10 Video Games Whose Best Ending Is In Dlc
Apr 2, 2025
You want to punch god in the face? That's gonna cost you extra
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Now there are few things that an audience will unanimously demand more from a story than a satisfying ending
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They want that perfect wrap-up to everything the story have been building up to from the start
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and a good ending can be all that determines whether your story will actually stick in the mind of general audiences
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after they're done with it, or just fade away into nothingness. Well, these games that we're about to talk about today didn't fade away, they were paid away
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because they had their best ending in the DLC. So yeah, it was a terrible joke. Terrible segue, but we're moving on. We're just going with it
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So with this in mind, I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 video games whose best ending was in the DLC
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Number 10. Broken Steel Fallout 3 Now the ending of Fallout 3, where the lone wanderer must sacrifice themselves
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to return clean drinking water to the wasteland, would have been much more effective
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had the game not provided you with a super mutant companion who could easily do it for you
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and not die from radiation. In the base game, Fawkes' fatalistic philosophy is what keeps him from going into that room for you
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but due to fan outcry, Bethesda created a DLC to address this
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Now granted, the Forbes dilemma wasn't the only reason the fans hated the original ending
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the true reason was that it, well, ended the game. So whatever side quests you had left or areas left unexplored, well, tough luck, buddy
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So Bethesda made Broken Steel to tie up both these controversies at once
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filling a plot hole while also, and more importantly, letting the players continue exploring the world
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In Broken Steel, you survive the process and wake up two weeks later in the care of the Brotherhood of Steel
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who are renewing their fight to cleanse the capital wasteland of Super Mutants and the Enclave
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You decide to help them because really, what's the alternative? Fight against the guys with a
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giant nuke-throwing robot? No, thank you. Broken Steel not only addressed fan complaints about the
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ending to Fallout 3, but it also gave them an entire expansion built off of that, and the new
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ending here, well, it's significantly more satisfying as a result. 9. Death of the Outsider – Dishonored 2
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One of the most enigmatic figures in the Dishonored series has been the outsider
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Now, it's always been up in the air as to what precisely he is. His motivations are clear enough, though
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He seeks entertainment. That's why he bestowed Corvo and Emily with the powers that they used throughout the two games
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The Otano family is interesting to him, and so he nudges them along because, well, it's just fun
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Frankly, though, it was only a matter of time before one of his playthings decided to fight back
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Enter Billy Lurk. Billy Lurk, formerly the companion of Emily and Corvo during Dishonored 2
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takes the centre stage in Dishonored's Death of the Outsider. As the name implies, the whole story is about Billy being fed up with this eldritch weirdo
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screwing with people for his own amusement and conspires to take him down
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While Dishonored 2's ending is just fine on its own, this makes for an excellent epilogue, with harder stealth sections, cool powers
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and at last, some real answers on what exactly the Outsider is
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While the last bit wasn't ever really a problem with the previous games, seeing the biggest question of the franchise finally get answered
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while it was pretty satisfying to watch play out. 8. Awakened Dead Space 3
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While nowhere close to the horror heights of the previous two games the ending of Dead Space 3 is perfectly fine as third entries go But it does end a little too well doesn it I mean this is Dead Space for crying out loud
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Where's the nihilism, the despair, the existential horror? Well, right here, declared the Awaken DLC
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which adds an epilogue to the story that reinforces the main overriding theme of Dead Space
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and that's that things can always get worse. Cheers. Awaken sees Isaac and Kava survive the events of the base game
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and worked together to try to get home, all the while being plagued with visions from the marker
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trying to drive them both even more crazy than they likely already are
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This all culminates in one of the most horrific and frustrating cliffhangers in gaming history
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and with the franchise basically dead despite a brilliant remake recently, this ending kinda becomes the perfect closing note for the series
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The final image of Dead Space is the most terrifying and nihilistic note you could possibly go out on
