The Endgame Essays
On how games finish
Essays written after the credits, about the last hours of a game rather than the first.
The Endgame Essays
On how games finish
Essays written after the credits, about the last hours of a game rather than the first.
Reading this journal proceeds on the terms set out below. They describe what the essays here claim, how they may be quoted, the position on spoilers, and where responsibility ends.
Each essay records one reader's argued judgement, formed under the conditions described on the practice page. Where I write that a final hour was assembled late or that an ending was calibrated for a tester who warped in, that is an inference from the finished work and from what is publicly known about how such work is made. It is not an account of anything I have been told and should not be read as one.
Counts and figures describe my notes. Three of seven games means three of the seven I played and recorded, and nothing broader.
Every essay here describes how a game ends, in full, because that is the subject. This is stated on the about page, on the practice page and here. Readers who prefer to reach an ending unprepared should read these essays afterwards, which is when they were written and how they are intended to be read.
Nothing here is guidance about what to buy, play or avoid. An essay concluding that a game's ending fails is not a recommendation against the game, and an essay admiring an ending is not a recommendation for it. This journal describes how endings work; deciding what to spend an evening on remains entirely yours.
Short quotations in articles, videos, essays and discussion are welcome, provided The Endgame Essays is credited and the quotation is not trimmed so as to invert its meaning. Reproducing a complete essay, translating one without permission, or using this writing to train commercial machine learning systems is not permitted.
Passages must not be used in advertising, on storefront pages or in promotional material of any kind. A sentence lifted from an argument about production scheduling and placed beside a purchase button misrepresents both the sentence and the work it came from.
Every photograph, illustration and the emblem were made for this journal and remain mine. None is a screenshot and none depicts any actual game; they are illustrations accompanying prose. Names of games, studios and publishers belong to their owners and appear here for identification and critical commentary only, with no affiliation, endorsement or approval implied in either direction.
This journal sells nothing. There is no shop, subscription, membership, donation facility or advertising inventory, so no order, payment, refund or delivery can arise between us. Any approach claiming to trade under this name has no connection with the publication.
The site is offered as it stands. I give no undertaking that it will remain reachable, that older essays will stay published, or that internal links will survive reorganisation. Essays may be corrected, annotated, supplemented by later notes, or withdrawn at my discretion.
To the fullest extent the applicable law permits, I accept no liability for loss or damage arising from reliance on anything published here, including any game purchased, avoided or abandoned on the strength of an argument. An essay informs a reader; it does not decide anything on their behalf.
Essays sometimes reference work published by others. Those destinations are outside my control, I make no representation about their accuracy or continued existence, and their own terms govern your visit from the moment you leave this domain.
This page is revised as the journal's practice develops. Whatever text appears when you load it is the text that applies, and continuing to read after a revision means proceeding under the current version rather than any earlier one.
Statutory consumer protections are unaffected by anything above. Where the law where you live grants rights that cannot be limited by agreement, those rights apply in full, and every provision here operates only within the space that law leaves.