Well... There's nowhere to go now...but UP!
It's time to go to space, the final frontier! Nothing is bigger than space! Total big bang right there folks!
Yes, space trumps almost any other environment, so it's a natural place to give an ending some style. It doesn't have to be deep space, though: the moon will do, since it gives everyone something to stand on and is still pretty spacy, what with no atmosphere. Once everyone's gotten up there, all the space-related tropes apply, though since the action takes up a small portion of the overall runtime, don't expect to see the fruits of a lot of research.
Obviously this doesn't apply in settings that start out in space, or go there fairly early. The transition shouldn't happen any earlier than the third act. However, some series that start out by travelling to other worlds may have the climax take place in the vacuum of space itself.
In videogames, this can easily overlap with Amazing Technicolor Battlefield, and possibly with Final Boss, New Dimension. The finale might constitute a High-Altitude Battle.
Not to be confused with Recycled IN SPACE!, though that can happen if the creators are careless. Also not to be confused with an Astral Finish.
This trope can be used by producers who are looking for a Finale Production Upgrade.
As this is an Ending Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Japan's mascot for the Sega Saturn, Segata Sanshiro, went into space in his final commercial. He redirected and rode a missile aimed at Sega's HQ by their competitors, making his voyage into the stars a Heroic Sacrifice. Eventually it was revealed that he's busy on other planets, teaching them about the Sega Saturn.
- Similarly, The Most Interesting Man in the World ended his career by joining a Mars exploration mission.
Anime and Manga
- Buso Renkin: When the attempt to forcibly cure Victor failed, Kazuki used the Sunlight Heart Plus' full power to blast the both of them to the moon, so that their Walking Wasteland powers would no longer threaten the Earth. With a cure finally complete, the series' Dénouement has Kazuki's friends and comrades combining their powers to rescue the pair of them.
- Destiny of the Shrine Maiden: The final battle between Orochi Chikane and Himeko takes place in a Shinto shrine on the moon.
- Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super: The last stretch of Goku and Beerus's battle takes place far, far above Earth.
- Most Gundam series have discrete arcs in space or on Earth. The finale is usually in space, allowing a much larger scale of combat than shown terrestrially.
- Mobile Suit Gundam started in space, spent the middle half on Earth, and had the final arc back in space, ending with the White Base's joining the mass (counter-)invasion of Zeon's asteroid stronghold. This became the formula that was followed in Zeta, ZZ, SEED Destiny, and SEED Destiny.
- Victory, ∀ Gundam, and the first season of Iron-Blooded Orphans reverse said formula by going Earth/Mars->space->Earth. The first two and the second season finale of Iron-Blooded Orphans are also subversions where it appears the final confrontation will be in space, but things end up being dragged planetside one way or the other.
- G Gundam is the straighest example in the franchise: The overwhelmingly majority of the series is Combat by Champion where "earth is the ring". The fighting only goes into space in the last couple episodes when Urube revives the Devil Gundam and makes Neo-Japan into its new body.
- Wing and 00 have events change between Earth and space regularly (or simultaneously), but their final arcs (and the first season finale for 00) take place in space.
- While the overwhelmingly majority of The Witch from Mercury technically takes place in space, most mobile suit action occurs on Earth-like (simulated) battlefields in a Military Academy colony. The major space battles are limited to the prologue, the first cour finale, and the last couple episodes of the series as a whole.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team is an inversion: the series starts in space, where Shiro and Aina first meet, while the rest is all on Earth.
- Exceptions: Practially all combat in Char's Counterattack, 0080, F91 occurs in space (within colonies in the latter case). The events of 0083 go to Earth less than halfway through and stay there
- HeartCatch Pretty Cure!'s final episodes are set in space, leading to the Big Bad taking a One-Winged Angel form and the heroines taking up their own combined form of their own.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency has a Downplayed example in the final battle between Joseph and Kars, which ends with a volcanic eruption launching the large stone slab they're on all the way to the very edge of the Earth's atmosphere, to the point where stars become visible. Unfortunately for Kars, he gets hit by chunks of debris from the eruption that push him just a little bit further, outside of the Earth's gravitational pull, and dooming him to float through outer space forever. Joseph, meanwhile, survives riding on top of that big piece of rock all the way back down to the sea.
- Kill la Kill has its final battle in low Earth orbit. Fitting, considering the show is something of a successor to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- The final battle of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Detonation takes place in low Earth orbit, with Nanoha having to stop a Kill Sat from destroying the city.
- Scrapped Princess: The final battle has Shanon team up with Princess Seness, against the Peacemakers, which begins in the upper atmosphere, but soon escalates into an all-out battle royale in deep space!
