DEATHLOOP and Endings

DEATHLOOP tells a story that raises a lot of questions. Some are about the world itself, like how the loop functions and what will happen if it stops; others are about the characters, like what the loop means to them and how their lives will change if it breaks. Although these questions vary in their importance, their answers all have some degree of meaning for the story. Every story has questions like these; it’s the job of the writers to choose which ones to answer. “Only in melodrama, of course, will all these questions be answered fully,” writes James Frey, “but even in a good drama, some of them should be answered fully and the rest should be answered at least in part. A good climax leaves the reader feeling that the story is finished.“⁵ In other words, writers don’t have to answer every question their story raises, but they do have to answer enough to satisfy the audience’s curiosity. 

Although DEATHLOOP’s two endings are diametrically opposed—breaking the loop versus preserving the loop—neither answers essential questions about the characters and their world. If Colt chooses to break the loop, honoring his original goal, he wakes up beneath an unfamiliar sky to find his daughter, Julianna, pointing a gun at his face. It’s a tense moment, but it’s also a quick one: within seconds, she chooses not to shoot him and walks away, leaving Colt alone in the sand. After that, the credits roll, and the story comes to a half-hearted conclusion. There’s no consideration for what Colt will do next, nor Julianna, nor any other island residents. There’s also no explanation for what breaking the loop means for the world at large. Since Colt doesn’t ask himself any of these questions along the way, the onus is on the ending to cover all of them. Sadly, the only question the ending covers is the one with the most obvious answer: how will Julianna feel when Colt breaks the loop? Bad, as it turns out: bad, sad, and mad. All legitimate feelings, but none of them transformative. They don’t represent any change for Julianna, Colt, or anyone else in the story. They also don’t say what the point of the journey was or how its conclusion will impact the world. There’s no sense of completeness or understanding. In the end, the only thing that’s transformed is the sky; everything else is still a question mark, just like it was at the start. 

DEATHLOOP’s second ending has slightly more to say than its first, but it has its own problems that the first doesn’t. In the second ending, Colt chooses to preserve the loop and wakes up to repeat the day as Julianna’s ally. They exchange in some brief banter, testing the limits of their new father-daughter relationship, and then the credits roll, and the story ends again. This ending is slightly more satisfying than the first, as it shows how Colt’s relationship with his daughter has transformed because of his choices, but it raises further questions about what the future holds. Since it’s still possible for Colt to break the loop later down the line, his one-time concession to preserve it isn’t so much a choice as it is a punt. He’s still not asking questions about the nature of the loop itself, or the other people who have chosen to live in it, so there’s no reason to believe he’s committed to preserving the status quo for long. Luckily, thanks to the loop, he’s got time on his side. He can change his mind at any point, and he already knows what it takes to break the cycle. This limits the effectiveness of Colt’s character growth, as the audience has no way of knowing where it will take him. His future is precisely as uncertain as it was at the start, which means his story is still incomplete. 

Ultimately, both endings have their strengths, but neither leaves the player with the sense that they’ve completed a meaningful story. There are too many questions left unanswered, both for the characters and their world, and the narrative feels incomplete. Even as a hook for potential downloadable content, these endings are unsatisfying, because they don’t give the player anything to anticipate. Either they’re going into a world they know nothing about, or they’re getting more of the same. There’s no good outcome, because there was no ‘good’ ending: only incomplete ones.