Where's the best or worst place you've left your game character?
This week's Big Question, answered by our writers
Think of all the game characters you've spent all hours with. Where did you leave them when you put down the pad, and walked away from the game for the last time? Do you like to make sure they're safe, and happy, with the ending they deserve? Or are they trapped in craters, waiting to be finished off by the next wandering zombie because you couldn't bring yourself to go back in? We asked the team, and beware, their answers contain one or two ending spoilers.
This is the latest in a series of big questions we'll be interrogating our writers with, so share your answers and suggestions for topics with us on Twitter.
Geralt sun lounging in his Toussaint vineyard in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
For its 2016 Blood and Wine expansion, CD Projekt Red gave its titular Witcher a harmonious send-off, with a fable-like high fantasy escapade that leaves Geralt surrounded by family and friends at Corvo Bianco, the world-famous vineyard he's managed to earn as payment for a royally sanctioned contract. It's the perfect place to leave this aged monster hunter, having now thoroughly earned his retirement from a life of endless conflict. It's such an obvious place to end The Witcher 3, that I reckon there are thousands of Geralt's lording it up in Corvo Bianco across myriad endgame saves, all soaking up the Toussaint rays in their slightly different vineyards with a slightly different selection of characters by their side. What a way to spend eternity locked in a hard drive. Alex Avard
Rick O'Connell is 100% still trapped in a tomb full of the undead in The Mummy Returns
The Mummy Returns on PS2 was irrevocably broken. I mean "broken" in the sense that it was incredibly confusing and utterly unfun. It was a long time ago (2011, to be exact), but I distinctly remember enemy encounters being so similar and set in nearly identical dimly-lit hallways that I was perpetually uncertain if I was going in the right direction. I frequently got lost and irritated, and considering I was 11-years-old when the game released, I most certainly didn't have the patience to try and sort the damn thing out (I don't even think I have that kinda patience now, and I'm three times older). Poor Rick is still stuck about midway into one of the earliest levels of The Mummy Returns, getting ripped apart by mummies ad infinitum. Sorry, O'Connell. Alyssa Mercante
Another one for Geralt in Toussaint – but mostly because it made up for the worst ending ever
No, you’re not getting déjà vu. I also want to shine a light on my Geralt working his way through enough wine to fell a leshen in the sun-soaked vistas of Touissant. My reasoning is a little different to Alex’s, however. In my case, Blood and Wine offered me a much-needed reprieve to a moment that I can say without hesitation was the most deflating I’ve ever encountered in a video game.
For a little context, I’ll have to rewind a little to Wild Hunt’s base game. There, I reached the “Bad Ending” after – I kid you not – failing to have a snowball fight with Ciri. Go figure. The ending in question, where Geralt seemingly dies off-camera, made me feel like I had wasted 100 hours. Thank the gods for the DLC do-over, one where Yennefer was by Geralt’s side and I could finally put my feet up after a job well done. Bradley Russell
John Marston is back in the ghost town of Armadillo, forever trying to avoid cholera
There's a moment late - oh so very late - on in Red Dead Redemption 2, where John is dragged out to a small town in the middle of nowhere… which only turns out to be Armadillo, one of the very first places you explore in the original Red Dead. The goosebumps I got from seeing it on the horizon was one of my favorite moments in Red Dead 2, so when the credits finally rolled, I could resist wandering back to see what was going on in the dusty ol' settlement and the truth is... not a great deal.
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At this point, I've spent over a hundred hours in the game. For all of Red Dead 2's greatness, it's methodical pacing meant returning to Armadillo - in the grip of a Cholera outbreak to explain why the town wasn't as bustling as it once was - felt like the game and I had come to a natural conclusion. Of course, I feel a tad guilty about leaving John in a place where he might pick a horrid disease, but then, I feel safe in the knowledge that he would get through it somehow. Ben Tyrer
Sleeping Dogs’ main man is still waiting for his pork bun
Poor Wei Shen. Sleeping Dogs was so criminally underrated – a Hong Kong hybrid of GTA, Yakuza, True Crime, and Driver – that I finished it twice. First, as quickly as possible, for the Official PlayStation Magazine review; secondly, in slightly more casual fashion, for fun. My plan was to Platinum it and then play all the DLC, and sure enough, after hearing the satisfying ‘pling’ that confirmed the first achievement, I left Shen opposite one of the game’s omnipresent food stands in readiness for an add-on-content frenzy. The next weekend, we found out my wife was pregnant. Real-life preparation for a new baby took over, the DLC went untouched, and for the last eight years, Shen has presumably remained stock still on that street corner, waiting for my return, with the game’s most-overused phrase reverberating around his skull. “A man who never eats pork bun is never a whole man…” Ben Wilson
Some say Kassandra is still hanging from that ledge
I was really, really into Assassin's Creed: Odyssey for about 15 or 20 hours, but by hour 30 the repetitive combat, horrible bosses, and level-gated story missions had worn me down. I was infiltrating an enemy camp and ended up dying, as you do when you get tired of stealth and impatiently start kicking people over. On my way back in after respawning, I realized I didn't want to redo any of that stealthing and stabbing because it was tedious the first time. It was at this moment, idly hanging from the wall of an enemy fortress with eyes on the throat of the guard about to walk by, that I realized I wasn't having fun anymore. So I quit and uninstalled the game, leaving Kassandra glued to the side of a castle in plain sight. Perhaps we'll someday hear a new Greek myth about a woman with forearms of steel who spent millennia holding a pull-up. Austin Wood
On Link's private island in The Wind Waker
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was the first Zelda game I ever played fully on my terms: not loading up my brother's save to mess around in A Link to the Past, not getting stuck on The Forest Temple and giving up in Ocarina of Time. I loved it. The characters, the music, and most of all the sprawling ocean that always felt impossibly huge and full of secrets. I got so caught up in the world that I wasn't ready to end my time there. When it seemed clear the story was approaching the final showdown against Ganon deep below the waves, I took Link to his private island and left him there. It ended up being a roughly half-decade vacation before I started a new save and saw Link's journey all the way through to the credits. To be fair, I think he earned the break. Connor Sheridan
On the wrong side of an encounter with the Rat King from The Last of Us 2
I've never seen something as abominable as the Rat King from The Last of Us 2. But I feel like even more of a monster for what I did to Abbie. See, it was Friday night, I'd had a few drinks, I knew the Rat King was coming but I'd been putting off the fight because I'm a fragile person. But now that liquid courage was running through my veins, I decided to spontaneously pick up my controller and race toward the horror, hoping my newfound confidence would power me through the experience.
But alas, nerves shattered and slightly discoordinated, I was quickly dispatched. But instead of watching the horrid death animation play out, I noped out of there before the blood stopped spurting from poor Abby's neck, leaving her suspended in that nightmare. I eventually returned and prevailed, but I still lay awake at night thinking about Abby stuck in the clutches of The Rat King's twisted limbs for hours on end. I am so, so sorry Abby. I did not deserve to play as you. Jordan Gerblick
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Rachel Weber is the former US Managing Editor of 12DOVE and lives in Brooklyn, New York. She joined 12DOVE in 2017, revitalizing the news coverage and building new processes and strategies for the US team.