Ambiguous "clear game" state

[Warr1024]

After freeing the ghost and seeing it fly away, I am deposited back into the citadel with no apparent goal.

I assume that this state exists so that I can finish collecting the 7 bonus artifacts if I missed any during the main story. However, there doesn't seem to be anything that would prevent me from having collected them before finishing the main story, so this isn't strictly necessary, and it means there's no clear end state for the game overall.

It might be good to at least have a "credits" screen, like in Klots or Piranesi Restoration Project, making it clear that the game is over. The most obvious time to do this is after the ghost rises, and then the fade to white and back; instead of returning to the ruin, the player would go to the credit screen, and if they want to gather treasure, they would just have to try to do it before completing the main quest in a new game.

Alternatively you could return them to the ruin and let them gather the treasure, and then show them the credits once they have everything, but then that sort of forces players to find all the "bonus" stuff before they can see the credits at all. It might be better to have the credits screen accessible without all the treasure, but show their treasure collecting status on that screen, to let them know if they should try again to get 100% completion.

[Warr1024]

Another idea worth considering is possibly putting a "bad ending" into the game. Instead of destroying the crystal, the player could try to harness its power for themselves (touch it, or stand in or next to it for long enough) and become immortal. This would cause them to become a ghost (for extra drama, place the player's discarded body next to the crystal, to decay a minute or two later). They would lose access to all of their items, and the ability to pick up items, and would only be able to move around the terrain. If they encounter the ghost, they would unlock some new dialog loop ("so you have decided to join me" ... "I would offer you companionship through the ages, but I think you will soon find we have nothing new to talk about" or something). Then players would just basically experience eternity (until they get the point and quit and start over and try again).

[Irevol]

Both of those are good ideas. In order for the bad ending, the ghosts dialogue would probably have to be altered a little to communicate how the player would use the crystal to become immortal. A transparent blue overlay hud could be used to indicate that the player is now a ghost.

[Wuzzy2]

I think it's OK when the 7 artifacts remain completely optional and shouldn't trigger a bad ending if you don't have them all. But this is highly subjective ofc. I still think something should happen once you got all of them and it doesn't neccessarily have to affec the ending.

But I agree with the main premise here that the ending is a little confusing. Like, why do you randomly return to the citadel and why is the ghost still there? It doesn't really make sense.

Showing the artifact count in the "credits" screen is a nice idea, too.