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica has Madoka herself one-shotting Kriemhild Gretchen to death and rewriting the law of the universe. While the universe is being rewritten, she and Homura have the now-memetic scene of "naked magical space lesbians". Madoka's final form might also be a Shout-Out to Heartcatch Pretty Cure, above.
- Naturally for a series heavily based around celestial bodies, Saint Seiya Omega's Grand Finale takes place in space.
- Shaman King: Played with. While it doesn't take place literally in outer space, the powers of the Great Spirit are so immense, Hao interprets his battle against the Five Grand Elemental Warriors as Earth vs the cosmos itself, so the battle inside the Great Spirit is set in a representation of outer space.
- Symphogear: The closing part of the first season Final Battle has the three heroines going out to outer space to make a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Tamagotchi Friends: The final episode of GO-GO Tamagotchi!, which is the series finale for the Tamagotchi! anime in general, has the characters traveling into space to cheer up Tamagotchi Planet and allow the Tamagottsun which merged Tama Town and Dream Town together to end.
- The final battle of season 1 of Tantei Opera Milky Holmes takes place in space.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, from the beginning of the third act onward, is set entirely in space, specifically the home pocket universe of the Anti-Spirals. Venturing further into the cosmos is a major theme of the story: at the start the heroes are huddled underground yearning for the surface and sky, and by the end they have the power and will to traverse outer space and hyperspace. So it's only appropriate that for the finale, the outer space imagery gets really over-the-top. The showdown with the Final Boss is takes place in hyperspace, where galaxies are hurled like shuriken and the power of the Big Bang is wielded like laser beams.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG Stories: The Sky Striker Ace story culminates with Raye using her "Hayate" power armor to fly to the upper atmosphere and place a railgun shot into a microwave satellite that was about to fire upon her and Roze.
Comic Books
- Justice: The final confrontation between the Justice League and the last and most dangerous member of the Legion of Doom, Brainiac, happens out of the Earth's atmosphere.
- Legion of Super-Heroes:
- At the end of The Death of Lightning Lad, the Legion of Super-Heroes heads towards the faraway planet where Lightning Lad's remains rest in order to attempt to revive him.
- The Condemned Legionnaires: The final battle between Supergirl and Satan Girl, with the female Legionnaires' lives at stake, happens in a faraway, uninhabited planet.
- The Death of Ferro Lad: The whole battle between the Legion and the Fatal Five against the monstrous Sun-Eater happens somewhere between Earth and the Sun.
- The Great Darkness Saga: The war against Darkseid starts in Earth and ends in planet Daxam, set in a completely different star system.
- Supergirl:
- Supergirl's Super Pet ends with Supergirl and Streaky the Supercat flying out of the planet to continue their games until Streaky loses his powers.
- The Battle of the Super-Pets! between Krypto and Streaky begins in the Earth, goes on the deep space and gets finished in a weird, distant planetoid.
- The Villain Who Married Supergirl starts with Supergirl meeting a creepy space pirate called Raspor during a festival in Midale (her Midwestern adoptive hometown), and ends with her marooning him in a faraway planet in punishment for his crimes.
- Crypt of the Frozen Graves: After finding the secret base of the mafious Frisco Syndicate, Linda Danvers is jettisoned out from the atmosphere, needing to make her way back to Earth.
- Drang the Destroyer: begins with Kara attending a magical performance in her town, and ends with Supergirl dueling an amalgam of evil in an incredibly faraway planet.
- The Supergirl from Krypton (2004): At the climax, Superman and Darkseid brawl in the Sun.
- Bizarrogirl: At the beginning, Supergirl fights Bizarrogirl when the latter appears on Metropolis wreaking havoc. The final battle against the monster which Bizarrogirl was fleeing from takes place in the cube-shaped Bizarro World.
- Red Daughter of Krypton: The final battle has Supergirl lure Worldkiller-1 from Earth to the Sun, hoping the sudden influx of solar power will give her the upper hand.
- Superman:
- The Future Superman of 2965: At the final issue, the thirtieth descendants of Superman and Batman track the villainous Muto and the current Joker down to Thorum, a planet constantly barraged by electrical storms.
- Krypton No More: At the final issue, Superman, Supergirl and Krypto travel to planet Xonn to save its inhabitants from being massacred by the blood-thirsty J'ai race.
- In The Plague of the Antibiotic Man, the final confrontation against the genocidal space pirate Amalak happens in his ship, beyond the Earth's atmosphere.
- Superman vs. Muhammad Ali: The final confrontation against Rat'Lar and his alien armada is set in the deep space.
- Superman vs. Shazam!: At the climax, Supergirl and Mary Marvel fly to Mars to fight Karmang directly.
- Let My People Grow!: After fighting Brainiac in space, Superman and Supergirl take the Bottle City of Kandor to planet Rokyn to be enlarged.
