If you stumble upon a volcano or a cliffside during your playthrough, you can bet your bottom dollar you’re near the credits. Cliffs are clearly designed to be fallen from, and volcanic craters? They’re practically built to ensure that nothing survives. If a boss fight is looming and you find yourself in such a spot, it’s a massive hint to toss the antagonist over the edge. The hero gazes into the abyss, a flashback ensues, and the ending hits—it’s the absolute gold standard of game conclusions.

Of course, there are exceptions. Some games love to twist this trope, turning the act of falling into a crater into a bizarre survival strategy. In martial arts games, falling often leads to a 'lucky encounter,' and in the 'Tekken' series, dropping someone into a volcano is practically a guarantee of survival. Regardless, by the time you revisit these spots, you’ve usually reached the revenge-fueled finale. One way or another, it always ends at the cliff.

Suddenly finding yourself in space is a dead giveaway that the end is nigh. You might say, 'But plenty of games take place in space!'—but we’re talking about games that stay grounded on terra firma until, out of nowhere, the narrative launches into orbit. From 'The War of Genesis' series to 'Cyberpunk 2077,' when space enters the fray, the game is wrapping up. Once you’ve escalated the stakes to an intergalactic level, going back to brawling on the ground just feels like a letdown, doesn't it?

However, when a game suddenly shifts to space, a grim ending usually follows. The protagonist might become a shooting star after a mutual destruction with the enemy, get stranded forever, or crash land back to earth with fatal injuries. It’s only human nature to think, 'Oh no, what’s going to happen to our hero!' when the stars start appearing.

In classic Japanese samurai films, the decisive duel almost always happens in a field. A field of reeds, a full moon, and two swordsmen standing face to face. After a tense exchange of moves, the two figures cross paths in a blur. Silence follows. Then, one slowly collapses. It’s the quintessential showdown cliché.

Because of this iconic imagery, final duels against 'lone wolf' bosses frequently take place in similar settings. While not every game checks all three boxes—reeds, moon, and night—they adapt the vibe to fit their concept. 'Dark Souls' leaned into the desolation, while 'Ghost of Tsushima' swapped reeds for red autumn leaves. Surprisingly, 'Bloodborne' might be the one that followed this tradition most faithfully. Sometimes the reeds even catch fire, turning the field into an inferno, so stay sharp when you step into an open field.

If the final boss has even a whiff of religious ties, the last battlefield is almost certainly an ancient holy site. Think temples, cathedrals, churches, or synagogues. Even for secular characters, these are the places where powerful figures make their final stand. A family shrine or a derelict chapel on the outskirts of town? That’s the perfect stage. It’s grand, somber, and reeks of hidden secrets.

In truth, these ancient religious sites are usually hiding something nasty. Whether it’s a sealed horror beneath the floorboards or an attempt to summon a demon god, it’s a classic trope. After you defeat the boss, something even more sinister usually crawls out for the real final fight. There’s a reason we think, 'Oh great, what kind of monster are we facing now?' the moment we see an old church. Even in the rare cases where there’s no secret, the final boss itself is usually monstrous enough to compensate.

The crown jewel of tropes is the laboratory. If you’ve spent the whole game roaming the great outdoors only to suddenly end up in a lab, you’ve reached the heart of the enemy’s lair. Nothing screams 'the core of the operation' quite like a room filled with experimental equipment. From side-scrollers and beat-'em-ups to rail shooters and RPGs, classic games love sending players through labs to face hulking experiments and shady scientists. Usually, the scientist chugs a glowing potion to become the boss, or a secret specimen breaks loose to cause chaos.

Even outside of fantasy or horror, labs are crawling with ending potential. They can hide the truth behind the experiments performed on the protagonist, or serve as the setting for a 'it was all a hallucination' twist. It’s the perfect location: the unpredictability of 'what will come out next,' the primal fear of human experimentation, the perfect aesthetic for powerful mutants, and the visceral satisfaction of wrecking a pristine lab during a fight. And so, countless labs continue to be demolished by our heroes every single day.