Assassin's creed just went too ridiculous for the setting. It just came of as if it was ripped from a b movie. They just needed to tone things down which is why AC:B had the best ending. It was really about space gods and sun but about the characters there that shocked us all. I personally do not mind cliff hanger after cliff hanger as long as they answer things in the mean time (AC series just didn't do that)

Ok, go back a few years to the SNES/Genesis era.

There was very little in the way of story in most games, you maybe had a flashy intro loosely showing what the f*ck was going on.

So you go about completeing the game, there are no lengthy cut-scenes anywhere or plot updates throughout the game. It then ended with the good guys celebrating/aliens blowing up/crime lords flying out of the window. < That was ALL the closure you needed.

There was no real story so the ending wasn't really anticipated.

Flip to current generation, MGS4 would be a good example. Its all about the story, we MUST know what happens to Snake. Kojima spends hours in game telling a story, tieing up loose ends but more importantly it gives closure with a sh!tload of dialogue after the final punch has been thrown.

You cut back to MGS4, and cut the story at the point where Snake and Liquid fight and just roll the credits back to the title screen. I'm sorry but no ones imagination other than Kojima is ever going to give you closure in cases like that.

Some games don't need an ending I agree, but they shouldn't build up a story spanning over weeks of gameplay only to have some scrolling text, its just a weak assed end to what was previously an engaging storyline.

@caseh,
Very well stated, but there are some difference here.
First, Metal gear solid IS a story. I've always felt like the story came first, and then the gameplay. So yes, you must know what happens but if you think back, you really don't. At the end of Metal Gear you find out Snake will live, but that's the end of it. You don't know where he goes or what he does.
Same for AC. You know he rescues the woman at the expense of the world, but you don't really know what happens after. In both cases the character overcomes the major obstacles, but you're still left to imagine the outcomes.
In either case, these are extreme cases.
In the original Gears of War, you really had very little idea of what was really happening, and the story was VERY loose, and you really had no idea what the character does at the end, but that was ok because it was a game first, and then a story.

@dirthurts
The only "statement" the PoP cliffhanger left is BUY OUR DLC FOR TEH TRUE ENDING. What good is your imagination then??? Nothing. Because Ubi' went and dragged it out for $10 more that left the game in a worse spot than where it was. Then ditched the continuity anyways.

Decompression is a form of storytelling often frowned upon by comic book readers who hate buying issues where nothing happens or things get needlessly stretched out. The fact that they saved Ezio's death for a $5-10 PSN/XBL animated skit is a slap in the face to everyone who paid $60 a year for 3 years, only to find out if they wanted the true ending they shoulda bought the cartoon and not the game, or spent more $$$ on a Collectors Edition.

What's there to grasp or imagine there? If you're like me and chose to save Lambert's life in Ubi's Splinter Cell Double Agent ending, Splinter Cell Conviction still says you shot him (!) and thus finished the game with an out of continuity ending. No foresight. Much how Sam Fisher has been getting younger and more agile in subsequent games to the point they ditched Michael Ironside as VA. The only thing these developers are overestimating their own ability to tell a story with continuity.