Bethesda Games With The Darkest Endings

Bethesda (or Bethesda Game Studios) isn’t known for its dark endings. Most of their games aren’t even known for their endings; they are instead known for their sprawling open worlds, which are full of characters and side quests that seem designed to sidetrack the player. It’s likely that most players, even more than what is already the norm for video games, don’t finish Bethesda's RPGs. After all, even the more dedicated fans of those titles don’t always complete their playthrough.

Even if those games are designed knowing that most players won’t ever see the ending, that doesn’t mean that they weren’t crafted with care. For some of these franchises, The Elder Scrolls chief among them, the ending is what ties one title to the next. A lot of the time, those endings are quite plain, in line with the usual adventure video game fair. But sometimes, knowingly or not, they become quite dark.

Updated on August 10, 2024, by Ewan Selmes:Although many Bethesda games and their endings trend towards the hopeful and the heroic - the big hero saves the world, the injustices are solved, and everyone goes home happy - some of the developer's biggest titles offer something a lot darker for fans who are that way inclined. Whether these are small parts of the ending or the ending themselves, there usually is something for fans looking for something with a bit more darkness.

The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind

A Failed Hero In A Failing World

Morrowindis a fan-favorite game, much loved for its weird and unique setting with varied and deep lore. Despite its age, this title is still widely considered to be among the very best games that Bethesda has ever produced, with legions of fans still playing it to this day.

But it's possible for players to completely mess up a playthrough of Morrowind by failing key quests or killing the wrong NPCs. When that happens, the fate of the world is sealed, and there's no resolution possible to the problems plaguing Morrowind - problems that will eventually consume all of Tamriel and the Mundus if left unchecked. This ending sees an entire world being doomed, all because the player couldn't keep their knife in its sheath.

Fallout 4

The Institute Ending Leads To A Dark World

Fallout 4’s ending won't always be a dark one if the player chooses to avoid it. The protagonist and their companions are always forced to wipe out the enemy factions, but that feels more like being roped into the implications of an existing political struggle than a proper bad ending. However, things become far worse if the player chooses to aid the Institute, the organization responsible for creating and using synths.

There is little doubt about the role of androids, also known as synths, in the world of Fallout 4. Synths are synthetic humans through and through. They feel like humans do, and they have a will of their own, separate from the Institute. Yet they are feared, hunted, or treated like a resource to be exploited, more akin to machines than humans. They also serve as a thinly veiled allegory about slavery. Siding with the Institute establishes a future where the end, the reconstruction of the world as it was, always justifies the means.

Fallout 4: Nuka-World

Revealing Dark Truths About The Players

• Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC
• Released: August 29, 2016
• Developers: Bethesda
• Genres: RPG, Action

The Nuka-Worldexpansion for Fallout 4 isn’t really trying to be dark. But in focusing on a world dominated by raider factions, taking much inspiration from classic but tacky post-apocalypse media, Nuka-Worldpushes the limits of the Falloutfranchise too far. Here, the irony that the series is based on, the juxtaposition between what led to the post-apocalypse and the inability of this world to leave its mini-nukes and power armors behind, suddenly breaks.

Nuka-Worldisn’t immoral, it’s amoral. It’s hard to imagine anything more grim than the most powerful being in the universe, the player character, forgoing morality altogether. If the player wants to rule the world of raiders, which is a must for reaching the end of the expansion, they must play the part. They have rebuilt the world with their settlements, and it’s finally time to destroy it. The protagonist plays both parts - the survivors and the riders they struggle against. There isn’t a good reason to do this besides the benefits granted by the DLC, but that seems to be enough. Now, isn't that dark?

Starfield's Crimson Fleet Ending

Siding With The Crimson Fleet Has Harrowing Consequences

Starfield's overall vibe was intended to be one of hope, optimism, and generally quite a bright future despite the problems of the past and even the present, but players can throw a massive wrench into that vibe depending on their choices during the main game. One such choice is deciding whether to back the Crimson Fleet, an interstellar pirate gang, or UC SysDef, the United Colonies' police force.

