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Game Ending

*Just a developed idea at this point, but we can stick with it if we want to*


Overview:

     The ending to the Game will be almost the same no matter how the player plays or which side the player fights for. The ending, no matter what, will result in NWC withdrawal from the North American continent and the re-establishment of America as a free and independent nation... or, rather, the alignment of factions shifting from NWC/Federal vs. Rebel forces to being Rebel/Federal vs. NWC.

     This idea can work whether the player aligns with the Rebel, Federal, or Neutral tracks.

1)     If Rebel, once the player has secured near total military and political victory, there may be a cut-scene or some sort of quest that the player is sent on, showing groups of Federal troops turning against the NWC and escaping to Rebel lines. These commanders will be willing to help the Rebels oust the remaining NWC and any other Federal forces still loyal to the NWC. My thought is that these commanders will be the ones who are more against the practices of the NWC and once they realize that Rebel victory is almost certain they see no need for the NWC to stay in the North American continent. My idea for this is something similar to a “Valkyrie” set-up where Hitler’s top commanders turned against him and plotted their own conspiracy against the Reich in favor of the Allies.

2)     If Federal, there will sort-of be the same set-up. Once the Federal/NWC forces have secured a near total political and military victory, several top commanders on the Federal side will turn against their own. Again, these Federal commanders will be the ones who are not in favor and are against the practices of the NWC, but now that the fighting against the Rebels is almost over, they don’t have to worry about fighting a “Two-Front War” where they are combating the NWC and Rebels at the same time. They realize that, with victory in sight, and combined with remaining Rebel forces, they will greatly out match remaining NWC forces. They meet with the Rebels to grant amnesty and such in exchange for their effort to help oust the remaining NWC, and any other Federal forces, loyal to the NWC.

3)     If the player goes Neutral, either of the above will be played out over time and either way the player will have “won” the game by surviving through to the end of the war. This does beg the question of what will happen once a faction has won but, say, the player went with the Gang or Mercenary sub-factions of the Neutrality track? I am thinking of, again, either a cut-scene or a side-quest, where the player does not simply have to watch, where the victorious Rebel and Federal forces appear wherever the player is and ask their surrender to the new government. At which point the player will accept (If they don’t then I am thinking just a free for all battle, like at the end of Halo Reach, where the player just survives for as long as possible but once they die then the game officially ends).

This also presents the issue of what happens if, say, the player is on the “losing side”? I am thinking that if the player is losing on either side, their commanders will offer the chance to stay or to defect. If they defect to the winning side then the ending will be as mentioned above, if they stay on the losing side then the ending will, again, be an all out battle until the player dies, then the game is over. This won’t be applicable for the Neutrality track.

I am also thinking that since, as mentioned in the NWC/Rebel Forces Alignment topic, the Northeast Region will be the Crux of the Game, since it is the NWC “home-turf” area, this could be applicable for when/if the player chooses to go with the NWC side, and could be the main area for the Rebel forces as well. So, what I am thinking is, that the player will have the freedom to conquer whichever Region they want, with either side, and in whatever order they want, with the exception of the Northeast Region (Assuming, of course, that the player went with either the Rebel or Federal track and would not be applicable for Neutral) saving the NE Region for last, once all other Regions have been conquered by the players’ side. At which point, the afore mentioned meetings will take place among the faction commanders and several culminating “final battles” take place as the player tries to oust the NWC from the Northeast Region. These would really be the determining factors for victory or defeat. If the player keeps losing ground in the Northeast then potentially their side could lose, allowing for a NWC victory. Or the game will reach its height with one last final battle for Washington D.C.

During this last phase of the game, during the entire NE Region campaign, the pace of the game will be really fast and up-beat. The player will have to be at the top of their game to win.


**A lot of this can be critiqued, I am open to suggestions and this is a preliminary suggestion for the ending of the game. It can, and probably will, change over time.

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Hey ken im startin to really like the one ending aspect, at first i was a bit apprehensive but the more i think on it, this does make sense. Even if we scoot the dates of the game forward the troops born in Northern America might still have some grasp of a country, but then again if the idea of America is gone then these soldiers will just be fighting to preserve peace within the NWC controlled state cause thats what they know as stable or as what works. Then again there could be some revelation that you could or could not find, exposing what the NWC did in the "past". In that regard a common ending will probably not be best but rather two or even three endings (possibly more). For reference, if you play Mass Effect 2 that game as a multitude of different endings depending on what you did or did not do throughout the game. There were common general endings for whatever side (good or evil) you aligned your character to but also depending on what and how many side quests you completed would determine which members of your squad would live or die or if your main character died, which had huge ramifications towards the ending of the entire game. Those two endings you suggested were great but if we could think of subtle changes to each of these, tweak them here or there and then we could create a huge tree of endings, some with slight variations on the others and then some which are drastically different. This will create such a visceral and or emotional response within the player that will make his unique experiences in the game feel validated with his own unique ending!!