Does this game's plot even supposed to make sense? (spoilers!)

[Pauca Verba]

So from what i understood the chronology is like this:

Selene's mother hits astronaut and falls in the lake. For some unexplained reasons creator-destroyer sits at the bottom of the lake and pulls her away when she tried to save Selene. Somehow Selene survives and says "Helios" after getting out of the water, but her mother is left diabled.

There is a conflict between Selene and her mother, mother is (probably) locked in the basement. It's possible that Selene had child named Helios who died. Also her house maybe burned with mother inside (but also maybe not, since when she returns to Earth she lives in very same house).

Then Selene grows up and leaves to explore the galaxy, gets signal that for some unknown reasons named White Shadow, and crashes at Atropos.

On Atropos, creator-destroyer came long time ago and offered a race of Kognites to serve him. Some agreed, some now, they fought each other and killed each other. Some still remain but crazy. Creator-destroyer just chills on the bottom of the ocean without any clear goal in mind.

When Selene crashes, she ends up in the cycle, that looks a bit like time loop, but is actually not since time passes, and she gets resurrected near the ship.

Why she gets resurrected? No answer.

Why she has the memories of past selfs, but there seem to be also the ones that she does not remember, like they coming from parallel timelines? No explanation.

Why planet around her also changes in each new cycle? New parallel world? No answer.

Why cycle exists, how it exists and what it is? No answer.

In the end, Selene enters the body of the astronaut, causing her mother to drive off the road and trigger all the negative things in her life. Why? Also why the astronaut looks different from Selene's space suit? No answer.

Is there any meaning at all in this game, or it's just another case of writers being unable to give definite answers so they chose to be as vague as possible so people will not guess that they don't know how to explain all of this?

[Dewru]

Your interpretation is about a convoluted and messy as every other explanation I've read/watched so i'd say you nailed it. This is what the developers wanted when they couldn't decide on an actual story as far as i can tell.

[Justinyl]

First car crash, theia (selene's mom) became paralyed, emotionall abused selene.

Second car crash, selene crash car into water, helios (son died)

Selene burnt house to escape her past and becomes full time astra scout.

Truth : selene died when she crashed onto atropos, and is stuck in hell / purgatory. you can see this from the visual xenoglyph history in tower of sisyphus after the time skip, where selene represents the sentient race.

A good way to know that she is in hell, is the ship logs & xenoglyphs translation (it will show very low accuracy / errors) after the time skip. Plus the cargo bay.

[Pauca Verba]

Originally posted by Justinyl:

First car crash, theia (selene's mom) became paralyed, emotionall abused selene.

Second car crash, selene crash car into water, helios (son died)

Selene burnt house to escape her past and becomes full time astra scout.

Truth : selene died when she crashed onto atropos, and is stuck in hell / purgatory. you can see this from the visual xenoglyph history in tower of sisyphus after the time skip, where the sentient race is depicting selene.

I probably missed or not fully dechiphred it. What exactly does it says? And what is the nature of this hell, who made it, how, and for what purpose?

[Justinyl]

Originally posted by Pauca Verba:

Originally posted by Justinyl:

First car crash, theia (selene's mom) became paralyed, emotionall abused selene.

Second car crash, selene crash car into water, helios (son died)

Selene burnt house to escape her past and becomes full time astra scout.

Truth : selene died when she crashed onto atropos, and is stuck in hell / purgatory. you can see this from the visual xenoglyph history in tower of sisyphus after the time skip, where the sentient race is depicting selene.

I probably missed or not fully dechiphred it. What exactly does it says? And what is the nature of this hell, who made it, how, and for what purpose?

Sometime when a person dies, they will be stuck in either purgatory or limbo. It some kind of
lore / myth. Before the timeskip, the first 3 biomes, made it sounds real that selene actually survived the crash and is trying to escape from the planet.

But after the timeskip, you can see the cracks in reality.

[Sailor Gloom]

you made the same misconception I did at first lol. The woman in the car is Selene and the kid is her child, Helios. The monster in the lake I think is just a manifestation of her guilt, Selene is the creator/destroyer because the purgatory she is trapped in on Atropos is of her own making. The astronaut I took to be a manifestation of the toxic ambition that Selene and her mother had to become astronauts and in the process neglect their children. Im a little fuzzy on if she actually went into space or not.
There is the rejection letter that you find in the house along with some audio logs that make it seem like Selene had some psychological problems that stopped her from being cleared.

[Pauca Verba]

I thought those letters were about her mother.

But anyway, how she could manifest anything if she is just a human, and what was about all the alien story, unless Selene is just mentally ill and dreaming about the entire thing?

Also the kid in the car is blonde, just like Selene, so i assumed that she was the child. Especially when news report said that mother is left paralized, just like the creature in the basement.

[Cheako]

Selene tried to follow in her Mom's footsteps by becoming an Astronaut. Her Mother resented Selene for taking that away from her after the crash, I believe Selene distracted her Mother (not on purpose) thus causing the crash.

Fast forward many years from then and Selene now has a child named Helios. From the events of that first crash and accidentally killing her Mother, Selene is mentally unfit to be an Astronaut. She blames Helios for holding her back, much like how Selene's Mother felt about her.

Sometime later Helios and Selene are driving and Helios mentions the White Shadow (the moons reflection on the water). Selene resents Helios so she ignores him. Selene "sees" an Astronaut in the road and drives into the water. It is believed she did so on purpose and the Astronaut was her minds way of justifying driving off the bridge.