Players choosing a life of piracy are tasked with finding and handing over a massive cache of credits that will allow the Crimson Fleet to expand its operation and become a real terror to the Settled Systems in ways that they aren't already. If that isn't enough, the ending to the Crimson Fleet quests involves the destruction of SysDef's fleet and the eradication of many of its key officers, effectively gutting the organization for years to come. A glimpse of the future during the Unity sequence shows a terrorized Settled System where pirates abound and ordinary people suffer.

Fallout 4: Far Harbor

Every Ending Is Dark

• Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC
• Released: May 19, 2016
• Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
• Genres: RPG, Adventure, Shooter

Praised by fans of the franchise for its deeper storytelling, better quest and world design, and its in-game choices, Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC arguably has no indisputably good endings. In Far Harbor, there are a lot of choices to be made, and all of them come with some ethical downsides. Choosing to expose DiMA, the leader of the synth colony at Acadia, for his clandestine activities can trigger the destruction of Acadia; refusing to do so means replacing a human man with a synth. On the other hand, the player has to choose between saving the town of Far Harbor or the Children of Atom settlement of the Nucleus, resulting in the destruction of one or the other.

While it's possible to get a peaceful outcome where nothing is destroyed, that still requires replacing Tektus with a synth and keeping DiMA's crimes a secret. For an even darker ending, it's possible to destroy everywhere in Far Harbor - the town, the Nucleus, and Arcadia.

Fallout 3

A Straightforward Tragic Ending

Fallout 3’s idea of a dark ending isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Its ending was divisive when the game came out, and it’s still unpopular with many players, so much that one of the game’s expansions rectifies the ending and adds a new epilogue. But this ending, although it carries a much stronger sense of finality, isn’t very dark at all.

Most of Fallout 3is spent looking for the protagonist’s father, who is eventually revealed to be working on a pre-war water purifier. Wide access to water untouched by radiation would completely change the future of this world, making farmland and drinkable water a common good. War ensues between different factions, as controlling this machine will lead to great power over the entire region. Regardless of how the rest of the story goes, the player is forced to sacrifice themselves to activate the purifier.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Shivering Isles

A Classic & Dark Expansion Pack

The story of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and its ending aren't particularly dark; they are a bit grotesque at points, definitely tragic, but ultimately lead to a heroic victory of good over evil. The same isn’t true for the Shivering Isles expansion pack, however. For a long time, this expansion was known for being really weird and almost experimental, but a different aspect has since taken priority.

The Shivering Isles is a location in the realm of Oblivion, the realm of the Daedric gods. They were once the domain of Jyggalag, Daedric Prince of Order, later transformed into the mad Sheogorath by a curse. In order to free Jyggalag and stabilize the islands, removing the orderly presence of the old Prince, the player must take the mantle of Sheogorath themselves. And so, the player character of Oblivion becomes the new Sheogorath, gaining power and some form of immortality but leaving their mortal, sane life behind.

Starfield's Main Ending

A Metanarrative Filled With Dark Implications

Not everyone will interpret Starfield’s ending as dark, but that’s fine. Just like any other Bethesda game, Starfieldhas a vast and fragmented story that is sure to leave a different impression based on what each playthrough looks like and on the players’ dispositions. That said, it’s not hard to read this ending as the triumph of nihilism. The structure of the world justifies contempt towards the lives of others, just like how a bored gamer can show contempt towards the NPCs of a video game.

The ending of Starfieldsees the player character finding the Unity, a portal to another dimension that just so happens to begin at the start of the game’s story. Starfieldis not the first game to find a narrative justification for its New Game Plus mode. Regardless, many players took this event as a justification to stop treating Starfieldas a real, breathing world. After all, why care about those people? Why spare them the usual meaningless video game violence if they are still alive in the next universe?