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As corporately commissioned as Dead Space was, Awaken demonstrated that the guys making it still knew in their hearts what this series was all about
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7. Remind Kingdom Hearts 3 Kingdom Hearts 3 was always going to be controversial
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Make a fanbase wait that long for a sequel, and yeah, not all of them will be satisfied with how things close out
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Kingdom Hearts 3's base ending is fine, but it's about as cryptic as the rest of the series tends to be
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Sora leaves to try and find a way to save or resurrect his girlfriend Kairi
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and the game then ends showing that he succeeded in bringing back Kairi, but now something has happened to him
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Then came the DLC Remind to answer a few of these questions
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Now it's not recommended that you jump into Remind after finishing the game, as it is a full Back to the Future 2 style reframing of the entire third act
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Here Sora manages to go back in time and use this opportunity to save Kairi from being killed in the first place
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Doing so involves having to work his way through the background of the final battle in the hopes of making it to the final boss before he can kill her
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Kingdom Hearts 3's climax was already top tier, but the new fights added in by Remind make it even better
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the best of which, of course, is Sora teaming up with Kairi to absolutely annihilate the final boss
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6. Part 4. Azura's Wrath Other examples on this list, before and after this one, have been more positive about a game saving its best ending for DLC
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The developers gave their game a proper ending at launch, and then gave fans a little more later
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But the most infamous example of, well, doing the opposite is Azura's Wrath
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The base version of Azura's Wrath doesn't end so much as it just stops
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Turns out that a game that looks like Azura's Wrath takes a while to complete, and rather than wait for the game to be finished, Capcom decided to sell the entire second half of the game as DLC
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Now, if you want to finish this story that you've poured hours into and get the best ending
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you'd have to cough up around seven bucks at the time. And since, for some reason, the game didn't sell very well
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there is yet to be, and likely won't be, a remaster of the game with all the content included
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So whenever Sony decides to finally shut down the PS3 servers, and the PS3 PS Store along with it
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well, I hope you like watching super old Let's Play videos, because that will be the only way
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that you are going to see Azura Wrath true ending 5 The Answer Persona 3 Now every piece of spin or supplementary material that heavily features the cast of Persona 3 has one thing in common
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Every single one of them is, in their own way, still coping with the death of Persona 3's protagonist, Makoto Yuki
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Even in the material where the former members of S-E-E-S are older
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and doing their best to move on, his death remains a very sore subject
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And for the starkest demonstration of this, Atlas made an entire expansion to the original game known as Persona 3 The Answer. The Answer
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takes place a mere two months after the end of Persona 3. The story revolves around the remaining
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members of S.E.E.S. getting dragged into more supernatural shenanigans, with a strange force
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underneath their dorm keeping the world locked on March 31st. The robot Aegis must keep her found
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family from tearing itself apart, as the thing under the dorm forces each of them to confront
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their past and dangles a dangerously tempting offer in front of them. The answer is the apex
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of Persona 3's dedication to portraying its cast of teenagers as deeply broken people
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leading to a twist that is still debated by the fandom to this day. While later material shows
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them doing their best to heal, the answer bookends Persona 3's story by saying the equally important
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message that sometimes grief just breaks you. That's okay. 4. Blood and Wine. The Witcher 3
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CD Projekt Red as a whole owes its success to The Witcher and Big G as a character
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So when they decided to close the book on their version of Geralt once and for all in The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt
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they went above and beyond to make sure it was as great a send-off as they could have done
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While the base ending is great at doing this in its own right, the true ending to The Witcher lies in the final DLC for the game, Blood and Wine
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Blood and Wine sees Geralt being sought out by a wealthy royal to handle a large beast that has been roaming the land and slaughtering anyone it finds
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Big G agrees to help, unaware of the political muck that he's about to go wading into
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While not the best of expansions in terms of story, and that's still Hearts of Stone by a Mile
