*Spoilers* Let's talk about that ending...

[Xeno]

So that ending...What?!

We're taken on a trip though a huge chunk of the game being led to believe that there is some kind of experiment or psychopath messing with you. We find a mysterious place surrounded by chain link fencing with government trespass warnings on them. Inside we discover top end radio spy gear, a strange roped off grid of soil and a well stocked tent with space for three people. The tent is covered in notes about your personal life and maps of your day to day hikes. All very spooky and clearly some kind of reserch station.

Yet come the end of the game we're told it was all set up by a lone man hiding in a dirt cave for the past few years overrun with the guilt of his sons death. Why did he spy on you? How did he build the research station without anyone noticing? Why dose it have government trespass warnings on it? Why where the firefighters told to protect that place from fire by their bosses if it was built by someone who did not want to be found? It all makes absolutely no sense what so ever. It's almost like the developers where heading in one way, then forgot what they where doing and went down a simple 'get out of jail' route.

If someone knows anything that will make it all make sense to me, please let me know!

[Serathis]

The research station is a proper legit goverment thing. Ned is using their stuff to listen in on people because he is bored. I guess? The twist is that there is no twist.

[Xeno]

Originally posted by SerathisHUN:

The research station is a proper legit goverment thing. Ned is using their stuff to listen in on people because he is bored. I guess? The twist is that there is no twist.

That makes more sense. So disapointing.

[Space Attorney]

The firefighters, if I remember correctly, did their controlled burn to keep the fire from getting to your lookout tower.

I don't know much about the research station, but I don't think it's ever said that he built it. He was ex-Army or something, so he'd have known how to operate/repurpose whatever was there, but there's still the question of why Delilah never knew about it if it had been there for so long.

While I'm at it, can anyone explain Ned's motives for screwing with Henry and Delilah? He mentions that he was worried they were too close to the cave, but that doesn't really explain why he threatens to frame them for arson, or why he then decides to lead Henry to the body. For most of the third act, I got the impression that there was one person (or group) trying to frame Henry as a coverup, and a second party trying to help him uncover it. Finding out that they were the same person was... well, I still haven't figured it out, is all.

[Xeno]

Originally posted by Space Attorney:

The firefighters, if I remember correctly, did their controlled burn to keep the fire from getting to your lookout tower.

I believe you find a note left by the firefighters telling them to protect the station right before you get the axe.

[Milty]

Ned's motives was simply because he was bored, possibly going a little crazy from isolation... his notes/transcripts hanging by his observation chair start off as a sort of diary of his in early March. then trancend into him writing about Henry and Delilah, perhaps they were part of his clipboard notes we find earlier of complete transcriptions ... Henry even mentions that he must have had a lot of time on his hands after looking at his workbench of constructing/deconstructing radio sets

[stee1rat]

Yeah, I am kind of dissapointed too. When he was struck by a bee I though maybe it was some experiemntal secret weapon and then he'd be able to find the research facility full of them.. Another question is why would you have an option to keep all these notes and documents and tequilla? The photos - I get it, is for the end titles.. But why keeping all this stuff?

[Milty]

X-files already did that ;)

[BigBlueElephant]

1) Research station is explained by D in one of the quick chats. Its legit and built by scientists.

2)Ned just planted documents in the station to make H&D even more paranoid and allow them to think there are some experiments carried on them.

3)Ned was scared that Henry could discoverd what happens to his son and try to blackmail H&D by recording them.He stops to care at the end of story.

[stee1rat]

Exactly, the X-Files was the first thing that came to my mind after that bee accident :)

[Milty]

It's not like Ned tried to cover it up for any of the other Rangers though. He had the key to the caves rigged to an alarm and Henry only finds out about the key because the tracking device was given a reciever that was turned on the next day (since it doesn't go off when Henry goes back to the tower after the camp) ...

[Timman24]

The research station was just a run of the mill botany lab. Delilah even mentions that they come out and set up those camps from time to time in a dialog as you approach the first time. Ned borrowed a bunch of equipment from the tent because the scientists were gone until mid August (it says that on a letter in Ned's hideout.) Ned was listening to them because he was paranoid that they would figure out that he was there. He was likely the one that stole the missing key from the rangers to open the caverns. He first noticed Henry sniffing around the caves during Day 1, he was the man with the flashlight. That caused him to be paranoid and start spying on Henry and Delilah.

[Nano]

If he didn't want anyone to find out about his son, then he could have just done nothing. Instead, he left a backpack with a key to the cave so that Henry could find it.

[PvtHopscotch]

Originally posted by Piro:

If he didn't want anyone to find out about his son, then he could have just done nothing. Instead, he left a backpack with a key to the cave so that Henry could find it.

A letter in his bunker mentions that you weren't meant to find it, that it was actually his emergency supplies. Ned didn't anticipate Henry taking the tracking device from the camp nor that his rigged alarm would show up on it.

[veryinky]

The tracking device actually does track deer (tracking collars), you can use it to find one deer after the kid's fort. Climb down the rope from the fort and head right and climb the hillinstead of left to go to the cave. There's a dead deer with a tracking collar.

[Musouka]

Originally posted by Space Attorney:

The firefighters, if I remember correctly, did their controlled burn to keep the fire from getting to your lookout tower.

I don't know much about the research station, but I don't think it's ever said that he built it. He was ex-Army or something, so he'd have known how to operate/repurpose whatever was there, but there's still the question of why Delilah never knew about it if it had been there for so long.

While I'm at it, can anyone explain Ned's motives for screwing with Henry and Delilah? He mentions that he was worried they were too close to the cave, but that doesn't really explain why he threatens to frame them for arson, or why he then decides to lead Henry to the body. For most of the third act, I got the impression that there was one person (or group) trying to frame Henry as a coverup, and a second party trying to help him uncover it. Finding out that they were the same person was... well, I still haven't figured it out, is all.

In the last cassette he gices to Henry, Ned explains that at some point after he hides in the forest, he runs out of books to read, so he starts spying on Delilah (remember her saying she dound the door of her tower open one morning?), then Henry came along and in his first day he's already doing rounds by the lake and finds the cave. I guess Ned's mix of paranoia and prolonged isoletion get the best of him and he tries to spook Henry out of his job. When that fails, he tries to scare Henry with the girls' fake thread of calling the cops. When all fails, he starts using the abandaned research facility to try to make them believe someone's after them. Making them look like guilty of arson of a government facility is his last resort before giving in.