when the time has come. And Nepgear has been left by her remaining friends, and her head is full of doubts about the peaceful future.
* ''VideoGame/TsukimiPlanet'' has ''three'' downer endings available.
* Both the normal and GoldenEnding of ''VideoGame/SineMora''. The Enkies end up dead, Lynthe Ytoo spends the rest of his life in jail, Myryan Magusa dies of cancer, Argus kills his own father and decides to rebel against the empire by traveling back in time, piloting the Cobalt King and refusing to deliver the nuke.
* ''VideoGame/ElementalGearbolt'''s ending [[ForegoneConclusion was]] [[DoomedByCanon inevitable]]. The protagonists are already dead, Bel Cain and his kingdom are doomed, and even Tagami is unable to leave World 4 in the aftermath.
* All the endings of ''VideoGame/AkaiKatana'':
** Kikyou is mortally wounded, telling Botan to live on in his place, and kills himself with the Blood Katana. He gives her the ability to see, and she says that she can feel him next to her.
** Tsubaki kills herself with the Blood Katana in order to bring Sumire back to life, but then Sumire decides to kill herself because she doesn't want to live without Tsubaki.
** Suzuran crushes Shion to death so that she can have the Blood Katana all to herself, but she ends up losing her youth to it just like Shion had.
** In the [[GoldenEnding True Ending]], all six of them destroy the Blood Katana together, and they all die [[BittersweetEnding for a better world]].
* In ''VideoGame/EternalSenia1'', Senia fails to save Magaleta in all [[MultipleEndings three endings]]. Though only the first two endings completely count as this, since in the third ending, Senia and Magaleta are alive and the former is freed from Eternity's power.
* ''VideoGame/WayOfTheSamurai4'' has ten possible endings. Sadly, 3 of them are this trope:
** The first ending many players will face has their player character being boiled alive. You join a tournament set up by the Chief Minister Onsen Kinugawa. When you win the tournament and join the other winners on stage, you are then dropped through a trapdoor, which leads to a huge bowl of boiling water. This ending sadistically gives you a HopeSpot, in the form of your character hanging onto the edge, but is quickly dropped into the pot by the Minister himself, who gloats evilly about it. The narrator then tells how your player character made no impact on history and no one remembers him.
** Joining the xenophobic Prajna movement can result into two endings. One of them has the entire movement, including your character, being gunned down by the forces of the Chief Minister.
** If you managed to enter the Hidden story path, but failed to meet all the requirements for the GoldenEnding, the game ends with you, and several other characters, attempting to assassinate the Chief Minister. But in the end, he is revealed to be a body double. The real one then executes all characters involved in the assassination plot, including you.
* ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'': "Victory...A hollow and ridiculous notion." The heir and their army successfully purge the monstrosities from several of the the most fucked-up dungeons they've ever seen, though the heir is forced to sacrifice half their party to finish the EldritchAbomination hiding in the center of the Earth you've accidentally been feeding with the dead left in your wake...only to find the devastating truth: Mankind is and always was an errant protrusion of flesh of said EldritchAbomination, and our rotting corpses will continue to revive and sustain our creator after our deaths, meaning it can never be killed as long ''we'' exist. One day, inevitably, WhenThePlanetsAlign, what sleeps will rouse once more to [[EarthShatteringKaboom hatch from this fragile shell of earth and rock]] and bring about our inescapable end. Broken and psychotic, the heir commits suicide as their forefathers before them, and haunts the estate as another ghost, pointlessly trying to stop the next heir from starting this EternalRecurrence again. "Ruin has come to our family," wrote the Ancestor, but the family in question is the whole of mankind.
* ''VisualNovel/LifesignsSurgicalUnit'' has this as a BadEnding if you fail to convince Suzu-sensei, or if you fail Professor Sawai's heart operation. In this ending, Dr. Tendo fails to save Sawai's life, and says that his death has left his family far behind. Suzu-sensei loses her job, and Tendo-san quits being a doctor. After a conversation between Aoshima-san and Hoshi-san, a shot of a newspaper (with the headline "Tragedy of the Holy Night!") appears with Aoshima-san saying that she still doesn't remember what really happened on the night Professor Sawai died, and "now everything is covered in darkness." Then the credits roll while showing old-fashioned pictures of various places in the game.
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII: The Conquerors''. The Aztec campaign ends with them reduced to a VestigialEmpire whose days are numbered.
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII: Rise of the Rajas''. The Malay campaign ends with the Bubat Incident, where the famed hero Gajah Mada took the blame of the incident that caused the death of the Sunda royal family about to be wed with his king, and he's punished with exile out of respect of his past accomplishment. And Gajah Mada considered it a FateWorseThanDeath, he's left to lament at how his own hubris costed him everything and he's no hero but a man that couldn't keep his ambitions in check.
* In the BL game ''Enzai: Falsely Accused'', as can be expected about a game that is riddled with PrisonRape, every ending that doesn't involve your main character being proven innocent and thus leaving prison is one of these. Among others are cases where he gets shot while trying to escape, ends up as an EmptyShell due to all the trauma or gets targeted by the BigBad, resulting in him going downright insane.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Wick}}'', you've been DeadAllAlong this whole time.
* The ''VideoGame/DarkParables'' usually have {{Happy Ending}}s, which makes sense for a game series based on classic {{fairy tale}}s. However, the bonus chapter of the twelfth game, ''The Thief and the Tinderbox,'' is this. Kai, having been entrusted with the eponymous magical tinderbox, has dreams of an island at the Edge of the World where it can be hidden away and no one will ever use its magic for evil again, so he sets out on a [[DoomedExpedition major expedition]]. Not only is everyone else on his ship killed by a vicious sea monster, but he himself becomes imprisoned on the island, forced to stay there for eternity as guardian of the various magic artifacts it conceals.
* In ''VideoGame/RaidenV'''s [[MultipleEndings bad ending]], our heroes return to the solar system after destroying the crystal aliens at the source, but they appear to have accidentally warped to Mars at first. A closer examination reveals that it is EarthAllAlong, reduced to a lifeless red rock by the AlienInvasion.
* The eventual ending to the human/monster war in ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'', though we never get to see it in-game. The humans manage to seal the monsters back in their own dimension, but all the hunters are either dead or soon to be, massive numbers of humans have died, entire populated worlds have been razed, technological progress has been pushed back hundreds of years, and the source of humanity's most advanced technologies can never be used again for fear of restarting the war.
* ''VideoGame/ToTheMoon'' moves between this and BittersweetEnding. At the end, Johnny gets his wish and goes to the moon and a beautiful sequence plays out just as he dies. [[ForegoneConclusion But it was all in his head, he never really went to the moon and instead he and River had a difficult marriage and he sometimes deeply resented her]]. Plus, he never really found out why he wanted to go to the moon a.k.a. that he knew River ever since he was a small child or that he had a twin brother that died in a car accident. And to twist the knife further, it gets heavily implied at the end that Neil is dying himself.
* ''VideoGame/ThePark'' ends with Lorraine being [[MindRape driven to the brink of madness]] by the park's [[EmotionEater emotion-siphoning machines]] and nearly going the same way as [[SerialKiller Chad the Chipmunk]]; she recovers enough of her sanity to try and rescue Callum from the House of Horrors - only for the [[BigBad Bogeyman]] to seize control of her and force her to stab her child to death with an icepick. For good measure, Lorraine eventually [[ItsAllMyFault hands herself over to the police]], ensuring that the Bogeyman/Nathaniel Winter's crimes will go unpunished. And given that the game's actually a tie-in with ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'', it's soon revealed that things only get worse for Lorraine: she ends up getting press-ganged into becoming an agent of the Council of Venice and is forcibly bonded with one of the Bees, subjecting her to daily MindRape as a result of the unwilling symbiosis. By this time, she wants desperately to die, but thanks to the Bee, she ''can't,'' sending her on a thirty-year mission to successfully commit suicide. And when she finally manages it over the course of "The Seven Silences," there's a good indication that the player ends up undoing it, forcing her back into a lifestyle of indentured servitude and crippling depression.
* ''VideoGame/TheEndIsNigh'', since it's an Creator/EdmundMcMillen game, does this for its first ending. Ash dies as the glowing orb explodes, ending the world for the third time, although he dies with a smile. The second ending ''can'' be this, as Ash is transformed into a small planet and stuck forever in Nevermore, but at least he is no longer alone.
* ''VideoGame/ToothAndTail'' ends with the pigs rising up and completely destroying everyone else. Though given how idiotic the animals' reason for going to war was, you might not see this as a necessarily bad ending.
* ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'' gives you two choices for an ending, neither of which is very upbeat. You can either let the tornado destroy the town to let your best friend (and depending on interpretations, love interest) live, or you can rewind time to undo all your meddling that kept her alive and thus prevent the various ClockRoaches from destroying the town. The town or your friend, which will you choose? Steam even keeps a global tally that records the percentage of players that have chosen each route through the story.
* ''VideoGame/JediKnightJediAcademy'' has a dark side ending which would be a downer, from a certain point of view (though not the PC/Protagonist). Protagonist Jaden Korr is presented with a fellow apprentice who earlier fell to the dark side, but under the thrall of one of the villains. They ask Jaden for help, but in his/her fury, Jaden can opt to fall to the Dark Side. In doing so, they kill their fellow apprentice, as well as the villains underling, and proceed to the final mission, killing enemies and former allies alike. After killing the BigBad, and claiming the MacGuffin, the protagonist is challenged by their former Master, Kyle Katarn, the previous Protagonist of the series, and bests them in a duel. At the end of the story, Luke Skywalker finds Kyle buried under rocks and helps to free him. Kyle regrets that he has failed as a Master, one student dead and the other lost to the Dark Side, with many of the academy's students dead at their hand. He promises to track them down and stop them. The final shot of this ending shows Jaden at the helm of a Star Destroyer, the MacGuffin in hand, very much under the sway of the Dark Side, and a considerable threat to the Galaxy.
* ''VideoGame/ClarencesBigChance'''s worst endings. The girl is repulsed by Clarence and leaves him. A depressed Clarence loses his will to continue chasing girls and either spends the rest of his days as a BasementDweller with the internet as his only companion or bungles a suicide attempt and lives out the rest of his life in an underwater civilization comprised of society's rejects.
* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'':
** The only positive thing to come out of the Middle Ages chapter is that Oersted is still breathing (and given what he does next, even that's debatable). Hasshe and Uranus are dead, Streibough betrays Oersted and dies in single combat with him, Oersted's fiancé Alethea declares her love for Streibough and kills herself just to spite Oersted, the king of Lucrece is dead by Oersted's own unwitting hand, and the kingdom at large considers him to be a traitor and demon. This ending is so utterly depressing that Oersted goes completely insane and becomes the Lord of Dark, Odio, who [[GreaterScopeVillain goes on to haunt the other protagonists throughout time and space]].
** Any ending in the game that isn't the good ending or the remake exclusive GoldenEnding are this.
*** If Oersted is chosen as the final chapter's protagonist and gets close to losing any of the final battles, Odio will RageQuit by casting Armageddon, which proceeds to annihilate ''[[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt all of reality]]''. This ending will also happen if any of the other protagonists are chosen and they lose to Purity of Odio (or any version of Odio in the remake).
*** If Oersted is chosen as the final chapter's protagonist and he defeats all the other heroes, he proves to himself that HumansAreBastards, and is now doomed to be alone in the ruins of Lucrece for presumably the rest of eternity. What's more is that he visibly appears normal instead of his DarkLord persona and ends his walk by hanging his head in shame, suggesting that he might be finally regretting what he has done but it's too late.
*** If the player chooses to execute Oersted after defeating Purity of Odio, the protagonists end up unable to return to their original times, trapped in the ruins of Lucrece for the rest of their days. Lei's reaction in particular (if she's the successor and chosen as the player character) [[TragicMistake points out just how much she's screwed up by giving into an impulse of anger and vengeance]].
* ''VideoGame/MafiaTheCityOfLostHeaven'': Tommy Angelo testifies against the Salieri family and gets eighty of their members, including TheDon Salieri himself, imprisoned or executed. Under witness protection, he and his family get their identities changed, move across the country to a respectable neighborhood, getting a new family life and good job in the process. Fast forward to the 1950s, and an aged Tommy is then shot dead by two assassins, likely sent by Salieri.[[note]]Mafia II reveals that the assassins are Vito and Joe, and were indeed acting on Salieri's orders.[[/note]]
* ''VideoGame/MafiaII''. By the end of the game, Vito Scaletta has had his mother die while he was in prison, had his sister disown him after he beat up her abusive husband, learned that many of the people he worked with screwed his family over as a child, had his luxurious life destroyed and his friends killed, provoked a gang war between the Mafia and Triads, and lost his friend after he turned pendito. Even worse, even though he is given a deal by Leo Galante to survive despite all the damage done, said deal does not cover his best friend Joe, who is unceremoniously taken away. ''VideoGame/MafiaIII'' reveals that Vito's deal meant that he was sent to southern Louisiana, where he fails to get any meaningful connections, is disowned by most of the mobs there as a "carpetbagger", and learns that his friend Joe suffered a gruesome death in Chicago. Despite all this, however, Vito can become a successful underboss.
* ''VideoGame/MadMax2015'' somehow manages to have an ending even more depressing than the end of the first movie. You know, where his family was killed and he was left a broken shell of a man? Scrotus brutally murders Hope, with Max arriving too late to save her and [[DiedInYourArmsTonight Glory dying in his arms]], triggering voices and hallucinations that start tormenting Max. Hope's voice drives him to "[[RoaringRampageOfRevenge paint her name in blood]]" and kill Scrotus, but he ends up destroying the CoolCar you spent the entire game building up into an unstoppable deathmobile and killing Chumbucket in the process. Sure, Max gets his Interceptor back. And sure, with both Scrotus and [[TheDragon Stank Gum]] dead (and potentially everything else Max has done over the course of the game), the territories surrounding Gastown will become safer. [[BookEnds But Max himself is right back where he was at the beginning of the game; all alone and with nobody one he can trust, trying to outrace his demons.]] [[NiceJobBreakingItHero And he only has himself to blame for it]].
* So you just beat ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureToolsofDestruction''. You met a girl with some funny robots, turned some baddies into penguins, fought space pirates, and just defeated the [[ANaziByAnyOtherName fascist]], [[OmnicidalManiac omnicidal]] BigBad who tried to destroy the universe with the AlwaysChaoticEvil race he brought back. It should be a cause for celebration. [[MoodWhiplash Then the ending cutscene starts:]] Ratchet, Clank, Qwark, Talwyn, Cronk, Zephyr, and [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Rusty Pete]] are chilling at the Apogee Space Station when suddenly Clank is taken away by the alien race that helped him earlier in the game and Ratchet is unable to save him. The final shot before the credits is of Ratchet looking up in utter despair as his friends go to comfort him. It turned out to be a plot hook for the next two [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureACrackInTime entries]], but it still doesn't reduce the impact of the scene, especially as it is the only game in the franchise to end on such a depressing note.
* The second ''VideoGame/BloodRayne'' game ends on a very bleak note despite the protagonist prevailing over the villains: though Rayne has succeeded in killing Kagan and avenging the deaths of her human mother, family and foster father, the damage Kagan and his minions have wrought on the world is irreversible, with the skies being covered by a toxic substance that allows vampires to survive in daylight and causes human civilization's downfall. Plus there are other vampire lords that are eager to fill out the EvilPowerVacuum left by Kagan's death, and the Brimstone Society has declared war against all vampirekind, regardless of if they are evil or not. Rayne now inherits Kagan's empire (something she loathes) and will be forced to fight a war on two fronts in a ruined world. This was presumed to be a SequelHook, but a follow up was never made due to the death of the creator.
* The normal ending for ''VideoGame/Agony2018'' is about as dark as it gets in a game about Hell: the main character escapes from Hell, but in the process, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero tears down the boundaries between it and Earth,]] meaning Inanna and Satan are now free to wreak havoc. And if that wasn't bad enough, the main character only gets to enjoy his second lease on life for all of one minute [[YankTheDogsChain before Satan emerges from the nearby ocean and crushes him underfoot as he marches to shore.]]
* If you mistook the AllianceMeter in ''VideoGame/LiarJeannieInCrucifixKingdom'' for a KarmaMeter, the ending for freeing fifteen or more humans will catch you off guard. Jeannie becomes the new Cadaver Queen and decides to kill all undead in the kingdom for the sake of humanity, starting with her beloved brother. The ending CG shows that part of her body is now decayed and that she has completely given up on her personal happiness. While the other endings [[BittersweetEnding aren't completely happy]], they at least ensured that Jeannie would have Marta by her side.
* ''VideoGame/{{Oakwood}}'' ends with all of Madison's friends dead at the hands of the dinosaurs of the forest and she herself is surrounded and mauled to death by the ''Velociraptor''.
