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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33441
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33441
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I don't know about video game fiction; in novels and movies, epilogues are typically very short, and used for the explanation of the future. In a movie, just a few minutes (2 or 3 pages, about 2% of length), in a book, perhaps 4% or 5% of length.

To accomplish what you want in a standard storytelling mode, you need to make killing the main villain not enough to end the danger: The villain has set into motion magic or technology that must also be stopped.

That is the thing your characters can discover before they have their confrontation with the villain and destroy him, he has a "dead man switch" so if he dies, others events are triggered to destroy the world (or something like that, cause great suffering).

So perhaps, knowing this, they don't even **want** to destroy him, they want to capture him, but on the brink of failure in trying to capture him, they kill him. That victory is now only a partial victory and they know it. Do something in the game so they do, the spirit of the villain splits into five parts and zoom away for parts unknown, evils no longer imprisoned by his life force. Easier to defeat, but if allowed to grow, they may join forces again and be worse than the main villain.

So now off they go to complete the mission and exterminate the pieces, wherever they hid. (They may know where, or may need to discover where, your choice). In the process they discover an escalation of other truths (the secrets you want them to know), from small to large, with your biggest secret the last, when they have cleaned up the final fragment of evil spirit. Perhaps that last threatens the life of the one side character that saved them all, for example.

Then victory is complete, the hidden hero gets his due recognition and gratitude, the clouds part for the first time in years and golden sunlight brings vibrant color to the forests and gardens, and life to the lakes and streams, and joy to the populace.

Original score: 5