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what sets Blood and Wine apart is, well, the fact that this is the last CD Projekt Red Witcher story
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There's a sense of finality to everything going on in Blood and Wine, and it's no wonder that this expansion is typically the last thing Witcher fans do in the game
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From Geralt getting his own estate in which he can finally set down some roots, to an ending scene that, without spoiling, is a brilliant send-off to the viewer from Big G
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Blood and Wine is about as perfect a bookend to Geralt's story as we could have ever gotten
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3. Trespasser – Dragon Age Inquisition Now, it can be hard to know how to properly end one story whilst also setting up the next chapter
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Lean too hard on one side and the sequel feels unnecessary, too much on the other
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and the original story feels incomplete. This is where cliffhangers tend to come in handy
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and one of the best cliffhangers in gaming history comes in the form of Dragon Age Inquisition's
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final DLC, Trespasser. Inquisition's ending was pretty good on its own, with the two DLCs that
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followed adding in new areas and expansions to the lore, but Trespasser is the ending to
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Inquisition's story. Trespasser picks up two years after the events of the game, with the Inquisition
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called in by the largest governments in the area to discuss whether or not the Inquisition is necessary anymore It turns out that having a religious militia that answers to no governing body with heavily fortified strongholds in every country and a spy network with its fingers in every ruler pies
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kind of makes those rulers a wee bit nervous. Every problem with the idea of the Inquisition is brought out and explored to the fullest
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while at the same time providing jaw-dropping twists on long-established law, all of which culminates in a twist that takes everything you knew about a good 60% of the law
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and just throws it out of the window, and yet does so in a way that makes total sense
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which is a pretty impressive feat. Trespasser is the reason that fans are still waiting
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desperately might I add, for Dragon Age 4. 2. Lonesome Road – Fallout New Vegas
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New Vegas' DLC stands out from the others in the franchise because every single one of them
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tells an overarching story. Granted, it's pretty far in the background, but in each of the DLCs
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Old World Blues, Honest Hearts, and Dead Money, you can actually stumble across painted symbols
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and abandoned camps. Now, they won't make sense at first, but they all belong to a mysterious traveler named Ulysses
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And in the final DLC, Lonesome Road, Ulysses calls Courier 6 out to an irradiated stretch of land
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called The Divide to settle an old beef between them. Now, while the title of What is the Best New Vegas DLC
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is still a toss-up between old world blues and honest hearts, Lonesome Road feels like the proper ending to the story
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It actually goes into the backstory of Courier 6, giving a glimpse, even if it is a short one
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of who they were before they were shot in the head, and it's fascinating
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And Ulysses, by the way, is one of the greatest villains in the Fallout franchise, a gravel-voiced philosopher, sympathetic, but ultimately dangerous
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Although only one of them is actually speaking, you feel their rivalry in every scene they share
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Lonesome Road, from a design and narrative perspective, is the final word from Obsidian on the Fallout franchise, and it is glorious
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And number one, Valhalla, God of War, Ragnarok. Now, Kratos has done a lot of things that most would be right to label unforgivable
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God knows that he's the first in line to do so, but the Norse duology on the PS4 and PS5 helps him to come to terms with his guilt and tries to move forward
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But anyone who hates themselves to the extent that Kratos does knows that there's never really an end of it
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Kratos needed to have his past laid out so that he can truly come to grips with it
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Enter God of War Valhalla. This free DLC for Ragnarok picks up a bit after the event of the main story
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with Kratos and Mimir answering a summons to the Norse realm of Valhalla
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which only those who have died in battle can typically enter. Valhalla has been brilliantly reimagined into a constantly shifting gauntlet
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meant to wear away the worldly regrets of those who enter so that they may pass into Valhalla unburdened
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and Tyr has decided to use this system to help his friend work through his traumas
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Kratos was already the greatest performance of Christopher Judge's career, but his performance in Valhalla, it's his magnum opus
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A man who desperately wants to do good and be better, but just needs to forgive himself enough to take the right steps, is a glorious story
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Valhalla isn't just the best ending for God of War Ragnarok, it is the perfect final note for the character of Kratos
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