* ''VideoGame/KaiserreichLegacyOfTheWeltkrieg'': Though most factions are treated in morally gray terms, the game makes it very clear that the Second American Civil War ending with the [[DeepSouth American Union State]] under [[AxCrazy Pelley]] being victorious is a horrific outcome. Pelley establishes a democracy that is [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain only open to white Christian men]], [[OneNationUnderCopyright has the economic system dominated by monopolies loyal to him]], and has [[StateSec the Minutemen]] crush all his opposition. The KKK become an influential part of the government, syndicalists are worked to death in forced labour camps, and hate crimes against blacks become just another part of American life. To top it off, he prohibits vaccines under the delusional belief that they are a syndicalist plot, which results in the biggest polio outbreak in American history and millions of Americans are left crippled.
* The ways to lose in ''VideoGame/SurvivorFire'' involve the family members dying.
* ''VideoGame/{{SOS}}'' has quite a few bad endings in which no one survives the rescue. If you see the ending picture have a black sky, you've got a bad ending.
* Depending on the player's choices in ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'', all eight characters can die. Even if certain characters survive and some don't, not all of them will even get a BittersweetEnding.
** If Mike shot and killed Emily, he will be mentally broken by the experience and admit to the deed, meaning he will be going to jail.
** If Jessica survives but everyone else dies, she will be [[EmptyShell completely traumatized]] by the events.
** If Chris and Ashley have a RelationshipUpgrade but Chris dies, Ashley will be crying during the interviews as she laments that they never had a chance.
** If Chris is the SoleSurvivor, when the interviewer asks him about Josh, Chris will turn away and his expression will crumble, realizing he failed to save his best friend.
** Hannah's fate. Knowing her sister was dead, left in the mines for weeks, freezing, starving and alone, waiting for a rescue that wouldn't come. In the end, Hannah was forced to eat Beth's body to survive, unknowingly transforming her into a Wendigo where she would hunt down the rest of her friends and brother.
** Regardless of the player's choices, Josh will either be killed by his own sister or [[FateWorseThanDeath transform into a Wendigo]]. Even worse if the character is the only survivor, because no one will know what happened to them.
** The Washington parents. Not only did they spend a year with absolutely no closure over Beth and Hannah's whereabouts; their daughters's eventual fates are extremely gruesome. They lose their only other child, either due to Hannah crushing Josh's head or to a FateWorseThanDeath. Even more poignantly, the family lodge that held many memories and keepsakes is destroyed in an explosion.
** The fact killing any of the Wendigo releases their spirits, allowing them to continue possessing victims that are trapped in the mountain, driving them to cannibalism in order to transform them into Wendigo. The Wendigo spirit was unleashed due to the sacred mountain being disturbed, but if Sam lives, during her interview she may tells them they need to check the mines, despite everything she's been through.
* ''VideoGame/TheBreach'': Sergei destroys the Hermes and the [[TheCorruption Yellow's]] connection to our dimension with it, and makes it back to Earth. But he's blamed for the deaths of the entire crew and locked in an insane asylum, desperately trying to convince a psychiatrist that he hasn't lost his mind and that humanity is doomed [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace if the SW-JUMP project continues]]. Then it turns out Sergei was infected by the Yellow [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie when he turns into a monster and attacks the psychiatrist]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Hatred}}'': The Antagonist gets the [[DeathSeeker violent death he desires]], getting gunned down by a squad of soldiers, but not before breaking into a nuclear power plant and triggering a meltdown that destroys the city.
* Since ''VideoGame/LifeTheGame'' is about a man's whole life, you win when he dies of old age. The endings you get by losing range from not so bad (dropping out of school) to terrible (dying as a teenager because your cousin tried to do surgery on you).
* ''VideoGame/NineteenSixteenDerUnbekannteKrieg'' ends with [[PlayerCharacter the soldier]] managing to get out of the trenches and charge along the battlefield, only to be shot dead soon after.
* All three games in the ''VideoGame/{{Enchanter}}'' Trilogy have an alternate horrific ending caused by bungling your attempt to take out the BigBad. Achieving them gives you a negative final score and the title Enemy of Humanity.
** In ''Enchanter'', the only way to destroy Krill is a scroll so powerful it was used as bait to lure an EldritchAbomination into a trap. If you [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu play your cards right]], you can sneak in, swipe the scroll, and get back out again. If not, Krill is the least of the world's worries.
** In ''Sorcerer'', your goal is to save your mentor Belboz from DemonicPossession. Once you actually reach him, this is fairly easy to do. But you'd better have shielded your own mind first, or the demon Jeearr will just take you over instead.
** In ''Spellbreaker'', there are ''two'' ways to fail on an epic scale. The shadowy figure has assembled the [[CosmicKeystone cosmic keystones]] and prepares to recreate the universe in its own image. If you simply fail to stop it, you're blamed because you inadvertantly created the figure in the first place. If you stop the figure from using itself as the universal template but forget to provide a replacement, congratulations on managing a [[ApocalypseHow Class X-4 apocalypse]] in a SwordAndSorcery game.
* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' is broken up into chapters and each chapter's end is also when a character's time in the story is over. Most of the chapter endings are complete downers:
** Ellia's chapter ends with her seemingly killed by Pious, but you later find out in Lindsey's chapter that Ellia has been kept alive as a rotting husk for centuries by Mantorok's heart, which is still in her body. She fades away once she gives up the heart to Lindsey.
** Anthony's chapter ends with him succumbing to the curse he was afflicted with and unable to save Charlemagne. Like Ellia before him, Anthony is kept alive as a rotting zombie through his curse and is unable to die until centuries later where Paul finally puts him to rest.
** Karim sees Chandra come to him in the form a ghost due to her being killed by the wife of a nobleman she slept with. Chandra states that Karim must sacrifice his life in order to guard an artifact that man must never claim. Karim begrudgingly does so and spends the next several centuries cutting down people in the afterlife that tried to claim the artifact. His spirit finally rests when he finds out Roberto is one of the chosen.
** Paul Luther encounters the Black Guardian at the end of his chapter and it either stomps him flat or [[YourHeadAsplode pops his head via psychic powers]]. Unlike the other chosen, Paul didn't accomplish anything and had nothing to pass on, thus he doesn't have a ghost form until he and the others assist Alex in the FinalBattle.
** Maximilian Rovias kills his staff in a fit of paranoia, thinking they were all Bonethieves. He gets locked away in an asylum and despite him warning everyone about the incoming darkness, [[CassandraTruth no one listens.]] His ghost appears years later towards his predecessor, Edward, and shows him the hidden room in the mansion where the [[McGuffin Tome of Eternal Darkness]] lies in wait.
** Roberto is captured by a warlord and is forced to do surveys within the Forbidden City so that the Pillar of Flesh can be constructed. Once Roberto is finished with his work, he is "rewarded" by being tossed into the pillar and is [[BuriedAlive buried in concrete]]. His ghost appears to Michael Edwards centuries later and gives him the artifact.
** Lastly, Edward himself. He finds out the whole conspiracy behind the Ancients and puts a damper in their plans. Decades later, the Ancients send one of their minions to kill Edward and it does so by [[OffWithHisHead eating his head]].
* In ''VideoGame/MonsterLovesYou'':
** Possible endings include an endless war between humans and monsters, the enslavement or extinction of monsters, and even the extinction of humans. And the game makes it abundantly clear that whatever happens is ''all your fault.''
** Downplayed in the Modest Legacy/Dissolve Into Mediocrity ending, where you dissolve without standing out in any particular aspect. The game rather bluntly tells you that it's unlikely anybody will remember you now that you're gone.
* In the old Creator/ColorDreams NES game ''VideoGame/SecretScoutInTheTempleOfDemise'', upon finally defeating Doctor Demise and getting through this turkey of a game, your final reward is a text screen that seems like AWinnerIsYou, but is anything but:
-->"Congratulations, Secret Scout! You've managed to kill off Doctor Demise and his band of scum-sucking cohorts! Unfortunately, the exit from the Temple has been covered up with a thick layer of hardened pewter and boulder fragments. It would be a miracle if you got out! I'll notify your next of kin right away. Thanks a million for your brave efforts!"
* In ''VideoGame/BloodOmenLegacyOfKain'', the canonical evil ending has Kain refuse to sacrifice himself and instead reign over the decaying landscape with plans to thin out the rest of humanity. This leads into all the sequels.
