Usually, seeing the credits roll on a video game means it's time to put the controller down and move on to the next adventure. But for some titles, reaching the "end" is actually just the gateway to the real experience. In a thread on r/gaming, redditors discuss the games that hide their best content, hardest challenges, and true stories behind a false finale.
1. Nier: Automata
This action RPG is famous for its multiple "endings," which often confuse new players. Fans emphasize that reaching the first credit roll only reveals a fraction of the story, and continuing is essential to understand the full narrative scope.
Comment in r/gamingBoth modern Nier games. Replicant is so good. These are the only two games I've ever replayed simply b/c the story wasn't fully over and they're so good that I wanted all of it.
Comment in r/gamingNier Automata.
Beating it once feels like the prologue. The real game only starts after that.
Comment in r/gamingI just wish we’d stop using the words “replay” and “beaten” and “endings” when it comes to describing this game. The endings aren’t endings. The game literally isn’t over. You aren’t even really replaying things. You’re seeing the same event from a different persons perspective. That’s not replaying.
Nier automata is my favorite game ever, and I see so many people put the game down because they’re convinced the game is over after “ending” A, and because we use the terms relay and ending so much, they don’t continue, thinking they’ve seen all the content.
2. Path of Exile
In the action RPG genre, the main story campaign is often viewed merely as a long training montage. Veterans of this gritty dungeon crawler insist the real game involves the complex crafting and mapping systems that unlock only after the narrative concludes.
Comment in r/gamingPath of Exile. The 10-act campaign is basically a tutorial to help you survive the Atlas.
Comment in r/gamingWhat do you mean? IGN said it could be finished in 75 hours.
Seriously, though, you're so on the money. The campaign being the tutorial has never been more true for a game. The fact that it filters so many players is a feature, not a bug.
Comment in r/gamingIndeed. Over a dozen years and I'm still pulled to the beach every 4 months.
3. The Hitman Series
While you can technically race through the levels once to see the story, these games are designed as puzzle sandboxes. Players argue that the true joy comes from mastering the levels and discovering the hundreds of absurd ways to eliminate targets.
Comment in r/gamingThe Hitman series.
Each game has relatively few levels, so the story is pretty short. However, the real meat of the game is in replaying all the levels to figure out the insane amount of ways to finish them all.
Comment in r/gamingThis is maybe one of the few series where they went all-in on replayability.
You can play through it just once and think, ok cool. But with new unlocks and progression and game knowledge comes new options to take out a target and a great reason to try it again but different.
Comment in r/gamingNot to tell you how to play, but I'd say it's worth it to run through each level you haven't already just once before continuing how you're doing it. Only because you'll unlock a few items that'll give you a ton more options for what you're doing. After how much you've played already, the items you haven't used yet will go crazy with the tech you've learned.
4. Inscryption
This card-battling horror game is notorious for pulling the rug out from under players. Just when you think you have mastered the mechanics and beaten the final boss, the game opens up into something entirely different and pulls you into a sprawling ARG (alternate reality game).
Comment in r/gamingInscryption was cool. You start on someone else's save technically, you don't start your own save until you beat him.
Comment in r/gamingThat game took me for a spin. I thought it would just be kinda like slay the spire but it was so much more lmao. Such a good game
Comment in r/gamingIt's a phenomenal game, it's so well made and so much fun, but I don't think enough people know how insane the ARG inside the game was.
It's on youtube and Game Theory does a great cover of it over 3 parts and the level of effort that went into making the ARG absolutely blows my mind. I honestly think half of the dev time was spent on the game, the other half on the ARG. I'm not kidding. Daniel Mullins is a crazy talented person.
5. The Pokémon franchise
For an entire generation of gamers, nothing beat the realization that finishing the main league wasn't the end. These classics famously allowed players to travel back to the entire region from the previous games to challenge old gyms again.
Comment in r/gamingThat blew my mind as a kid. Finally beat the Pokemon League only to discover that I can now go back to Kanto and face the Red/Blue/Yellow gyms again!