- War World: The battle against Mongul takes Superman and Supergirl from the Earth to the outer space and beyond the universe's edge.
- Luthor Unleashed! has Luthor fleeing from Earth and Superman tracking him down to planet Lexor, with tragic consequences.
- Krypton Dies Again! starts with Brainiac appearing on Earth to challenge Superman again, and ends with Superman dragging him to another solar system and beating him in the vicinity of an exploding super-nova.
- Brainiac: Rebirth: During the final battle, Superman lures Brainiac into taking his Skullship to the Sun.
- The Einstein Connection: The first part has Superman chasing Luthor through the coast of New Jersey, and the second half takes place in outer space.
- Superman: Brainiac: The final battle has Supergirl flying into space to stop a missile from detonating the Sun as Superman stays on Earth and deals with Brainiac.
- Super Agent Jon Le Bon!: The climax of "Operation Shorthand" takes place on the moon.
- Twig (2022) culminates with Twig reaching the moon on a floating boat. He sings a song he learned earlier to it, which causes it to unravel, and the slug-like creature within's tears recharge the Power Gem he needs to deliver.
- X-Men: In The Dark Phoenix Saga, the final battle between the X-Men and the Shi'Ar Imperial Guard happens in the Moon.
Fan Works
- A Force of Four: The final battle between Badra's group and the Earth's heroes happens in planet Mars against the eponymous war deity.
- Angel of the Bat Angel of the Bat III: Da Pacem Domine: While the final showdown is, at least in theory still on earth, the battlefield is described as, "A grand starscape of distant novas and cosmos wrapped around the citadel." This is the result of The Spectre's power being manipulated and messing with the fabric of reality itself.
- Evangelion: A New Awakening starts with Shinji and Asuka trying to survive among the post-apocalyptic ruins of Japan, and ends with the humanity travelling across the space and colonizing the galaxy.
- Hellsister Trilogy: The first arc begins with the Earth's heroes preparing for another war with the evil sorcerer Mordru, and ends with Supergirl and her evil twin fighting to the death in the vicinity of a star.
- In Peter Chimaera' Digimon 2: Return of Digimon, Digimon and his evil clone Evil Digimon suddenly decide to fly into space for their final battle. Both of them are perfectly able to survive there without oxygen.
- In Vocaloid Story 1, the battle against the Big Bad takes place in Net Road Depths, which visually looks like the space with transparent panels.
Films — Animation
- The final battle with Kitty Kat in The Bad Guys 2 takes place in space on her station as she plans to magnetize all the world's gold.
Films — Live-Action
- F9: During the climax, the series finally fulfills all of the jokes that people have made about where its constant Sequel Escalation would end up, as they literally strap rocket boosters to a Pontiac Fiero and send it into outer space so that Tej and Roman can blow up the Big Bad's satellite.
- Part of Looney Tunes: Back in Action's finale involves Bugs Bunny and Daffy making it into space, with Bugs doing most of the work fighting Marvin the Martian (who is working for the bad guys) on a giant satellite.
- Played for Laughs in Machete Kills which ends with the Big Bad escaping into space. We then get a trailer for the sequel Machete Kills Again...In Space! which is In the Style of a 1970's Star Wars rip-off.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024): Like the game it's based on, the climax of the film sees Sonic and Shadow turn Super together in order to prevent a catastrophic event from taking place in orbit around Earth. Unlike Sonic Adventure 2, here it is the Eclipse Cannon itself that poses the major threat rather than Biolizard pulling the station on a collision course with the planet.
- Things to Come ends with a young man and woman being sent to start life on a new world; the seed of mankind shot into space from a huge gun.
Literature
- Animorphs: The books before the Grand Finale certainly have examples of both a spaceship setting and adventures on extrasolar planets (three times in 54 books), but the vast majority of the action simply takes place on the surface of the Earth. But the final battle with the Yeerks involves infiltrating a large mother ship and fighting a battle while in orbit outside the atmosphere, and then convincing a fleet of Andalite battleships with the message that "We know you have plans to destroy the Earth, now cancel those plans." This climactic battle isn't the last thing to happen in the series (it's complicated), and the series ends with a suspenseful battle between two starships, this time very far away from Earth's solar system.
- The Divine Comedy: Dante travels to Paradiso in the third canticle, which takes the form of jumping from The Moon to various planets.
- The Great Troll War: After having the other three books in the series (and 9/10ths of the last book) take place on the British Isles, the final chapter of the final book takes place onboard Shandar's spaceship as it ferries the evil wizard, his assistant Miss D'Argento, and protagonist Jennifer Strange on towards Jupiter and then the rest of the cosmos. The epilogue returns to planet Earth.