* In ''VideoGame/StringTyrant'' most of the Mary transformed endings are downer endings. Mary loses her free will, hunts down and transforms her friends into monsters like herself. After that she spends an eternity forcibly happy with the situation, hunting and transforming anyone else unlucky enough to be transported to the mansion.

* ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'': The 1.7 update adds two:
** If you execute [[AntiVillain General Tor]] after beating him, his second-in-command Kiron admonishes you and the human race for killing the only person willing to listen to you, and [[YouAreInCommandNow uses his new authority]] to authorise the Alpha Strike against Earth. Iji can only hug Dan (provided he is still alive) as the Earth is obliterated.
** Opting to spare Iosa means the final fight with Tor gets interrupted with her breaking in with a Generation 2 gun (a weapon so hideously devastating that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even the hyper-militaristic Komato consider it illegal to use in active combat]]) and obliterating Iji with a single shot. She then tries to extort Tor into destroying Earth, but is thwarted by Kiron, who calls off the strike and strips Iosa of her rank. She kills Tor in a rage and storms off, and the Komato fleet departs, leaving Dan standing over the lifeless body of his sister on a desolated Earth. As they leave orbit, Iosa [[HeelRealization just stares at her hands in disbelief]] that she realizes that she not only [[UngratefulBitch killed a combatant who had her under a gun and still decided not to kill her]], but then ''her own husband'' over being denied her vengeance.
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' has several endings, none of which are completely happy, but one is much worse: you can have V decide that saving him/herself isn't worth having other people die, and they want to experience the end with Johnny rather than a slow breakdown; so they sit back, look over the city, and shoot themselves in the head. Afterwards, their former friends are so devastated that they continue to leave V voicemail messages.
** The variant of "The Devil" ending where V chooses to live out what's left of his or her life is also this: By siding with [[MegaCorp Arasaka]] to save themselves they've [[{{Turncoat}} betrayed (and also destroyed) Johnny]], and burned bridges with some of their other friends...[[YourDaysAreNumbered and after a bunch of tests it's determined their brain is too damaged by the Relic, giving them six months at most to live]]. V has nightmares of Jackie and continues to be taunted by Johnny even though he's really not there anymore, both of which hammer in that [[TragicMistake it was the absolute wrong decision]]. And the last thing V does before leaving the space station is breaking the [[TragicKeepsake bullet necklace]] in a fit of rage and grief...they sold their soul and went against everything and everyone they stood for, AllForNothing. To make matters worse, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero thanks to V's cooperation with them]] [[TheBadGuyWins Arasaka is more powerful than ever]].
** Later patches added in an EarnYourBadEnding for V's ByTheBookCop friend River Ward. If you fail to save his nephew from the SerialKiller and River survives the misadventure, he ends up getting arrested over a bar fight with a drunk who mocked the victims and begs V to bail him out during the credits.
* ''VideoGame/AITheSomniumFiles'' has MultipleEndings, requiring you to [[OmegaEnding experience all of them first]] in order to piece together the JigsawPuzzlePlot and reach the GoldenEnding.
** The [[EarnYourBadEnding penultimate ending]], the Annihilation Route, in which [[spoiler:the culprit is knocked out and captured, but every main character is killed except [[KarmaHoudini Pewter]], [[RobotBuddy Aiba]], Mizuki, and Date ([[GrandTheftMe whose body is stolen]]).]]
** In the [[spoiler:Mizuki and Ota]] routes, [[spoiler:you seemingly get a happy ending except with FridgeHorror later revealing that Iris is dead with her father [[CorruptPolitician So Sejima]] [[FreakyFridayFlip trapped in her dying body]], and in Ota's route [[TheBadGuyWins the killer is still on the loose as well]]]].
** In [[spoiler:Iris']] route, [[spoiler:Iris [[SecretlyDying dies from her brain tumor in Date's arms]] and [[TheBadGuyWins the killer is never found]]. According to WordOfGod, this is the ''[[ItsAWonderfulFailure real]]'' worst ending, as in the Annihilation route, the mystery is at least solved, but in this one, the [[StoryBranching story branch]] curves inward because you've decided to believe [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness the ramblings of a brain cancer patient]] and the story subsequently goes nowhere.]]
* The sequel, ''VideoGame/AITheSomniumFilesNirvanaInitiative'', adds two more downer endings to the series:
** On Ryuki's side, the [[spoiler:Explosion]] route ends with [[spoiler:Kizuna losing the use of her legs, Mizuki losing her left eye, and Date getting pinned down by rubble (and subsequently getting captured by the BigBad and losing his memories) in the aftermath of a thermite bomb explosion, with Tearer escaping before Ryuki can arrest him. This leads Ryuki to a life of [[DrowningMySorrows drinking himself to oblivion]] and constantly blaming himself for his failure.]] And this is the ''canon'' ending for his side.
** On Mizuki's side, the ending for [[spoiler:Gen and Amame's]] route. [[spoiler:The discovery of the other half of Jin's body in Gen's freezer leads to Boss calling for Gen's arrest [[FaceHeelTurn as well as Mizuki's]]. Amame attempts a HeroicSacrifice to save Gen, Mizuki, and Date, but Gen takes several bullets for Amame in the process -- the route ends with him [[DiedInYourArmsTonight dying in her arms]].]]
* In the freeware short game ''Frog Wednesday 2'', you playtest the titular game, which was made as a sequel to a viral indie game called ''Frog Wednesday'' and whose ownership was sold to a large corporation. The project is overseen by a clueless exec named Mark while the original indie team lead by Trent was hired to work on the sequel. Depending on a particular action you take late in the game, you get one of two equally-depressing endings:
** In Trent's ending, he admits to the player that he's aware that he sold out for money and he hates what ''Frog Wednesday'' has become under its new owners, but there's no longer anything he can do about it, and thus ends up packing his things and leaving the project.
** In Mark's ending, his failure to understand the game and what made it so popular, compounded by a string of increasingly bad ideas that [[FollowTheLeader blatantly copy from other popular video games]], causes him to have an emotional breakdown, and he winds up cancelling ''Frog Wednesday 2''. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking You also don't get paid because you technically didn't finish the playtest]].
* ''VideoGame/TouhouKenbunRoku'': Following Marco's death, Bunroku washes up on some island which is some sort of detainment for those who mess with history. Bunroku is forced to go into a Japanese bathtub, where he soon goes insane, leaving him screaming in the style of Creator/EdvardMunch's famous "Art/TheScream" {{painting|s}}.
* ''Flood'' had an unusual downer ending for a 16-bit era game. After guiding Quiffy through 40 levels to escape the sewer, he climbs through an exit...revealing that he was the size of an insect all along, and he is immediately crushed under the tyres of a passing car.
* ''VideoGame/LibraryOfRuina'', the sequel to ''VideoGame/LobotomyCorporation'' has two, one of which you are guaranteed to get if you haven't cleared all nine Floor Realizations.
** If you fail to clear the Lower Level realizations, then Angela will finish Roland off after his defeat. In spite of gaining freedom and a human body, she finds herself unwilling to leave the Library, and kills off all of the Sephirah. She then continues to expand the Library for thirteen years, up until a Fixer reaches her and she allows herself to be struck down, rendering her efforts AllForNothing.
** If you fail to clear the Middle Level realizations, then while Angela forgives Roland for trying to kill her, the feeling is not mutual and Roland decapitates Angela while her back is turned, killing her. He then, having accomplished his revenge, has nothing to live for and, overwhelmed by his trauma, goes deep into substance abuse before being seen dead in a gutter [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice with all sorts of weapons sticking out of his back]].
* ''VideoGame/NaufragarCrimson'': The game ends with Athena dead while Hyo is at full power, having faced [[KarmaHoudini no consequences]] for killing her to absorb her lifeforce.
* In ''VideoGame/PerfectVermin'', the news castor has to come with terms that he is dying as a result [[SmokingIsNotCool of his smoking habit]] and realizing he will never catch his big break because there simply is not enough time left for him and his life will be forgotten. Given that the game starts with an InMemoriam tribute to him, he died after the game's events.
* ''VideoGame/PapersPlease'' has 20 different endings, only three of which are good endings. Most of the rest are [[GameOver early bad endings]], usually for things like going into debt, letting your entire family die, or shooting an innocent or a government official when you're supposed to be shooting active terrorists, and some of them are {{Bittersweet Ending}}s where you flee the country, whether alone or only with some of your living family. But then there's the ending where you make it to the final day, but then the next day, a government audit exposes your involvement with the [[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters terrorist-slash-freedom-fighter]] group EZIC, and you are subsequently executed for your involvement. A more twisted version of this can occur should the player be otherwise locked into the "EZIC revolution" ending (wherein the player has completed enough of EZIC's missions for them to complete their takeover of the government) but then kills the EZIC agents attacking the border at the last minute, in which case the above ending happens ''and'' an EZIC agent hands you a note condemning you for betraying them at the last minute, leaving you to die hated by ''both'' groups.
