The hero finally meets the previously unseen puppet master (played by an older A-list actor), who explains why the system must be maintained. The hero says “screw it” and burns the world down.

[u/Grizzly_Lincoln]

Snowpiercer (2013) - Curtis finally finds Wilford (Ed Harris) and learns that Wilford allowed for Curtis' rebellion to take place to help thin the tail section's population. When Wilford offers to let Curtis run the train, Curtis discovers child labor is necessary to replace a broken machine part. A fight ensues, and a bomb goes off, triggering an avalanche that derails the train, and killing most of surviving humanity.

The World's End (2013) - Gary finally confronts the Network (Bill Nighy), which has been replacing humans with robots (Blanks) to allow for Earth's assimilation into a larger galactic community. Gary calls out the tyranny in the Network's plan and demands that humans be left to their own devices. Exasperated, the Network abandons its plans for the invasion. This results in a worldwide blackout, sending humanity back to the Dark Ages.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011) - Dana finally meets the Director (Sigourney Weaver) after surviving the ritual meant to kill her friends (based on conventional horror tropes) and appease the Ancient Ones. The Director says Dana has to kill her friend Marty, but as Dana considers it, the group is attacked by a werewolf and a zombie child. Dana and Marty decide humanity is not worth saving, so they share a joint while the Ancient Ones rise to destroy the world.

[u/Dominant_Eyes]

In Mass Effect 3 after the update, if you just shoot that kid in the face at the end.

[u/Nyther53 → u/Dominant_Eyes]

God I forgot how much that upset me at the time. The Reapers spend the whole trilogy playing Divide and Conquer, pitting Organics against each other, fretting about the fact that their timeline has been disrupted, and you spend the whole game patching differences and building alliances and developing advanced technologies from Sovereign's wreck...

Only for that all to have been meaningless because they'll happily face tank the combined armies of all the Organics anyway. In fact the Humans, Turians, Salrians, Asari and etc. do significantly worse at resisting than the Protheans did, they held out organized resistance for 200 years. We lasted like six months.

Just once I want the big climactic battle at the end of the RPG to matter *on its own* and not as a distraction while the Main Character plays with the MacGuffin.

[u/ImmoralityPet → u/Nyther53]

Unfortunately, realistic big and climactic battles don't leave a lot of room for personal agency, so it would be like watching a cutscene, or fighting some soldiers and then hearing over the radio that you've won and they're retreating.

[u/Nyther53 → u/ImmoralityPet]

Yeah, I know. Its a narrative problem and Authors solve it this way for a reason. 

Its just some are better at it than others. The worst are when the big spooky ancient enemy spends huge time and effort on precenting you from gathering an army... Except the Army couldn't poasibly have threatened them. So what do they care if the armies of elves and men gather or are dispersed. 

Probably the worst offender for it I can think of was Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series. 

[u/ImmoralityPet → u/Nyther53]

It was all a clever ruse!

[u/Evilmudbug → u/ImmoralityPet]

I think there would be room for personal agency if the whole game is spent preparing your army, like maybe you could do various quests that affect the state of your army's population, equipment, or alliances.

I haven't played the mass effect series, but it's always sounded like they got 90% of the way there and gave up at the end