Ending discussion/breakdown

[[ZSU] Dave247]

So I have recently got around to playing and finishing the game, and I can't help but thinking about the the ending, and all of the implications that come with it.

Note, this includes the extra/missable room at the end that you get with the "Masterplan" achievement, so make sure you have both finished the game and had a good look over everything in that room before continuing to read this topic. Or don't, I'm not your mother.



So the main thing I am wondering, is exactly how much of what happens in the game was staged (by Vivian), which is obviously a lot, but not everything, and it's identifying those few moments that weren't that interests me. Though I am aware that looking into the game with this much detail I'm likely to find some minor inconsistency that would otherwise be overlooked, but such that comes with the territory of over thinking things.

It's safe to assume that everything that happens (or doesn't happen) to Trevor was planned for in some way, as within the dome is where Vivian can exert the most amount of her influence and control. So just leaves Angela to look at.

Right off the bat, her being such a integral part to Trevor's escape plan adds a fair amount of risk due to the unknown and Vivian being able to exert less control due to her being on the outside. That's even when you consider that Walton Media would have likely had a
psych profile of all of their employees, and Vivian specifically chose to promote and then send her information about Breakout herself because she knew she would be able to easily manipulate her.
There are only two places in the game where it would appear that Angela did something that Vivian did not expect. The first was going to Hexagon, and the second was making her way to the broadcast room with the edited trailer footage.

Going to Hexagon though Vivian managed to include as part of her plan, though I can't help wonder why she went with it, such as she thought the end result would be more popular/get more views etc, and what the original plan was. Was she actually going to use the reconfigurator, or was even that little meeting she had (which Angela witnessed) also part of her plan to deceive Angela, knowing that the vents that went above the meeting room were the only way she could go? I can't help questioning even this part. Was Angela only shown the parts that Vivian wanted her to see? Is the jingle even actually... real? Or is even that just a deception somehow?

I also call into question how Vivian knew exactly Trevor would respond after feeding him the "antijingle" specifically, with his desire to push the button. I mean yes, this is technology that her company developed so out of everyone, she would know (or be able to find out) the most about it. But I doubt something to this degree had been tried before, so there was still a fair amount of risk involved where things could have very easily been written to have turned out differently and it would still be entirely plausible.

This was also all highly secretive information she was risking sharing with Angela, though aside from the one secret achievement you can get, it doesn't really matter the jingle getting out at the credits show it (somehow) gets deemed legal anyway.

But that still doesn't remove the amount of risk Angela did present to Vivian's plan though. Say she didn't mange to get her admin permissions home. Though I imagine she would have had some kind of backup plan for that.

I thought that maybe Kendra could have been used to spy on Angela for Vivian, I mean who better then her manager right? Especially when she can just waltz right in to her apartment. But no, I went back over all of her scenes and I can;t find anything to possibly suggest this was the case. I think she really just was a corporate lackey, though I can see the potential perhaps in a earlier draft of the script the writers did look at having Kendra play that role, as even saying that Kendra was spying on Angela is believable because why else did she know to appear at the video editing room? And visiting her apartment could have her been placing bugs/cameras to record Angela.

Speaking of recording Angela, one of the sticky notes in Vivian's room at the end mentions recording Angela's actions too, but I don't believe that it is even hinted at anywhere else in the game. I mean it would have made sense to, but either it was something that was never done as Vivian couldn't find a good way to do it, or the devs never did anything with it as they couldn't find a way to include it into the story, and just left the sticky note there as it's assistance doesn't really change anything on it's own.

The one other thing I take some issue with, is how the interceptors were also all NPC's/actors, because they would have had to have hired a number of people for it, and yet at the same time kept it very secret, or at least secret from Angela I suppose which would make it less complex/difficult. When it comes to Marcus, as a single character it would be much easier to keep secret, so much that likely even all the interceptors didn't know he was an actor. Still, they probably only have a small number of interceptors, and just keep using the same people over and over again, even within the same chase sequence, as why wouldn't they?

The last thing I want to note, is the breakout article during the credits denying what is said in the documentary, It's extremely likely to be Vivian who put that out as a way to try and discredit and make it harder for Trevor/Angela. That is if you believe everything she says at the end, as there is little reason for her to by lying at that point.