* ''VideoGame/StarFoxCommand'' has the following:
** The ending The Anglar Emperor has Krystal ditch Fox so she can continue her life with Star Wolf. Fox is forced to wander the galaxy on his own, although he MIGHT have ROB-NUS 64, Falco, and/or Slippy as company.
** In The Curse Of Pigma, Fox suffers a HeroicBSOD when he realises that his rival Wolf had taken everything from him. Falco tries to console him, but his attempts fail. It is only when Falco gets wind of a race that Fox recovers from his sadness.
** In Pigma's Revenge, Falco decides to defect when Fox reveals that he and his friends have defeated the Anglar Emperor on their own. Falco gets back at Fox by joining Dash and Katt to form Star Falco.
** Dash Makes A Choice ends with Corneria and Venom battling when Dash takes over Venom in his grandfather's footsteps and declares it as the "centre of the Lylat System".
* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' as a whole ends with a very grim YouCantFightFate scenario; despite almost every single character sacrificing themselves or what they had to stop it, the Age of Fire ''will'' inevitably end, the Dark ''will'' come and leave the world barren and dead in shadows no matter who does what, [[EternalRecurrence and it's a vicious cycle that has happened for millennia and will keep happening]]. [[VideoGame/DarkSoulsI Gwyn sacrificed himself by burning in the Kiln even after going Hollow]]. [[VideoGame/DarkSoulsII Vendrick, Aldia and the Bearer of the Curse tried their best to find a solution to break the cycle]]. [[VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII And Gael resurrected the Dark Soul of Man to create a Painted World for life to retreat to]]. And '''''none of this''''' [[AllForNothing could stop the end of the world]] happening on loop. The only spark of hope is in the endings of ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'' where you [[EarnYourHappyEnding finally find a way to break the cycle and forge a future for mankind]].
* ''VideoGame/EldenRing'' has two of the most unambiguously bad endings in a Creator/FromSoftware game, both of which [[EarnYourBadEnding require you to go out of your way to get them]]. In addition, the quest-givers for these endings are open about their intentions, and in one case your companion Melina will outright beg you not to go any further and destroy the world.
** "Lord of Frenzied Flame": In this ending, the Tarnished becomes the Lord of Chaos, incarnation of the Frenzied Flame, and burns down the Erdtree completely. In its place, a spiral of yellow flame rises up to the sky, scorching the Lands Between and wiping out all life. With the Tarnished's betrayal fully complete, Melina promises to seek out the Tarnished and grant them "Destined Death". A variant of the ending plays out if the player character encounters the Three Fingers after Melina's sacrifice: this one removes Melina's part in the ending cutscene, leaving the Lord of Chaos with nobody that can stop them.
** "Blessing of Despair": In this variant of the Elden Lord ending, the Tarnished accepts the Dung Eater's misanthropic ideology and uses his Mending Rune to fix the Elden Ring, dooming all mankind and the land itself to a FateWorseThanDeath that will spread from generation to generation. The narrator, who in other endings mostly sounds neutral, sounds ''horrified'' in this one.
* Considering that it's a {{Gorn}}-filled [[ExploitationFilm Exploitation Game]], ''Demonophobia'' ends this way. Sakuri is left stranded in Hell, with absolutely nothing left on her, repeatedly dying over and over again until the universe ends... which won't happen for a very long time. Meanwhile, [[TreacherousAdvisor Ritz]], the one who brought her into this mess in the first place, [[KarmaHoudini gets away with everything]] and is last seen [[HereWeGoAgain sweet-talking yet another poor bastard]].
* Of all games, ''VideoGame/StephensSausageRoll'' has this, and a hefty dose of FridgeHorror. The "sausages" you've been grilling? They were actually the ''bloated corpses'' of the island's inhabitants, who believed that only by being cremated would they reach the true afterlife. And if you thought there'd be a reward for granting their last wishes - nope. You're just left to die and become a "sausage" yourself, condemned to never reach your afterlife because there is no-one left to grill you.
* ''VideoGame/{{Arcaea}}'': After you saw the normal ending at least once, if you [[spoiler:use a sealed Hikari (Fatalis) partner and play "Last" without doing anything (that is, your score has to be exactly 0) and wait a while, you're given an option to "Accept Arcaea" above the usual "Refuse Fate" option. Tapping on it triggers an ''absolutely nasty'' bad ending. It reveals Tairitsu and Hikari's past, as well as Arcaea's origins, which are a whole can of worms on their own. 1,000 years after Hikari kills Tairitsu but leaves her dead, the former ascends into being a goddess of Arcaea. However, consumed by guilt and still continuing to believe that she did the right thing at the same time, she goes insane. Gone was the carefree girl who basked in joyous memories and in her place a nihilistic goddess who cares for nothing other than being alive for the sake of. Other characters, save for a few with stronger commitment to their cause, were also left to willingly render themselves catatonic and enshrouded in glass, with whatever CharacterDevelopment deprived away from them because of that girl who can't move away from becoming a killer. And no, you cannot ignore this ending if you want every song, because there are two songs hidden inside it.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Ib}}'' has a multitude of these.
** "Welcome to the World of Guertena", where TheBadGuyWins. Mary decides to keep Garry and Ib trapped as her "playmates" in the gallery forever. Garry is insane and Ib has crossed the DespairEventHorizon. And if you look closely, you can see a Lady in Blue plucking the petals from Garry's rose...
** "A Painting's Demise" has the same outcome as the ending above, except Mary decides to leave Garry and Ib behind to escape the gallery and live as a human. However, she cannot leave the gallery by herself and dies alone.
--->"Poor little Mary\\
Forever wandering all on your own"
** "Ib All Alone": Instead of escaping the gallery, Ib stays behind, either due to hallucinating her mother/Garry or [[PressXToDie simply deciding not to leave.]] The BonusDungeon has a variant on this ending where Ib falls into an eternal slumber after sleeping on "Final Stage".
* ''Spinal Breakers'' has multiple endings, and the worst one involves the hero Captain Waffle defeating the final boss and being forced to shoot his wife and daughter, who have become infected. Then at the end of the credits roll, we hear [[DrivenToSuicide one final gunshot]].
* The first ''VideoGame/NelsonTethersPuzzleAgent'' game ends with the Hidden People kidnapping Isaac Davner, [[ShaggyDogStory rendering Nelson's struggles to find him and bring him back moot.]] The government refuses to step in to possibly find him and Nelson is told to leave it to the local law enforcement, not knowing that Sherrif Bahg is a SmallTownTyrant who won't be looking for Isaac any time soon.
* ''VideoGame/RedEarth'': Both Tessa and Leo have downer endings if you screw up, involving being [[BrainwashedAndCrazy hypnotized by an extraterrestrial creature]] and [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie succumbing to his curse and becoming a mindless lion]], respectively. As for Kenji, [[MortonsFork both of his endings are unpleasant, either dying with honor or living in disgrace]]. Thankfully, Mai Ling will always end her campaign on a positive note.
* Ending D of ''VideoGame/FishingVacation''. [[PlayerCharacter You]] are caught by the uncle and [[TheHeroDies sacrificed to Sedna]]. It's [[UncertainDoom unclear what happened]] to your friend; they may have been able to escape but they could also have been captured too.
* The ending in ''VideoGame/FromNextDoor'' where the creature abducts Namie, claiming yet another victim with no one but Daisuke Sen knowing the truth (and he's all but powerless to intervene). It's the worst ending by far (another bad ending has Namie dying, but she at least takes the creature with her).
* ''VideoGame/SacredEarthAlternative'': Despite the demo implying that things will eventually get better for Konoe as she discovers her past and gains a chance to save the remains of the world, the full release ends on a bleak note. [[spoiler:Konoe discovers that the memories she saw belong to the original Konoe, and then True Konoe kills her, rendering all the pain she went through moot. Then True Konoe fails in her own objective to revive her family, making the destruction of the world AllForNothing. Worse yet, the Celestial Tree that she summoned has the potential to destroy the rest of the multiverse.]]