- In the last few paragraphs of The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad / Adolf Hitler (More precisely: Norman Spinrad conceived the novel as something written by an Alternate Universe Hitler who emigrated to the US and became a SF author), a spaceship leaves Earth — permanently polluted by radiation — to start the colonization of the cosmos.
Live-Action TV
- The last scene of the final episode of The Avengers (1960s) has Steed and Tara being launched into space aboard a rocket.
- Exaggerated with Doctor Who's "Empire of Death", whose climax takes place in the Time Vortex, a super-space that connects all of time and space.
- The final episode of Family Matters has Urkel going up to a space station.
- Kamen Rider:
- While the Final Battle of Kamen Rider Gaim takes place on Earth, the ending of the shows sees Kouta becoming a Physical God and venturing into outer space, where he uses the Helheim Forest to revive a dead and barren planet.
- Kamen Rider Build has a variant where the Final Battle takes place in a Void Between the Worlds reached by flying into outer space.
- Power Rangers in Space was believed by the writers to be the last season of Power Rangers after Turbo's failure, so they turned it into the Grand Finale to the storyline they'd been telling thus far. It turned out so well that the whole franchise was Un-Cancelled.
- Saul of the Mole Men ended with everyone going into space.
Music
- Styx, "Come Sail Away"
I thought that they were angels; much to my surprise
We climbed aboard their starship, we headed to the skies
Pinball
- Foo Fighters (2023): The last stretch of "The Final Battle" is devoted to a fight in space between the Foobot and the Overlord.
- The final Adventure mode in Junk Yard has the player riding his flying jalopy into space to combat Crazy Bob with fireworks.
Tabletop Games
- Magic: The Gathering: The third and final set of the Theros block, Journey Into Nyx, is set mostly in the titular sub-plane, hanging in the upper atmosphere of the greater plane of Theros. Matter itself is fundamentally magical there, and the Gods call it home. Elspeth and Ajani make the journey to kill the Mad God Xenagos.
Video Games
- The various final stages of the Aero Fighters series take place off Earth; the first two games take place in the Earth's orbit, while one of the third game's final stages is set on Mars. This is despite the player ships not being suited for flight outside of the Earth's atmosphere.
- The final battle with Vlitra in Asura's Wrath ends with this. The True Final boss fight with Chakravartin in Part IV: Nirvana takes this further, with Asura becoming bigger then any other planet sized character in the game, only to fight against Chakravartin's practically Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann sized fortress in space, leading to an awesome final battle that needs to be seen to be believed.
- The climatic fight against Jubileus, the Creator in Bayonetta takes at the confines of the solar system. After you defeat her, you need to punch her soul from Pluto to the Sun.
- Blast Corps has an entire set of stages set away from Earth as the finale, taking you to the Earth's moon and several other planets in the Solar System, including planets that in-game are solid planets yet are gas giants in real life.
- Call of Duty: Zombies:
- The final map of the Black Ops season is set on the Moon (and simply named "Moon" as well).
- The final map of the Black Ops III season is set in Agartha, which is more or less a dimension above our reality that looks like the cosmos got ripped apart and dumped on itself.
- In City of Heroes, the final battle of the "Who Will Die" story arc takes place on an island the villain has levitated into Earth orbit.
- In Codename: Kids Next Door - Operation: V.I.D.E.O.G.A.M.E., the Final Boss fight takes place on the Moon.
- Crash Bandicoot:
- The three racing games all end with racetracks set in space - Oxide Station in Crash Team Racing, Hyper Spaceway in Crash Nitro Kart and Craters on Uranus in Crash Tag Team Racing. Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, being a remake of Team Racing with most of the content from Nitro Kart thrown in for good measure, sees both Oxide Station and Hyper Spaceway make an appearance, albeit the latter comes in a more compressed form due to the lack of anti-gravity. The Gasmoxia Grand Prix, being the final limited-time event, also caps off the post-release tracks with Drive-Thru Danger, a track set high up in the stratosphere of Gasmoxia.
- The Crash platformers sometimes get in on this, too: Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, and Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure all have final levels and final bosses taking place on space stations.
- Cruis'n World has a final/bonus stage on the moon.
- Cyberpunk 2077: "The Sun" ending sees V enlisting the aid of Rogue to raid Arasaka and defeat Adam Smasher at the cost of Rogue's life, then choosing to keep their body once they and Johnny are split apart inside Mikoshi. V spends the next several months living the high life as the new owner of the Afterlife, having made their mark as a Night City legend (Rogue survives if you choose the "Don't Fear the Reaper" ending), but it doesn't change the fact that they're still dying from the Relic's effects. So they take on One Last Job, riding a spaceship into orbit to rob a casino on a space station resort. Whether or not V comes out of it alive, they don't care; their number's already been called.
