How can you design a story arc with multiple endings?

Multiple endings in a game should offer varied emotional impacts, guiding players through a spectrum of experiences. However, I believe in having one 'TRUE' ending, as chosen by the developers, with others serving as alternative possibilities. This approach allows for continuity in story development, leaving room for sequels or expansions. Also, not all endings need to be happy or ideal; sometimes, a 'bad' ending can be more intriguing, sparking curiosity to explore different paths. These divergent outcomes encourage replayability and deeper engagement. By offering a range of emotional experiences and one definitive conclusion, you can craft a more memorable and impactful narrative, while also maintaining control over the story’s direction.

When deciding to write stories with multiple endings, you should also consider whether that means having branches of narration or not. Chrono Trigger and Shadow of the Colossus have various endings, but the story is linear. The relation between branched narrative and multiple endings also ties to the amount of narration required and time to write it. You could discover that you don't have enough budget to support branching, and you better learn this sooner rather than later.

I propose an alternative, based on the principles of interactive fiction: Write the core story that leads to the “canon” ending. Or one of the possible ones. Write all the baseline narrative elements and define the setup of your story. Worldbuilding, so to speak. Then, from pivotal decisions, start branching. This iterative approach lets you plan the stories better and to keep track of the union points between arcs (if that’s your intention as well). It’s not only about content but about structure. Yes, creating tension, making them interesting, meaningful, complete, all of these things are easier to achieve if you can measure the impact of their inclusion and removal. Because, yes, changes in scope can be disastrous for the story.

To make a game story with different endings, think about "Silent Hill 2". This game is really good at telling a sad story in many ways. No matter which ending you get, the game always makes you feel the sadness of the story and what happens to the characters. This shows you can make a game where each ending changes the story, but still keeps the same feeling or message for the players.

Understand that the progress a reader/user/player makes is an emotional and intellectual journey. Within all your plotting and testing, as mentioned above, be clear about emotional and intellectual direction of travel. Usually, a standard story spends the first quarter in ‘order’, then the next half in ‘chaos’, and the last quarter in ‘order’. That’s the overall intellectual direction of the story (always about change) but goals and drivers and events inject ‘divergence’ and ‘convergence’, guiding the emotional progress of the reader etc. Be conscious of and deliberate about which emotional direction you are taking your reader etc in, and how clearly or subtly you flip flop, as you move them along their intellectual change journey.

Don’t forget you have to commit to these stories and produce a huge amount of assets and systems to make them happen. It’s usually overlooked, but this is not like writing a book. Each subplot, line, character, everything you include has an associated production cost. Art and Engineering both.