Summary
Indie horror games are some of the more unique in the horror genre. These games manage to mess with the players' minds without always relying on cheap jumpscares, and they are more likely to explore the human psyche and make players think. And no better type of game does this than the ones with multiple endings.
Games with multiple endings have high replay value, making players wonder about the choices they made throughout the game. Completionists are fully ready to experience these games' terrors over and over again just to get every possible ending, because one seemingly innocuous choice may be enough to set these games off the rails.
10Warm Snow
Steam Rating: 9/10 (30,275 Reviews)
Warm Snowis a roguelike slasherset in the Chinese Longwu era. The player controls a mysterious warrior named Bi-An tasked with solving the mystery of the ‘warm snow’ that turns people into monsters and fighting them along the way.
The game has two endings, a normal one and a ‘true’ one. The true ending has four requirements - collect all lore items, destroy any and every destructible, defeat the final boss, and select ‘The Blood’ option. Be warned though,Warm Snowis incredibly difficult so getting both endings might be a bit of a chore.
The Letteris a horror visual novel originally developed for mobile. Inspired by Asian horror films likeThe Ring, the game tells the story of Isabella Santos, a real estate agent tasked with selling a haunted mansion. When guiding potential buyers around the infamous Ermangarde Mansion, she finds a letter with the words ‘Help Me’ written over and over again in blood.
Little does she know, this sparks a series of events that could result in her death. As expected for a visual novel, the endings are influenced by players' choices, with 3-4 endings for each ofThe Letter’s seven chapters.
8Duck Season
Steam Rating: 9/10 (1,293 Reviews)
Duck Seasonis a VR survival horror game that takes players back to the 80s. The game follows a boy named David, and his mom has just bought a new game thatsuspiciously resemblesDuck Huntfor him. As he plays the game, however, strange things begin happening with the game.
Duck Seasonhas seven endings, depending on what the player chooses to do after shooting (or not shooting) the dog in the game, and a special ending the player can get after they unlock all the other endings.
Oxenfreeisa mystery adventure gamefollowing the protagonist Alex, her stepbrother Jonas, and her friend Ren on a trip to Edwards Island for a weekend party. The three explore some caves nearby, where Alex accidentally opens up a ghostly rift after fiddling with her radio. This leads Alex on a journey to uncover the mysteries of the island.
Throughout the game, the player (as Alex) makes dialogue options that will impact the ending ofOxenfree. Every ending is concerned with the relationships of the characters, with the best possible one being the ending where everyone likes Alex.
6White Day: A Labyrinth Named School
Steam Rating: 9/10 (2,339 Reviews)
White Day: A Labyrinth Named Schoolis a Korean survival horror game that takes place, as expected, in a high school. Hee-Min Lee sneaks into his school to surprise his sweetheart on the eve of White Day. He finds himself trapped in the building, however, and he, along with some other students, must find a way to escape,all while trying to avoid crazy janitors.
The game has nine endings, with the player’s actions determining if they get a good ending, a neutral ending, or a bad ending.
Steam Rating: 10/10 (2,557 Reviews)
Roadwarden
YOU ARE THE ROADWARDEN: A brave stranger putting your life on the line to make a difference in this grim fantasy world. While most people would never risk a solitary journey through the wilder parts of the land, you willingly accept the struggle. You guard travellers, connect isolated villages, support merchants, and repel attacking creatures, bandits, or even undead.TAKE THE PLUNGE: A powerful merchant guild has called on your services, sending you on a journey into the unknown planes of a mysterious peninsula in the hopes to expand the guild’s influence even further. Explore this world and gather as much information as possible to reveal the secrets surrounding the area. It’s a dangerous task, but an equally respectable one.READY YOUR ARMORY: Roadwarden is an illustrated text-based RPG that uses isometric pixel art and combines mechanics borrowed from RPGs, Visual Novels, adventure games, and interactive fiction, such as inventory puzzles, dialogue choices, character abilities and progression, hit points, simple survival mechanics or quests restricted by in-game time.
Roadwardenis atext-based dark fantasy RPGwhere the player assumes the role of the titular Roadwarden, a person who is tasked to explore a secluded peninsula and protect the inhabitants from creatures and bandits. Like most RPGs, players can explore the world and collect quests along the way.
The actions and dialogue the player chooses influence the outcome of the game and how other characters view them. The Anniversary Update ofRoadwardenadded a new ending in addition to the main one.
4Milk Outside a Bag of Milk Outside a Bag of Milk
Steam Rating: 10/10 (12,206 Reviews)
Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milkisa horror visual novelthat serves as a sequel toMilk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk. Unlike the first game, the sequel has branching paths with five endings depending on the players' text choices.
The story continues from where the last game left off, with the protagonist buying a bag of milk, returning home, and trying to fall asleep.Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milkis a blissfully short visual novel, so players can get every ending in one sitting.
3The Room Three
Steam Rating: 10/10 (10,054 Reviews)
The Room Threeis the third entry inThe Roomseries, being asimilar ‘escape the room’ type puzzle game. The third game is unique, however, because it has four different endings depending on the items the players acquire throughout the game.
The game picks up whereThe Room Twoleft off, with the player character still trying to solve the mysteries of the Null, traveling to an island manor named Grey Holm to investigate. There, the mysterious owner of the manor (called ‘The Craftsman’ sets up some puzzles for them to solve.
Detentionis a point-and-click horror set during the White Terror period in Taiwan and is filled with references to Eastern religions. The player initially guides a high school student named Wei Chung-ting but the focus soon shifts to another student named Fang Ray-Xin as she tries to escape the school by solving puzzles and avoiding strange creatures.
The game has two endings, a ‘good’ one and a ‘bad’ one, and the player can get either based on the last few choices they make for Fang Ray-xin towards the climax.
1Inside
Steam Rating: 10/10 (49,605 Reviews)
Created by the same studio behindLimbo,Insideis also a puzzle platformer following a boy exploring a surreal and mysterious world and has similar mechanics of using the objects and the environment in general to progress.
Insidehas two endings, a regular one and a secret one. The regular one involves the protagonist being absorbed into a fleshy blob of human bodies, and the alternate one can only be unlocked by fulfilling a specific requirement - activating 14 light orbs. Neither ending can be considered ‘happy’ and they’ve led to a lot of theorizing and speculation among gamers.
