i have questions about the story (major spoilers)

[shtaklef]

i just finished the game. the story is confusing and i didn't understand all of it

i got that a meteor fell and it caused a crater called limen. i think limen caused the mechinka virus. the council came up with a plan that involved hinterland and they created anne flores and sigrid. the plan failed. amok is trapped in hinterland and there is a spear in hinterland. C wants to destroy the world by releasing amok

my questions are:-

1) anne transformed once during the boss fight. did she transform into amok or into another form which is caused by her illness?

2) was castor working for C? what machine did he build and why did the girl with the mask say that it must be destroyed?

3) what exactly is the gatekeeper project? why did it fail? why was C upset at the council? why does C want to destroy the world? how come C is possessed and by what?

4) i didn't properly undesrtand the good ending of the game. anne got the medicine, then she woke up in some machine, G told her that there is another way and i have to choose yes or no, if i choose yes then i fight amok in hinterland and she said i betrayed her. please explain the ending in more detail

5) in the good ending the flores family was sitting next to the fireplace and then santa clause came down the chimney and a girl standing outside waved goodbye. i think that girl is sigrid but she is grown up. why is she grown up so fast? also in that cutscene ryan has 2 eyes. how come? i thought anne injured one eye when she transformed?

6) one of the blue gromitz skills that i can learn is longer transformation time but the game didn't tell me that i can manually transform after that boss fight in which anne transformed. if i cant manually transform anne then what is the point of the longer transformation time?

7) what exactly happened to the son of dr. ryan? there are cutscenes in which i hacked teddy bears in dr. ryan's house

[The nameless Gamer]

First: LIMEN was there from the beginning. The explosion in the intro of the game are three ICBMs launched at a "Mayhem" type creature which crawled out of Hinterland during the Gatekeeper project.
1) Ann isn't exactly "transforming" into Amok, she is temporarily manifesting her. Amok's goal is to make that manifestation permanent by taking over Ann's body. Her "illness" are actually Amok's attempts to take over Ann's body.
2) Castor was commissioned by C to create a device to bring Dypheus' Breath or "The Artifact" as he's calling it from Hinterland into reality. But transporting the Artifact into reality is directly related to Ann being overtaken by Amok. Amok is being sealed and held imprisoned in Hinterland by the Artifact.
3) The Gatekeeper project is a project where 7 humanoid children were artificially created to gain partial access to Hinterland. The purpose of that is to find a way to close LIMEN using knowledge they hoped to find there. The most recent attempt is shown in the intro. It failed. A "Mayhem" type monster crawled out, three Circle Consortium members were sucked into the portal to Hinterland and the Consortium barely managed to pacify the Mayhem type by hitting it with three nuclear missiles simultaneously.
4) Amok was deceiving Ann from the start, as her goal was merely to use Ann as vessel. The machine Ann was put into and the collar she had to wear for a while were severing her mental connection to Hinterland, preventing Amok from further attempts to manifest in reality. Ann fighting Amok was basically the termination of the Gatekeeper project, as with that, she has permanently cut her connection to Hinterland.
5) The blonde girl in the outro is NOT Sigrid, but Helen, the oldest of the Flores foster-kids. She's back from her world-travels.
As for Ryan's eyes: his injured eye was replaced by a cybernetic implant mimicking a human eye. Very common for cyberpunk worlds.
6) Ann's transformation can only be activated when the circular transformation gauge in the top left corner is full.
7) Allan's (the doctor isn't named Ryan but Allan) son had a terminal illness causing his brain to give out. His wife died in a car crash and the illness took his son later. Allan digitalized a part of his son's sentience and bound it to the mech you're fighting before descending into the Consortium's base. We never learn the purpose of that mech though.

Edit: important piece of information: Hinterland and LIMEN are not the same. From what I've pieced together, LIMEN is a gateway to multiple different dimensions and Hinterland is one of those dimensions.

[shtaklef]

thanks for the detailed answers. you can transform? what do you have to press so you can transform?

also why was C possessed and what are those spheres?

what is sigrid's purpose?

[The nameless Gamer]

Originally posted by shtaklef:

thanks for the detailed answers. you can transform? what do you have to press so you can transform?

also why was C possessed and what are those spheres?

what is sigrid's purpose?

I played the game on keyboard and assigned it to the L key (think it's the default one too). Don't know where it is on a controller.

C was possessed because he lost someone important to him (lover or love interest) during the Gatekeeper experiment in the intro. His intentions were initially noble, as he wanted to either get the person out of Hinterland or at least close LIMEN so her loss was not in vain. But something (possibly from Hinterland itself) possessed him and drove him to madness. What it was, we do not know. Sigrid imagined it as a dragon, so when she drove it out, it manifested as the Nidhogg.

Sigrid is the 5th subject, Ann is the 6th. Her purpose was initially the same as Ann's: accessing Hinterland and devising a way to close LIMEN. Her power to wish things into reality is more a side-effect than an intention. My educated guess is that Sigrid was kept in stasis because the Consortium lost too many people and assets in the Gatekeeper incident to keep watch over two high risk factors.

The Red Blobs are not from Hinterland but from LIMEN itself. Researching them has proven almost impossible as they cause chaotic and unpredictable alterations in living beings they come in contact with. Memory loss, schizophrenia or other disorders are the most common occurrences when intelligent life comes into contact with them. They are impervious to almost any kind of weapon and must be kept in stasis to prevent them from causing harm.

[Noel]

1. I saw a photo with G, K and D in the end of the game in Inner Consortium, in winter clothes. Who is D? She looks pretty much like Ann Flores. Could she be her or someone related to her, or someone else? I didn't find any notes about D, but found a lot about G and K. Does D get mentioned anywhere else?
2. There was a note about [REDACTED] Flores who worked at the Consortium, but later resigned. Was it Holtz, Ryan or Ann?
3. Is there any way to remove text censorship (redacted names and details) in the notes?
4. How to reach Club 37? I saw it on several screenshots, but I don't know how to get there.
5. How Castor got Melissa?
6. Who is the masked girl which only Ann can see? I finished the game and I saw her face, but I'm still not sure who she is.

[The nameless Gamer]

Originally posted by Noel:

1. I saw a photo with G, K and D in the end of the game in Inner Consortium, in winter clothes. Who is D? She looks pretty much like Ann Flores. Could she be her or someone related to her, or someone else? I didn't find any notes about D, but found a lot about G and K. Does D get mentioned anywhere else?
2. There was a note about [REDACTED] Flores who worked at the Consortium, but later resigned. Was it Holtz, Ryan or Ann?
3. Is there any way to remove text censorship (redacted names and details) in the notes?
4. How to reach Club 37? I saw it on several screenshots, but I don't know how to get there.
5. How Castor got Melissa?
6. Who is the masked girl which only Ann can see? I finished the game and I saw her face, but I'm still not sure who she is.

1) D was sucked into the portal to Hinterland during the Gatekeeper project incident in the intro. She is C's lover/love interest.
2) That was Holtz Flores, but he worked for Eindersohn heavy industries, which have very close connections to the Consortium.
3) Annoying as they are, no. The Consortium is very thorough in its secrecy.
4) You buy the Phantasia Erotica ROM in Noctis' ROM shop and watch it on the device there.
5) Not explained. Possibly C's help.
6) Also not explained. It's unclear who and what she is.