Comment in r/gamingEvery pokemon game really. The fact a lot of people just do the gyms, elite 4 and champions in the games then drop it blows my mind. Like you didn’t want to try to finish the dex, or do any of the battle facilities, or catch the postgame legendary pokemon, or shiny hunt, or do the postgame bonus story, or WiFi battles, or explore the remaining parts of the map in each game that you didn’t see? You just wanted to play what is otherwise a barely 10 hour rpg, specifically the part where you’re just mashing the same three attacks 90% of the time.
Comment in r/gamingPokemon Conquest!
The initial map/game is like... 5% of the content, but you dont know that until you think you've beaten it.
6. Dragon Quest IX & XI
JRPGs are known for being long, but this title features a full credit roll that feels like a satisfying conclusion. However, players who stop there miss the entire third act, which contextualizes the plot and offers the true ending.
Comment in r/gamingDragon Quest 11. I didn't realize most people considered that first roll of the credits the end! It wasn't written like an "end" at all! Actually, even after completing all of the after-the-end stuff, it feels like the game just doesn't end. There's always a new bigger, eviler bad guy showing up, with like this weird caveat that's like "this boss is optional and really difficult and probably not fun to fight for most players, but it is hellbent on destroying the world if you leave the game now!"
Comment in r/gamingDragon quest 9 had me hooked. Beating the game and then realizing that you had like 200 new quests was mind blowing.
Comment in r/gamingDoes Dragon Quest XI count? I thought I beat it twice before realizing there was yet another 30 hours to go lol
7. Super Mario Odyssey
Beating Bowser is usually the goal in Mario games, but here it is just the key to unlocking the rest of the world. With hundreds of moons to collect, the main campaign represents only a small fraction of the total content.
Comment in r/gamingMario Odyssey is a sleeper pick for this. Campaign is like 6-8 hours and only like 1/7 of the moons are required to beat it
Comment in r/gamingBefore playing Odyssey I hadn't beat a 3D Mario since 64 (I had started but never beat Sunshine, and I hadn't played Galaxy 1/2 or 3D World/Land by that time) so it blew my mind how much game there still was after the credits.
Comment in r/gamingMario Odyssey
It’s like 10 hours to roll credits and then I played for about 70 more hours unlocking things and getting all the moons.
8. Blue Prince
In this intricate puzzle game, reaching a specific milestone feels like a victory, but fans warn that quitting early means missing out on the actual complexity the game has to offer.
Comment in r/gamingI had multiple friends tell me "I reached room 46! I beat the game and uninstalled it"
and I told them "that's like quitting Hades when you escape"
Comment in r/gamingCame here to say this one. Calling pre-room 46 "the tutorial" seems like it downplays how much work just doing that is, but content and difficulty wise that's absolutely just the tutorial 😅
Comment in r/gamingFor Blue Prince, the story doesn't really start until after you get to room 46, but then it's largely straightforward and not all that complicated.
Instead, until you get to room 46, you're given lots of things that you look at, and just know you're supposed to do something more with. That's really the story for the first act of the game. Why is that door blocked off, what does that room description mean, where does this key go sort of things.
9. World of Warcraft
The quintessential example of the "endgame is the real game" philosophy. For MMO players, leveling is simply the commute you have to endure before you can start raiding and collecting high-level gear.
Comment in r/gamingThis was my first thought, but for different reasons. Your first playthrough you are racing to max level, then when you get there the entire rest of the game opens up.
Comment in r/gamingYep. The real fun doesn't start until you get all the way to max level and start raiding with friends.
Also, starting the game again with a completely different race and build and starting zone.
When it was all said and done and I finally quit WoW, I had a max level toon of every single race and class.
And then of course they come out with a new expansion and you have to level all your toons through the new content again.
There was also a period where I didn't play the game at all except for the auction house for almost an entire year. I wanted to master automation of the economy and hit gold cap. Had a lot of fun with that.
Plus, there is the whole pet battles mini-game. Collecting pets from all over and leveling them up.
Or the idea of starting your own guild. I did that for a while and ran the largest guild on the server.
The game is designed to keep you hooked indefinitely.
Whether it's a massive RPG that hides its true ending behind a hundred hours of gameplay or a clever puzzler that tricks you into thinking you've won, these games prove that sometimes the credits are just an intermission. Which game surprised you the most with its post-game content?
Want more video game recommendations? Read the full suggestions in r/gaming, and find more conversations like this in r/patientgamers, r/truegaming, and r/Games.
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