* ''VideoGame/ThingThing'': ''Thing-Thing 4'' ends with Project 154 being trapped in a room by the CorruptCorporateExecutive controlling Systems Corp., which is then pumped full of a gas to remove 154's HealingFactor. No matter how hard they fight, 154 is inevitably gunned by down Systems Corp. mercenaries and their corpse used to refine the genetic splicing process, letting the company get away with their crimes. The associated ''Thing-Thing Arena'' series also heavily implies that 154 is resurrected as a slave to the corporation for use in testing, with their free will forcibly removed.
* ''VideoGame/YouOnlyLiveOnce'': As noted by the title, this is a SingleAttemptGame, with no way to restart if you lose, and the sequel seeing whatever killed you get executed. You’d figure there’d be a happy ending if you do complete the game… But instead police appear out of nowhere and arrest ''you'' for killing the boss, and ''you'' get executed.
* Both endings of the first ''VideoGame/{{Lisa}}'' game only serve to reinforce the game's main theme: Lisa can never escape Marty's abuse, no matter what.
* ''VideoGame/AmnesiaTheBunker'' ends with Clement escaping from the bunker only to be greeted by a German patrol, so he will either be killed or spend the rest of the war as a prisoner. If you failed to take care of the Beast in the Roman Ruins, it runs off into the No Man's Land to continue its slaughter anew.
* ''VisualNovel/FourTwoEightShibuyaScramble'': The normal ending. While Shibuya is saved from being bombed, Kenji is fatally shot by Alphard, who later manages to escape from CIA custody thanks to her contacts there. And to add insult to injury Alphard's employers now have a full monopoly over the Ua antidote, which paves the way for it to be used in future bioterrorism attacks.
* The ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' series has several:
** In the bonus case of the original game, if you present the cloth at the wrong time, you will inadvertently and incorrectly prove Ema guilty of Neil Marshall's murder, resulting in Lana being convicted in the current murder case.
** In the fourth case of ''Justice For All'', if you fail to present the correct evidence to the correct person in the final parts of the case, you get a bad ending in which your client and murderer Matt Engarde goes free, the innocent Adrian Andrews is found guilty, Maya is never seen again, and Phoenix runs away from the courtroom. Unfortunately, the mood of this ending is [[{{Narm}} ruined by a typo]]: "The miracle never happen."
** The fourth case of ''Trials and Tribulations'' ends with your client, who you were just about to get off the hook, deciding to kill himself rather than let his girlfriend, who is the real murderer, get implicated. Fortunately, it's mitigated by the knowledge that the guilty party was finally nailed a year later, as played out in the game's ''[[AnachronicOrder first]]'' case.
** The verdict of the fourth case of ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'' is left entirely up to you. If you choose "Not Guilty," you get the normal, happy (and canonical) ending to the game, but if for whatever reason you choose "Guilty," the verdict is postponed until tomorrow, but in the meantime your client, who is in the hospital from being poisoned, dies, and the verdict is "postponed for eternity."
** ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies'' has three in the fifth case, and one in the DLC case. [[spoiler: Getting a game over in one of the two forced questions has [[AntiVillain Aura]] kidnap Athena. Getting a game over on Simon's testimony results in him being found guilty in Athena's place and executed. [[FromBadToWorse Aura vanishes with the hostages (including Trucy), Athena leaves the agency, Apollo is completely broken by the events, and Phoenix gives up being a lawyer.]] Lastly, getting a game over on [[BigBad Fulbright's]] final testimony results in [[BittersweetEnding Athena and Simon getting off the hook, but the phantom getting away clean and the failure to bring him to justice causing public opinion towards the law to sink even lower]].]] In the DLC case, getting a game over during [[spoiler:Rimes' Mood Matrix segment]] results in [[spoiler:Orla being found guilty and put down (Sasha does get acquitted, but as a result of something she hired Phoenix to prevent from happening).]]
** Continuing the tradition, ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice'' adds a few more. [[spoiler: If Apollo fails to keep the Founder's Orb out of [[CorruptPolitician Paul Atishon]]'s hands, Dhurke's dream of ending the Ga'ran regime is never realized and Apollo's friendship with Phoenix becomes strained. Getting a game over while guessing who was channeling [[DeadAllAlong Dhurke]] results in Dhurke being posthumously declared guilty and the cast never realizing who Inga's true killer was. Getting a game over after Amara's FalseConfession ends similarly to the previous ending, but with Amara going to trial as well. Getting a game over after accusing Queen Ga'ran results in Apollo and Nahyuta being forced into hiding and becoming the new leaders of the Defiant Dragons.]]
** In the fan-made case ''VisualNovel/TheEmptyTurnabout'', you lose the trial altogether after fighting for three chapters. Your client is found guilty even though he didn't do it, but he's okay with it. Furthermore, Athena is never punished for killing Blackquill, although it is revealed that she did so because Blackquill had killed her mother and got away with it thanks to her testimony... when she thought he was innocent. There's something positive, though: Apollo has figured out who really killed Arts and has called the police.
* As the name implies, the selling point of ''VisualNovel/BadEndTheater'' is its numerous bad endings. There are 41 bad endings in total, though many of them are simply a PerspectiveFlip of one another on account of the game having multiple protagonists. While there are a few {{bittersweet ending}}s and a couple of [[OnlyTheLeadsGetAHappyEnding protagonist-centered good endings]], each path ends with at least one protagonist murdered, and even if the protagonists make the morally correct choices, the background [=NPCs=] will be the ones to screw everything up. The only way to get an unambiguously good ending is to [[spoiler:trap all four protagonists in a room together, perform a DeusExMachina to save them all, and defeat the theater's owner in a boss battle]].
* ''VisualNovel/Case03TrueCannibalBoy'':
** In the normal ending, [[spoiler:Lily delivers a MercyKill to Sally, but this causes her to become emotionally numb to everything except hating evil spirits, resulting in her becoming a ruthless BloodKnight exorcist. Marty is arrested for the various serial killings and is never seen again. In a twist, this is a somewhat happier outcome for Lily than the true ending]].
** In the true ending, [[spoiler:it turns out that not all the victims were due to the Cannibal Boy. Some of them were actually Marty killing various women in order to find a new body for Sally, and Jade helps him kill Lily. Right before Marty beheads her, Lily swears to become an evil spirit to take revenge on Marty and Jade. Nya is pleased with Jade's work and "rewards" her by sending her to the world of the ''VideoGame/PeacemakerSeries'']].
* Every ending but the true ending in ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' ends with everyone dying, killing each other or having one character go ''AxCrazy''. The Coffin ending is the worst, just a cockblock to the true ending if you forgot to get the Safe ending. Even the true ending can be seen as bittersweet, since [[spoiler:June and Santa played a role in the deaths of three people.]] Granted, [[spoiler:Ace]] killed two of them, but [[spoiler:the 9th man]] was killed by his bomb, which could be connected back to "Zero." Thus, two characters are fugitives and Junpei [[spoiler:may never get a chance to spend a happy life with June]] because [[spoiler:she]] is on the run with [[spoiler:her]] accomplice. Also, per WordOfGod, [[spoiler:it's heavily suggested that Junpei [[DidNotGetTheGirl never does find June]], and spends the rest of his life pursuing her. At least, until the events of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', when both of them are old.]]
** Also, in its sequel ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', nearly every ending. The game includes a number of outright bad endings that give you a game over screen. It also includes at least 10 "locks" that have a role similar to the Coffin Ending of the first game... these endings force you to come back after learning something in a different timeline. Even the non game-over endings tend to have things like [[spoiler:the entire complex exploding, people dying of the Radical-6 virus, bracelets injecting you with chemicals that kill you, escaping out into a blank, featureless desert...]]. However, the final few endings [[spoiler:are even bigger downer endings, as you discover that nearly the entire population of Earth was killed off by the Radical-6 virus and the detonation of the anti-matter reactors.]] However, [[spoiler:Phi]]'s ending includes a SequelHook that implies [[spoiler:you may be able to fix things in the next game.]]
* The Grim Fate in ''VisualNovel/{{Cinders}}'', [[EarnYourBadEnding though it's nearly impossible to get if you aren't trying for it.]]
* Most of the Normal (aka bad) Endings in ''VisualNovel/CodeRealize'' are more {{bittersweet|Ending}}, but Saint-Germain's is particularly grim. Saint-Germain is lethally wounded during his battle with Guinevere and dies in Cardia's arms; afterward, Cardia joins the AncientConspiracy and never contacts Lupin or her other friends again, instead allowing them to believe that she's dead. The only positive note amidst the tragedy is that Cardia makes it clear she doesn't plan to follow Omnibus's orders without question and will try to save people if she can, but even so, she will never be able to form connections with anyone outside of the order, and the final lines of the ending describe her entering London on a mission for Idea with a "mask-like smile" on her face. Some of the Game Overs also go the extra mile to twist the knife, especially the ones which occur late in the game.
