[5] It is the second single and eighth track from their fourth studio album, A Thousand Suns, which was released on September 14, 2010.

"Waiting for the End", along with five other songs from A Thousand Suns, is featured in the "Linkin Park Track Pack" as downloadable content for the rhythm video game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.

[7] The track features minimal distorted guitar and differs from many previous Linkin Park singles.

The video features the entire band performing the song in darkness along with heavily experimental digital effects and distortion applied to them.

Joe Hahn wrote a blog post describing the music video: The clip is an experiment in making the most digital version of ourselves in the spirit of the visual palette of A Thousand Suns.

Michael Menachem of Billboard gave the song a positive review, saying " 'Waiting for the End' offers the grandness of 'Numb' and 'Faint', but producer Rick Rubin's polyrhythmic framework and the group's moralistic lyrics set it apart from Linkin Park's past hits.

"[14] During a Twitch stream in 2020, Mike Shinoda revealed that "Waiting for the End" is his favourite Linkin Park song.

Chester Bennington said this about the success of the single in an interview with MTV on February 7, 2011:[18] It took two years for us to make that record, and it took that whole process for us to really digest the new music, so we knew that it was going to take people time to really let it settle... And 'Waiting for the End' is a perfect example of that ... it's taken it a while for it to elevate up the charts, and it went to No.

And I think, especially for our fans in the States, it was important for it to marinate for a little while before we came back and started playing these shows.All songs written and composed by Linkin Park.