While the car is sinking Selene reaches for her son but can't get him. She survives, he does not. It is later revealed she did not in fact try to save Helios. She purposely wanted him to die so she would be free off the burden.

What happens next is a bit iffy. But she essentially goes mental and upon dying (of old age maybe?) she is then thrust into her own Limbo/Hell. She now spends eternity trying to atone for what she did.

When she "crashed" onto the planet, that is her own version of the car crash being twisted by her mind/limbo. When leaving the first area where your ship is, notice it says Helios is Abandoned. Mirroring her leaving him in the car to die while she tries to get further away from him.

[Syncrosonix]

I think she's stuck in a grounded vindaloop. The only exception is there is no customer service line and she cannot answer "yes" when asked if the service received was courteous and prompt.

[C1REX]

I haven’t 100% the game yet but finished ACT2.
I also see the story as kind of mental guilt trip. She could be dead or alive but trapped in her mental illness.

It’s confusing why she has short hair and two colour eyes when she looks different in her memory of the crash.

I also don’t understand why in one home scene we control the child. Maybe it’s the child’s hell of not being able to be like her mum? Mum always distant like a cosmonaut on another planet? Cosmonaut looks like his toy. Octopus is his favourite toy and so all the enemies.
Or octopus was mom’s enemy for the child’s love? His toy was more loved than his own mother?

Questions, questions.

[Grampire]

In Greek Mythology, Selene and Helios are brother and sister, children of Hyperion and.... THEIA. I don't think Helios is Selene's child. She has a connection to him because that is the innocent, real version of her.

It's more likely that Selene and Helios are the same person. Helios being the actual child version and Selene being the idealized manifestation of who Helios thinks Theia wants him to be.

I'm not convinced Selene is even a real person, just a boy who's mom wanted him to be a girl and an astronaut and treated him like ♥♥♥♥ because he was neither. And eventually her obsession got her paralyzed and likely her child killed and stuck in this afterlife purgatory until he/she realized she needs to let go of what Theia wanted them to be.

[Justinyl]

Originally posted by Grampire:

In Greek Mythology, Selene and Helios are brother and sister, children of Hyperion and.... THEIA. I don't think Helios is Selene's child. She has a connection to him because that is the innocent, real version of her.

It's more likely that Selene and Helios are the same person. Helios being the actual child version and Selene being the idealized manifestation of who Helios thinks Theia wants him to be.

I'm not convinced Selene is even a real person, just a boy who's mom wanted him to be a girl and an astronaut and treated him like ♥♥♥♥ because he was neither. And eventually her obsession got her paralyzed and likely her child killed and stuck in this afterlife purgatory until he/she realized she needs to let go of what Theia wanted them to be.

No, selene is real & helios is her son, in the hospital section, in tower of sisyphus, she will comment on being pregnent with helios and how she found it difficult to raise him.

[Grampire]

Originally posted by Justinyl:

Originally posted by Grampire:

In Greek Mythology, Selene and Helios are brother and sister, children of Hyperion and.... THEIA. I don't think Helios is Selene's child. She has a connection to him because that is the innocent, real version of her.

It's more likely that Selene and Helios are the same person. Helios being the actual child version and Selene being the idealized manifestation of who Helios thinks Theia wants him to be.

I'm not convinced Selene is even a real person, just a boy who's mom wanted him to be a girl and an astronaut and treated him like ♥♥♥♥ because he was neither. And eventually her obsession got her paralyzed and likely her child killed and stuck in this afterlife purgatory until he/she realized she needs to let go of what Theia wanted them to be.

No, selene is real & helios is her son, in the hospital section, in tower of sisyphus, she will comment on being pregnent with helios and how she found it difficult to raise him.

I guess that's pretty poor naming on Housemarque's part then. They stayed pretty consistent with the Greek naming with that exception.

[C1REX]

Originally posted by Grampire:

In Greek Mythology, Selene and Helios are brother and sister, children of Hyperion and.... THEIA. I don't think Helios is Selene's child. She has a connection to him because that is the innocent, real version of her.

It's more likely that Selene and Helios are the same person. Helios being the actual child version and Selene being the idealized manifestation of who Helios thinks Theia wants him to be.

I'm not convinced Selene is even a real person, just a boy who's mom wanted him to be a girl and an astronaut and treated him like ♥♥♥♥ because he was neither. And eventually her obsession got her paralyzed and likely her child killed and stuck in this afterlife purgatory until he/she realized she needs to let go of what Theia wanted them to be.

I really like this theory. Especially considering that you control both of them in the game and both look different than real her from the ending.

Originally posted by Justinyl:

No, selene is real & helios is her son, in the hospital section, in tower of sisyphus, she will comment on being pregnent with helios and how she found it difficult to raise him.

I don’t think anything can be taken for granted. It can be a metaphor of making a secondary personality (multiple personality disorder). I wonder if devs have a clear view what really happened or they intentionally left stuff for interpretation.

[Justinyl]

Yea, i'm kinda sick of games where the story is "its all in the head", "the player is in hell / limbo / purgatory", "its all not real".

[Grampire]

Originally posted by Justinyl:

Yea, i'm kinda sick of games where the story is "its all in the head", "the player is in hell / limbo / purgatory", "its all not real".

Agreed, it's a somewhat tired trope. In this case it kinda fits the whole whole "finding Nirvana" concept of perfecting your soul until you reach enlightenment. It sounds like that's basically what happens.