Summary
Video games are primarily a source of entertainment. Like movies, television shows, and books, they can have their ups and downs as you progress through them. There can be moments of pure joy, exhilaration, excitement, and more. Video games can elicit many emotions from players. But there can also be moments of anger, frustration, confusion, annoyance, and disappointment.
Even the very best video games can falter. Numerous great video games can have one moment that ruins them, where either the narrative rocks or the gameplay quality dips. Considering the length of certain video games, it’s only natural that after many hours, something gives way. Sadly, some of the best video games that have these moments don’t always recover afterward.
Spoiler Warning
Updated on June 30, 2025, by Dominic Allen:Nothing’s worsethan a game that blows your socks off, only to come across a moment that ruins the entire experience and leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Sometimes, it’s just a bump in the road, while other times, it severely damages the game in a reprehensible fashion. It could be game-breaking bugs, frustrating missions, or terrible endings that do the damage here.
One of thebest indie horror gamesin recent memory has to be Signalis. Sure, it has plenty of influences, but it takes that to create something new here, and most of the game is a phenomenal time. That is until the final boss. The final boss is very much influenced by Silent Hill 4, with you needing to hit Falke with all the spears available.
The issue is staggering Falke, as the boss has rotating shields that’ll block your gunshots. Kind of odd for a retro survival horror game to require proper aiming. This is actually the first time in the game where you have to manually aim in this tricky fashion, and it’s so frustrating that after you beat it, you very well could uninstall the game instead of doing a second playthrough for the platinum trophy.
FPS games have a knack for explosive, incredible climaxes that end the experience on a high note. They’re often so good that they redeem the title, like Serious Sam 4, which is a fairly mediocre to decent game until the final level, which is one of the greatest single-player FPS levels of all time. Rage doesn’t fully suit because the ending is a total stinker.
You think it will be awesome because you get some seriously powerful weaponry beforehand, but the final level is just like any other. No massive hordes of enemies, not even a final boss. It’s a total letdown in what’s an otherwise pretty underrated FPS.
Believe it or not, Wii games could not receive patches at all. This led to several game-breaking bugs, the most infamous of which was in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Getting the bug was incredibly easy. It focused on the Song of the Hero quest, which is very late into the game.
You’ll have to go to three locations, but you must do the Lanaryu Desert first, then talk to Golo twice, and at that point, the game’s unbeatable. So many people caught this bug that a separate update had to be released on the Wii Shop Channel just to fix it, and due to how late in the game it was, it devastated many players.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a large game. Its world, its scale, its scope, the variety of things you can do, the amount of customization available — it all makes for a big game. There are many tasks and missions in the game too, some of which arenecessary to progress the story, and others are optional.
These optional missions are the most frustrating in the game, with missions like New Model Army or Supply Lines. One such optional mission that almost ruins the entire game is Air Raid. If you’re unfamiliar, this mission has you sitting on a rooftop shooting down drones, and it’s incredibly challenging. It’s not only frustrating, it’s anger-inducing, especially if you don’t realize the mission is optional.
After several hours of creeping and running away fromthe monstrous, terrifying alien, the story and gameplay of Alien: Isolation reaches a crescendo. You lock the creature in a remote module and launch it into space. Most would assume that would be the end of the game.
The moment that ruins Alien: Isolation is the realization that you’re only about halfway through the game at that point. Once the alien is gone, the androids become a problem to contend with, and then more aliens show up. Alien: Isolation is a game that outstayed its welcome, with enough content for two or three games crammed into one.
Batman: Arkham Asylumreinvigorated the superhero video game genre. It put Batman inside the asylum with many of his infamous foes, allowed you to combat them with a fun, unique fighting style, and gave us an Easter egg-filled playground to explore.
The story of the game is also interesting — there are nods to comics and the animated series throughout, with twists, turns, and dramatic moments abundant. The ending, however, was a disappointment. Specifically, the final boss fight, where Joker transforms into a generic, mutated creature, and you do battle with him in a basic, classic, video game fashion. That’s just not how the Joker would go about things, and not in his character.
Assassin’s Creed 3 starts off very promisingly. You are introduced to Haytham Kenway, a cool-looking, finely-dressed man who infiltrates a lavish theater and assassinates his target in stylish fashion.
It was, therefore, disappointing to suddenly be pulled away from that character and forced to play the rest of the long game as Connor. Connor lacks the charisma and likeability of Haytham, and his story takes on the format of a very generic revenge tale.
Much of the promotion and marketing for Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was on the campaign. More specifically, the fact that the campaign would have you taking on the role of the Empire, giving Star Wars fans a long overdue alternate perspective on the series’ story.
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain was released to much acclaim, particularly for its gameplay. It was also met with a lot of debate and discussion surrounding Hideo Kojima and his relationship with developer/publisher, Konami. The result was that Metal Gear Solid 5 was also released in an unfinished state, with little closure to its story.
The Metal Gear story is considered by many to be convoluted and a little silly. The moment that ruined Metal Gear Solid 5 was the revelation at the end of the game that, after however many hours you put into it, you were not, in fact, playing as Big Boss. Instead, you were playing as a random Big Boss lookalike. The story of this game was divisive, but the ending, in its unfinished state and ridiculous nature, was almost universally derided.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazardwas considered a return to form for the series. In certain regards, it was also seen as a reboot. In this game, the series reverted to its survival horror roots, doubling down on the scares and the tension, and toning down the action.
That is, until the back end of the game reverted to the action-heavy ways of the prior Resident Evil games. Once you reach the tanker, the game gives you access to better guns and more ammo, and the scares are reduced in impact and frequency.The final chunk of the game becomes a first-person shooter, and not a particularly good one.