- Both de Blob games do this: In the first, Comrade Black is fleeing the planet with his store of stolen color, but Blob manages to get on the ship at the last minute and wreak havoc. In the second, Black flees to his orbital Hypno-Ray and absorbs all the color from the planet at once, but Blob manages to commandeer a rocket and catch up.
- The last region of Destroy All Humans! 2 is a Russian Moon base.
- The area containing the last 19 levels in Dig Dug Arrangement (1996) is Area 6, the Moon's Surface.
- The final third of Disney's Kim Possible 3: Team Possible takes place on the space satellite Disco Station 9.
- To reach the final boss in Echo Point Nova, the player must activate an altar which allows the player to climb into low orbit through floating islands. There the player fights a space station.
- The final level of Einhänder takes place in space, pitting the Endymion/Astrea against their own Selene forces, who have declared them outliving their usefulness. This culminates in a Final Boss battle against Hyperion, their own superior.
- The final boss battle against APITEX in Ether Vapor is set in space.
- Excite Truck and Excite Bots both have Nebula, a bizarre spacy realm, as their final track.
- Final Fantasy:
- In Final Fantasy IV, Cecil's journey to the moon fulfills a prophecy. There he learns about the identity of the Big Bad and himself, and enters the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
- Final Fantasy XI is a massive fan of the Amazing Technicolor Battlefield for the Final Boss of expansions. The vast majority of which are very spacey, but none more so than the battlefield Empyreal Paradox where the god Promathia is fought at the end of Chains of Promathia (and later Shinryunote at the end of the Abyssea battle packs). You're literally in space standing on an invisible "floor" with the planet Vana'diel clearly visible below you.
- Final Fantasy XIV has done this for several expansion final bosses starting from Stormblood, with each one pushing out further beyond than the last. In your fight with Shinryu, the boss carries your party into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, starting phase 2 of the fight high in the sky. Shadowbringers takes your party fighting far, far above in orbit, with a somber view of the representation of the dying moments of the planet before its sundering. And Endwalker one-ups the stakes once again by having you face off against your greatest foes at the very furthest reaches of all existence, the far edge of the universe.
- Downplayed in Final Fantasy XVI: The Final Boss is not fought in space. However, the player does fight Bahamut in orbit above the planet.
- Played for Laughs in Freaky Flyers. Every single character's story mode, without fail, ends with Pilot X revealing himself to "challenge you to a battle in outer space!". And sure enough, the Final Boss is a dogfight against his battle robot in outer space.
- The Legend of Dragoon ends on the setting's resident Weird Moon, specifically on the inside, which is a strange dimension that apes various environments previously visited on the surface.
- LEGO Marvel Super Heroes has the third-to- and second-to-last levels take place on Asteroid M in deep space, including one part in the penultimate level where you fly through the vacuum unprotected to reach another area, but the final level itself is a High-Altitude Battle on the deck of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Hellicarrier.
- In LEGO City Undercover, the final level takes Chase to the moon.
- In Glider PRO, it's common for the last star in a house to be somewhere up in space.
- Grandia II has an evil moon that has to be visited in the end and destroyed, although its interior is more of a Womb Level.
- The last two levels of Gunstar Heroes take place in space, starting with a side-scrolling space shooter stage as the player pursues The Empire's flagship, then fighting their way through said flagship.
- Illusion of Gaia: The hero Will ascends to the surface of the rapidly-approaching Chaos Comet for the final confrontation.
- LittleBigPlanet 2: The Negativatron is fought in the outer reaches of the Cosmos. The final part of his final battle is in front of a Space arcade game.
- Mega Man:
- Most of the Mega Man (Classic) Game Boy series have their final levels take place in space (the fifth game does not count due to half the boss roster residing in space levels, and the only game to completely avert the space setting is the third one). As for the main games, Mega Man 10 saves its very last stage for this trope, right after the usual four stages of a traditional endgame castle. Mega Man 2's final battle appears to take place in space, but it's just a holographic illusion.
- For Mega Man X, X4 has its final two stages set on the Repliforce's Final Weapon space station. The finale of X8 involves traveling to the moon, where Sigma's base is located.
- Mega Man Zero 4's final stages is set in the space cannon Ragnarok that is used by the villain Dr. Weil to destroy Area Zero that contains the last bit of nature in the ruined world to keep the citizens of Neo Arcadia under his tyrannical rule. The very final stage has Zero going back to the station as it is falling down to Earth straight to Area Zero that will destroy what's left of life on the planet. The final battle between Zero and Weil is on a time limit that tells how long until Ragnarok enters orbit and its a life lost if time's up. Zero ended up killing Weil which leads to Ragnarok splitting into debris that falls harmlessly on Earth, likely taking Zero with it.