* ''VisualNovel/CorpseParty'' has anywhere from two to seven bad endings per chapter, in which one or more scared teenagers die in increasingly terrifying and gruesome ways in a haunted school possessed by evil spirits. And even the true end isn't particularly happy: [[spoiler: out of all the people who started out in Heavenly Host, only ''five'' of them can make it out, all of whom are horribly scarred from their experiences, while the BigBad [[KarmaHoudini is still out there]]]].
** The sequel, ''Book of Shadows'', manages to make it even more of a downer: the game is made up mostly of alternate timelines from the main game, or of side characters having expanded storylines. [[spoiler: [[ForegoneConclusion And they all die.]]]] The sections that do take place in the present involve the main characters taking actions that make their lives ''even worse''.
* In the ''VisualNovel/DeathRoom'', [[spoiler:it's only possible for one person to get out alive. So, your options are either to die or let someone else escape.]]
* In ''VisualNovel/{{Ever17}}'', some of the GOOD endings are Downer Endings! The worst being Tsugumi's Good Ending: Tsugumi and the protagonist, Takeshi, are able to get out of Lemu before it implodes upon itself, thanks to a tiny submarine that will propel itself to the surface, where rescuers are waiting. Partway through the journey, it breaks and begins to sink again...breaking underneath fifty feet of water. Takeshi manages to lock Tsugumi into one section of the sub, and disconnects the part that he's in so that the lighter weight will carry her to the surface. Takeshi sinks to the bottom of the ocean and drowns, while Tsugumi floats to safety, pounding on the glass window, screaming and crying to Takeshi that she doesn't want him to die. Sora's ending is even worse: Takeshi drowns when Lemu collapses because he refuses to leave Sora behind, who cannot leave. Tsugumi escapes but she's mentally scarred from the experience, not least of which because of how her relationship with Takeshi turned out. The rest of the cast probably die of the disease that killed the staff because Tsugumi's blood was apparently never used to synthesize an antidote. It's notable that of all the endings this is the only one that plays no real role in the true ending.
* Whilst most of the (actual) endings to the game are [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]], the Normal End of the Heaven's Feel route in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' is truly heartbreaking and tragic. Shirou sacrifices the ideal he'd been living for to protect his girlfriend Sakura halfway through the story and ends up with progressively worse brain damage in his attempts to keep her safe and get her back. At the end, it finally kills him. That's bad, but then it switches to the perspective of Sakura, who never moves on and never accepts that he's dead.
* ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'': Some of the birds' true endings are this. Most notably, [[spoiler: Nageki, who turns out to be a ghost and disappears because your love enabled his spirit to move on]], and [[spoiler: Dr. Shuu, who dismembers you and flees St. Pidgeonation's with your severed head in a jar...[[LoveMartyr but that's okay, because you really loved him.]]]] Additionally, if you fail to romance a bird, [[spoiler: you are executed by the Hawk Party.]]
* Both exemplified and ultimately subverted by ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry''. Most of the individual arcs end with one of the main characters either brutally murdering or being murdered by one (or more) of their best friends, but the cycle of murders ultimately leads to a Good End for the main characters.
** The same applies to its companion, ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry''. One of the worst endings has the protagonist stripped naked, forced to be a pet/servant to the antagonist, and is eaten alive by people in goat-masks. Oh, and this is ''after'' a lot of the other island's inhabitants are murdered.
** The ending of the series also applies where it at best is {{bittersweet|Ending}}. Battler finally once again can meet his family and Beatrice in the golden land or a {{downer|Ending}} where everything from ep 3 and forward was just a way for an amnesiac Battler to sort out his memories about Rokkenjima.
* Most endings in the VisualNovel ''VisualNovel/KanaLittleSister'' can be seen as Downer Endings, since in all but one of them the protagonist's beloved sister dies, often in some of the most tragically depicted death scenes in gaming ever. The fact that the makers tried to give most endings a [[BitterSweetEnding bittersweet lining]] doesn't lessen the sad fact that the protagonist fails to save the most important person in his life, even after offering one of his kidneys for transplantation, as happens in some scenarios. The one ending in which she doesn't die results in her leaving him after a while. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption The guy just can't win]].
* Makoto's route in ''VisualNovel/{{Kanon}}''. The only bright spot to Yuuichi feeling terribly heartbroken is that he has a new friend who understands what he just went through and that he will get better. Eventually. It's bad enough that it almost seems nicer to ''Makoto'' if she's just allowed to vanish and presumably die of exposure like in the other routes.
* Most of the endings in ''VisualNovel/KaraNoShoujo'' are pretty terrible, especially if you count the Bad Ends, which have extensive stories. There are only two endings that really qualify as bittersweet.
* In ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'', if Hisao fails to befriend one of the girls enough to seek out their company for the school festival(or makes the wrong choice at a critical point), he'll resign himself to giving his paranoid hallmate Kenji his company. [[spoiler:While on his way to meet with Kenji on the roof of the school, he finds himself annoyed by the festivities. Once he meets up with Kenji, the two spend the entire day eating pretzles and drinking whiskey. After spilling his guts to Hisao, Kenji starts invading his personal space. Hisao, heavily inebriated, tries to back away, only to end off slipping and falling off the roof. His last thoughts were of how this was a fitting way to end such a crappy day. Cue red flash, fade to black, roll credits.]]
** Every single route has at least one and possibly two Downer Endings. Emi [[spoiler:breaks up with Hisao after their argument, telling him that while she knows he's a good guy, they just cannot last together and he's not the kind of boy that can handle her]]. Hanako [[spoiler:lashes out at Hisao (and by proxy, Lilly) for pitying her and breaks up their buddying relationship]]. Lilly [[spoiler:goes to Scotland permanently, leaving behind her boyfriend Hisao and her best friend Hanako]]. Rin [[spoiler:either has a fall-out with Hisao in her atelier and their bonds are explosively severed, or leaves Hisao and everyone else she's close to behind to study art in Tokyo, even if it means changing herself (which could potentially result in her suicide)]]. Shizune [[spoiler:ends up alone, believing that she pushed Hisao and Misha away with her competitive personality, since they drifted apart from her. (And unbeknownst to Shizune, Hisao cheated on her wirh Misha, as a result of Misha having an emotional breakdown over her UnrequitedLove for ''Shizune''.)]]
* ''VisualNovel/LongLiveTheQueen'': In a game where most of the people you meet want you either helping with their plots or dead so that they can take your throne, this is a given. Even if you make it to your coronation without being killed, you might still [[spoiler: be forced to [[HeroicSacrifice watch your father die]] (or become physically and mentally handicapped if he does survive), lose your fertility to your aunt's poison, unintentionally spark a rise in prejudice against Lumen, cause Merva to secede from Nova after you alienate them by executing your aunt's entire family...And the list goes on.]]
* For one whopper of a Downer Ending, look no further than ''VisualNovel/{{Planetarian}}'', which ends with RobotGirl Yumemi getting gunned down by a big mecha, after the protagonist hauled her out of the planetarium she still felt obliged to work for and where she had been waiting for her co-workers to return for ''thirty years''. The worst part is that she had a fair chance of surviving where she was - if the protagonist wouldn't have blown her power supply by letting her run all that heavy equipment for that one last show. Leave it to Creator/KeyVisualArts to make as depressing an ending as possible.
* The "Nightmare" endings of ''VisualNovel/QueensGambit'' are pretty much relentlessly horrible, involving the deaths of a lot of the main cast and the loss of everything the protagonist values. The "Rookie" endings can also be pretty grim, though they usually provide at least some spark of hope.
* In ''VisualNovel/{{Rewrite}}'' most of the endings are downers, though some of them don't seem that way at first. Shizuru and Akane's routes end with the apocalypse, Lucia's route has the entire town destroyed and will ''also'' result in the apocalypse, except even worse this time. Kotori and Chihaya's routes seem to end well, but these routes will ''also'' result in the apocalypse, though at least the main characters will live out their lives before that. It's not until Moon and Terra that you get an ending that doesn't result in the world ending.