- Mega Man Star Force's final stage is set in a space station, and 3's is within a meteor that's headed for Earth.
- Mega Man Legends second game has the final battle take place in Elysium all the way in space where the last true humans lived for centuries until they went extinct with the death of "The Master" and Sera, Yuna and Mega Man Volnutt remain trapped due to the death of Gats.
- The latter half of the final stage of Metal Slug 3 entails the player and the Rebel Army teaming up after the Mars People abduct Morden and your previous playable character. With the Martians escaping into space, the heroes climb into rockets and chase them into the cosmos.
- In Miitopia, the Final Boss is fought in low orbit. Fittingly, it took the appearance of a miniature golden sun. It provides the page image.
- Done to great effect in the classic Infocom Text Adventure game A Mind Forever Voyaging; the epilogue has the protagonist and his family enter a rocket as part of the first space colonization efforts.
- NightFire ends with James Bond battling while adrift in outer space.
- Portal 2 ends with the player using portals to go to the moon; Chell is rescued before the portal closes, but the villain is stranded in space.
- Played with in Saints Row: The Third if you go to rescue your friends in the final story mission. The mission after that is "Gangsters in Space" where you fight Killbane on Mars. You're actually filming a movie.
- In the last level of Super Scribblenauts, Maxwell's Evil Twin Llewxam steals the Starite in a UFO, then absconds to space; Maxwell must follow in the vehicle of his choice, shooting Starites at his twin until the latter crashes to earth.
- The final boss battle in the original Sin and Punishment has Saki go One-Winged Angel and growing about as tall as the country of Japan is large, in order to fight against a false planet Earth.
- The final level of Sin and Punishment 2, a Boss Rush level takes place in space.
- A recurring element in Sonic the Hedgehog games is the finale taking place in space.
- The trend started with Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with its final stage taking place on Eggman's Space Station, the Death Egg. The final boss fight features a view of the Earth from orbit.
- Sonic & Knuckles: The final zone of the game, where the first act takes place inside the Death Egg space station, with its second act being outside of it. The Earth is even visible from view in the latter act. If the player collected all the Chaos/Super Emeralds, then the True Final Boss takes place in The Doomsday Zone, where Super Sonic flies through space to pursue a fleeing Eggman carrying the Master Emerald.
- Sonic Adventure 2: The final stretch of the story and final bosses take place on the Space Colony ARK, which is an abandoned space station. This includes levels that take place inside and outside of the ARK, with both Sonic and Shadow fighting the True Final Boss outside the colony, that is hurtling on a crash course to Earth.
- Zig-Zagged in Shadow the Hedgehog: three of the final stages in the normal game (Black Comet, Cosmic Fall, and Final Haunt) take place in space, either on the Black Comet or the Space Colony ARK. The True Final Boss, however, is fought over the ruins of a city on Earth, after Black Doom Chaos Controls the Black Comet onto the planet's surface.
- Sonic Frontiers: The True Final Boss, has Super Sonic and Sage piloting THE SUPREME Titan fighting together against THE END, who takes the form of a giant moon as it leaves Earth. If the player is playing on Hard difficulty, they even get to fight THE END in a shoot-em-up sequence that orbits around the Earth.
- The last area in Soul Blazer is the World of Evil, which resembles space with a ground and walls made of some transparent matter. The room just before the Big Bad's shrine is even called "Dazzling Space"!
- Snake Rattle 'n' Roll has the final level on the moon, for no discernable reason. With an appropriate change in gravity, which doesn't exactly make it easier, since it's a Boss Battle.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Super Mario Galaxy: Inverted. While most of the game is set in space, the final galaxy, appropriately called "Grand Finale Galaxy", takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom, not featuring the crazy-shaped Baby Planets and Unrealistic Black Holes which are otherwise common.
- Super Mario Odyssey: The final level takes place on the moon, in a region called Honeylune Ridge. There's also the Brutal Bonus Level Dark Side of the Moon and the Nintendo Hard Darker Side of the Moon.
- Paper Mario 64: The final battle of the game is set in the stars above the Mushroom Kingdom, where Peach's castle is hoisted into space with Bowser's castle underneath.
- Mario Kart: Rainbow Road, the final track in every game, is in space or at least the upper atmosphere. In Mario Kart Wii your character will catch fire and appear burned up on re-entry if they fell off the track. In terms of the Retro GP tracks in later installments, however, Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart Wii avert it by using GCN Yoshi Circuit and N64 Bowser's Castle, but Mario Kart 7 and 8 finally play it straight with SNES Rainbow Road and N64 Rainbow Road, respectively. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's Booster Course Pass ends both rows with a Rainbow Road, 7's for the Moon Cup and Wii's for the Spiny Cup.