* ''[[VisualNovel/SavetheDatePaperDino Save the Date]]'' is a short game in which you attempt to go on a date with a girl, but the date is always cut short by her death. Literally every single time. No matter what you do to avoid the previous deaths, new ones will pop out of the woodwork. And the true ending, obtainable after you exhaust all other options? [[spoiler: You don't go on the date. The girl finds love with someone else. You are left alone.]] The only exception is [[spoiler:the secret ending that requires you to edit the game]].
* All three endings of the visual novel ''VisualNovel/SayaNoUta'' can be considered downers. One has Fuminori's brain returned to normal, only for him to be locked up and separated from Saya forever. In the next, Saya "blooms" and begins to transform the entire world into her own nightmarish species. Finally, the last ending kills off all but one major character, who's gone half-insane and will very likely commit suicide one day soon.
* ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'' is rather infamous for its bad endings, all of which involve gruesome and bloody murder (or suicide, in one case). The [=PS2=] "all-ages" port added several more bad endings and extended the existing ones. The game's sequels, ''Summer Days'' and ''Cross Days'', have bad endings of their own, though most aren't nearly as horrifying as the ones in the original.
* In ''VisualNovel/StrawberryVinegar'', if you refuse to let Licia stay in your house, her older sister will come, prove she was indeed a demon, and reap your soul to Hell as punishment. Ouch.
* The first chapter of ''VisualNovel/{{Suika}}'' ends with Itsuki realizing she's dead, disappearing and leaving Akira all alone. His personality is completely broken and when he finally meets Sayo again, the girl they both thought was really dead, he refuses to introduce himself and runs away. Both the endings of the third chapter are also disturbing. Yoshikazu either ends up with the extremely controlling, manipulative Touko or gets stabbed to death by Akane, who hooks up with Touko instead after apparently hypnotizing her.
* ''VisualNovel/SweetPool'' is well-known for having no happy ending whatsoever, no matter what decisions you make. Only one among the six possible endings can be considered a BittersweetEnding at best, but nevertheless, [[spoiler: the protagonist either dies, ''will'' die soon, or suffers from a FateWorseThanDeath.]]
* ''VisualNovel/SyrupAndTheUltimateSweet'' has several.
** The Candibal End has [[spoiler: Syrup eat Gumdrop. Pastille is so disgusted he leaves and never returns, and due to dwindling sales Syrup has to close down her shop.]]
** The Frozen End has [[spoiler: Syrup tell Butterscotch she hates her which leaves Butterscotch unable to get them out of the icy cave they're in. They end up freezing to death in there.]]
** Bad End 1 has [[spoiler: Syrup give Gumdrop over to Butterscotch and refuses to help Pastille get her back, and he leaves her. The candy store goes into decline and Syrup's left with nothing and nobody.]]
** Bad End 2, similar to Bad End 1 has [[spoiler: Syrup give Gumdrop over and Pastille leaves her, but in this ending she hires Toffee to help out around the store. They and Butterscotch take it over and Syrup quits, resolving to never get close to anyone again so nobody can betray her like Pastille did.]]
** And the Worst End has [[spoiler: similar events to the Frozen End, except Pastille and Treat rescue Syrup and Butterscotch before they freeze to death. However Syrup tells Butterscotch she still hates her, and the own coldness in Syrup's heart ends up killing her.]]
* In ''VisualNovel/War13thDay'', the True End reveals that [[spoiler:the entire game is Wildfire's DyingDream.]]
* ''VisualNovel/YandereChan'' has a whole host of bad endings that all conclude with your untimely death, usually via scissors. The only ending that could be considered good is the one where the titular yandere gets sent to a mental institution.
* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'' can end with one such ending if you choose to pursue Kyoko's lie in the fifth trial, by pointing out that she could have used her special key to unlock the door to her room, resulting in her being convicted and executed. The remaining survivors remain trapped in the school for the rest of their (and their children's) lives, with the strong implication that Toko died at some point. However, this is quickly revealed to be a DaydreamSurprise and Makoto wakes up right before that point, allowing the player to progress as normal.
* The bad ending of the FanGame ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaAnother'' has protagonist Yuki getting ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice by [[KillerGameMaster Monokuma]], with the implication that the others followed suit. The true ending has [[spoiler:Yuki's EmptyShell [[TomatoInTheMirror true personality]] overwrite his own and attempt to sentence the others to death after deciding to BreakThemByTalking. However, they get a HeroicSecondWind thanks to [[BrainUploading Alter Ego]] and TheDragon Akane's HeroicSacrifice, and manage to escape with Yuki allowing them due to a subtle SplitPersonalityMerge. Yuki and Akane [[LoadBearingBoss die together in the collapsing facility]] as the others manage to escape, with the implication that Kinjo's fallen into his BlackAndWhiteInsanity once more and is going back down the path of a WellIntentionedExtremist. Plus, since the game is a StealthPrequel to ''Trigger Happy Havoc'', the nightmare is far from over.]]
* ''Spirit Hunter'' series:
** The bad ending of ''VisualNovel/SpiritHunterDeathMark'', where at least one Mark Bearer dies. The protagonist fails to properly [[SealedEvilInACan seal]] the BigBad and she comes for him at the end.
** ''VisualNovel/SpiritHunterNG'':
*** The Bad End, predictably. All of Akira's companions are dead. The grief overwhelms him, as does his [[{{Psychometry}} Bloodmetry]] power, until a mysterious voice offers her help. However, his Bloodmetry is too powerful even for her, and he's turned into a murderous Spirit that kills the last few survivors that he cared for.
*** The 'Normal' End is actually pretty dismal- because one or more of Akira's companions were killed, their grudge manifests as them preventing the Nagoshi no Gi ritual from working. This leads to Kakuya (rather gruesomely) possessing Seiji or Kaoru and having them drag Akira into [[PocketDimension Kakuriyo]], where it's implied that Kakuya kills him (hopefully, because the alternative [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty isn't much better]]). And since the ritual was imperfect, it's only a matter of time before Kakuya escapes again.
* ''VisualNovel/ShinraiBrokenBeyondDespair'' has four of the MultipleEndings fall into this category, with the good ending being a BittersweetEnding.
** If you agree that Kamen Eiga, the current prime suspect, is the culprit, she'll be taken into questioning for the murders, and will never forgive the other survivors for abandoning her.
** If you accuse Runa Hikari of being the culprit, she'll be cleared after a blood test fails to find blood on her kimono. This results in Runa, Rie and Kamen refusing to speak to Raiko.
** If you accuse Hiro Shiratake of being the murderer, Raiko will also accuse Kamen of killing him in {{revenge}} for what he did to Momoko. As a result, Kamen gets arrested for something she did not do.
** If you choose the correct culprit, then choose a wrong answer when asked who the mastermind of the plot is, Taiko will stop listening to Raiko.

* Since ''VideoGame/LifeTheGame'' is about a man's whole life, winning results in his death. The losing endings range from not so bad (dropping out of school) to terrible (dying as a teenager because your cousin tried to do surgery on you).

In BossFightTheGame, the game ends with Sir Labo, the protagonist, taking over the kingdom. However, he is overthrown a few weeks later, and according to the future that Doggosmoke shows you, Doggo Industries will eventually take over the kingdom and leave it a polluted wasteland.

* In BossFightTheGame, the game ends with Sir Labo, the protagonist, taking over the kingdom. However, he is overthrown a few weeks later, and according to the future that Doggosmoke shows you, Doggo Industries will eventually take over the kingdom and leave it a polluted wasteland.

In BossFightTheGame, the game ends with Sir Labo, the protagonist, taking over the kingdom. However, he is overthrown a few weeks later, and according to the future that Doggosmoke shows you, Doggo Industries will eventually take over the kingdom and leave it a polluted wasteland.

** Killing Demichev results in Renko going back to 1955 and correcting his original mistake (saving Demichev). At first, things seem to have gone back to normal as the game replays the helicopter ride sequence from the beginning. However, this time the helicopters bear hammer and sickle insignias and there's a statue of Barisov in the distance, implying that Soviet Union still controls the world. This may qualify as a BittersweetEnding since the Soviet Union is implied to be more technologically advanced and less repressive under Barisov.

** Killing Demichev results in Renko going back to 1955 and correcting his original mistake (saving Demichev). At first, things seem to have gone back to normal as the game replays the helicopter ride sequence from the beginning. However, this time the helicopters bear hammer and sickle insignas and there's a statue of Barisov in the distance, implying that Soviet Union still controls the world.

''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysofEurope'' has its own [[DownerEnding/TheNewOrderLastDaysofEurope page]].