- Mario Party 9: The final board in Solo mode is Bowser Station, a space station where Bowser has taken all of the Mini-Stars. The players fly through space in a flying saucer, and make stops at various space colonies to take part in different Captain Events.
- Mario Party: Star Rush: The final board of each world in Toad Scramble always ends with a boss fight against Bowser, and all three of his fights take place in space, with Bowser attacking from a flying saucer that transforms into a Bowser mecha, and the player characters moving around atop floating space stations.
- In the classic arcade game Time Pilot the final level is in space in the future. If/when you beat the Boss you go back to the first level again, only it's harder this time.
- Viewtiful Joe:
- Both games have a final stage in space. Since they take place in Movieland, they are beyond over the top and awesome because of that. The first game's finale, "Joe & Sylvia", is a Star Wars homage, culminating in a battle with space mecha atop the Earth, and you punch out the Moon at Mach Speed to make yourself go red hot with a flaming Battle Aura! Followed up by a duel with the Final Boss outside of his mecha in a one-on-one brawl. In a space station with lowered gravity, no less.
- The second game's finale, "Starship Viewties", takes place on Cimmerian Planet Gedow, paying tribute to Alien with robots that look like the titular creature and then going wild with the difficulty curve with everything from a cyborg dino tank to a giant cyborg robo Buddha statue. But all that is topped when Serial Escalation kicks since the last game and the obligatory mecha battle, thanks to starship-class Combining Mecha, rises to the scale of the whole solar system. And now you get to punch out the Earth to cast your battle aura while fighting giant, blazing space dragons! However, the actual final battle takes place on Earth. And it is genuinely brutal. However, it boasts a joyously awesome final battle theme
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- The hidden track of the first WipEout is set on Mars. The bonus track in Wipeout Fusion is set on an alien planet. In Pure it's levitating in the upper atmosphere
- The first X-COM game mostly involves fending off alien attacks on Earth. However, the grand finale is humanity's first manned mission to Mars, armed with alien technology and the biggest guns X-COM has to offer.
- XCOM: Apocalypse ups the ante with a whole series of endgame missions where your soldiers turn the tables on the aliens and raid their military installations, all set on an alien planet in Another Dimension.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 1 has the party just plain walking(!) right out into space, going past planets from our solar system, on their way to confront the final boss.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 2: The final chapter takes place in a Space Station just above the atmosphere of the Earth, the same space station where Klaus undertook his experiment that led to the creation of the universe of the original Xenoblade Chronicles.
- The Wonderful 101 takes this premise and absolutely blows the roof off with it, with the final battle against Jergingha taking place just over Earth..
- The last level of Classic Mode in the Super Smash Bros. series is always a battle against Master Hand (and occasionally Crazy Hand) on Final Destination, a flat platform in a background that was basic black in earlier installments (and even Melee even had a digital feel to it), but in Brawl and 4 had become a deep space setting as stars and galaxies drift by the battlefield in the background.
- This was also the case in Adventure Mode on Melee.
- In Phantasy Star Online 2, Dark Falz Elder and the final boss of Episode 3 Profound Darkness are fought in space. The final boss of Episode 4 ESC-A Falz Mother is fought on Earth's moon.
- A number of Kirby games end in this way, such as Super Star/Fun Pak, Squeak Squad and Planet Robobot. Some of the ones that don't incorporate Final Boss, New Dimension instead, since the franchise generally makes good use of its deep space setting.
- Rampage:
- World Tour has its final stage set on the moon, where Luna Tech is stationed.
- Accounting for the "Universal" part of Universal Tour, its final segment is set across the planets of the solar system, a few moons (Earth's is the first stop), and various cities on the aliens' home planet.
- The final battle in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 takes place in space with the Earth in the background slowly decaying as Galactus starts to devour it.
- The final battle of Transformers: Devastation has Optimus and Megatron squaring off in space.
- The final level of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron features a ferocious battle in and around the Ark as it makes a desperate bid for the space bridge portal as the Nemesis attacks it, following the departure of the Autobots and Decepticons from Cybertron.
- In the Arcade Game Sky Soldiers, the player ship is launched into space for the final stage, set in "AD 2110."
- In the last levels of Slide the Shakes, as of now, is set in a spaceship. And this is a game about sliding shakes (or any random desserts and sweet drinks) into targets.
- The race against Iceman in Slot Car Racer takes place in space.
- The final and hardest minigame in Wii Play: Motion has the Miis navigate a space shuttle to assemble a giant space station.
- Quite amazingly, Pizza Frenzy manages to pull this out: you think the Strombolis would be satisfied after implementing their restaurants in every town on Earth? WRONG! They manage to open pizzerias on the Moon and even Mars in the final levels.
- Lost Sphear's final boss fight takes place on the moon.
- Subverted by DuckTales (1989). The game does have a Moon stage, which would usually be the final destination for a world-spanning treasure adventure, and the background music is fitting for an example of this trope. However, it's just a regular stage out of 5 that can be selected from the beginning.
- The Final Dungeon of Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair is the alien invaders' spaceship, and the Final Boss battle is IN SPACE!
- Developer Quintet, known for ActRaiser and Illusion of Gaia, had a fondness of having the final boss battle take place in space or at the very least, have some sort of space-looking backdrop. It's known as the "Quintet background" in fan circles.
- Chroma Squad: No matter which way you get there, the final battle takes place aboard Villain X's starship, complete with a Humongous Mecha battle on the top of said starship.
- Part Time UFO's last three levels take place on the moon, as you're trying to stop another group of aliens from invasing Earth.
- In Bonk's Revenge, The Very Definitely Final Dungeon is a temple on the moon.
- The finale of Beyond Good & Evil is set within the DomZ base on the moon.
- Both Overcooked! games have a space world as their final world. In the first game, it's more of a space station; in the sequel, it's an alien planet.
- Civilization: One of the recurring Variable Player Goals is the Science Victory, where you become the first nation in the world to colonise another planet, though most of the games don't feature gameplay within space itself.
- The last few boss fights of Klonoa Heroes: Densetsu no Star Medal take place on the moon... then transition to inside a separate dimension forming on the moon.
- The final stages of Neo Contra has you taking the fight to Master Contra on his space station.
- The finale of Splatoon 3 takes place in space as the player and their allies fight to prevent the Big Bad from mutating all non-mammalian life on Earth.
- Raiden:
- In the first two games, after completing stage 5, the player's ship takes off into space for the remaining three stages.
- The arcade release of Raiden IV features a straighter example, in which the player only reaches space in stage 5, the last stage of the game. In the console-exclusive modes, stage 5 is split into three stages, with stage 5 spent leaving the Earth's atmosphere and then the last two being in space.
- Raiden V has the player going into space in stage 7 and then commencing an assault on the crystals' home planet in stage 8.
- Roboquest: The most part of the plot is Guardian and Max trying to reach the headquarters of IRIS to shut her down. Her true headquarters is the Moon bass, prompting the duo to rebuild Max's van into a spacecraft and travel there. The Moon is a brutal The Very Definitely Final Dungeon with low gravity, laser traps and Elite Mooks aplenty.
- Persona 3 has its Final Battle take place within the Weird Moon.
- "Digital Devil Saga" does one better in The Data Center of the Sun at the end of the second game.
- NetHack's finale takes the player through a series of Elemental Planes after going up and out of the main dungeon, concluding with the Astral Plane.
Web Original
- France Five: After realizing that they're putting the city at risk by battling in it, the France Five take their final fight against Glou Man Chou to space.
- The final act of the 200th episode special of Scott The Woz, "Borderline Forever", involves Scott and his friends travelling to outer space in a rocket built from shovelware Wii games, to defeat the blue border that encases every single one of Scott's videos once and for all.
Western Animation
- The Final Battle of Amphibia occurs in space between the girls in their Calamity Forms and The Core while trying to prevent it from crashing Amphibia's moon into the planet's surface.
- ‘’Ballmastrz Rubicon’’ is this for ‘’Ballmastrz: 9009’’ since the climatic battle takes place above Earth orbit.
- Blaze and the Monster Machines: The last episode of the "Robot Riders" miniseries, "Robots in Space", involved the Monster Machines turning into space robots and going to space to rescue Commander Megan after she crash-lands on Pluto.
- The final season of Regular Show takes place in space, with the Grand Finale involving a battle between Pops and his Evil Twin for nothing less than the end of the entire universe.
- The Team Umizoomi episode, "Umi Space Heroes", involves Team Umizoomi going to space to repair the moon after The TroubleMakers have destroyed it by sending Trouble Bubbles.
- Transformers: Prime: All of the show’s season finales except for the first move most of not all of the action space-side. The second season ends with a showdown on Cybertron (but returns to Earth in the last act) while the third season finale depicts the Final Battle in orbit around the Earth. Speaking of, the five-part "Darkness Rising" series premiere ends with a battle at Megatron’s spacebridge in orbit as well.
- Wakfu: For the final battle against Ogrest in the 3-part OVA The Quest for the Six Dofus Eliatropes, Yugo teleports the island they are on above the atmosphere so that the clash between their godlike powers doesn't cause an Apocalypse How. Unfortunately, it immediately starts falling back to the planet, with some pieces breaking up and raining destruction on the people below as meteorites.
