Why Chapter 5 is so disappointing. [SPOILERS]

[DarkSkull198]

(TL;DR at the bottom if you don't want to read all of this)

So the Chapter begins with Henry in jail. Allison Angel wants to let Henry out, but Tom doesn't trust him. Allison gives Henry a tool that lets him see hidden messages on the walls that seem to know everything that happens and will happen (how this tool was made and where it came from is unknown). When Bendy shows up near their safe house, Allison and Tom leave Henry behind, but with the help of the hidden messages, Henry also escapes. Henry drives a boat while avoiding a giant Bendy hand trying to grab him and goes to the Lost Ones village. Sammy shows up (more insane than before) and tries to kill him but gets killed by Tom. That's it. No build up and no explanation. Sammy is just....there. Tom finally trusts Henry and the three fight off the Searchers and Lost Ones that attacked over Sammy's death. They proceed to the next area, but Henry gets separated from the two and lands in a place with a vault and a tedious stealth objective. We learn more about Ink Bendy and how he was the first, failed and only attempt at bringing Bendy to life due to him being soulless. Once he opened the vault, Allison and Tom meet up with Henry again and they discover that Bendy has something that they need to defeat him. They go to his lair, which is a giant Ink Machine, and Henry goes inside since he's the only one that can defeat Ink Bendy. An audio tape from Joey tells him that the only way to stop Bendy is to show him "The End", which is on a reel. Ink Bendy confronts Henry and transforms into a hulking monster known as Beast Bendy. After a not-so epic "boss fight", Henry plays the movie reel and destroys Bendy...

...and then we end up in Joey's Apartment. We see a letter from Wally Franks, a letter from Allison Connor (she married Tom), a calendar that changes the date each playthrough and a drawing board with sketches of the ink monsters and Bendy. In a cutscene that contradicts the beginning of the game, we meet Joey Drew for the first time. He asks Henry about what they are and tells Henry that he made bad decisions that Henry would usually prevent, Henry having a loving family while Joey had a crooked empire. Joey tells Henry that he should've pushed him harder to do the right thing and invites Henry to the studio in order to show him something, which leads to the beginning of the game. After the credits, we hear a little kid saying "tell me another one Uncle Joey", implying that the whole game was just a story. The end. No resolution with Henry and the others, no questions answered like "who boarded up the Ink Machine room", nothing. Man, what a disappointment.

"But wait DarkSkull, you can now use the seeing tool in the previous chapters after completing Chapter 5, so surely there must be some secrets for a hidden ending, right?"

Here's the problem with that: the hidden messages don't give us much information other than Susie, Bertrum, Lacie, Grant and Norman having coffins and being dead (something we've known before Chapter 5), and they imply that Henry is stuck in some sort of time loop and he was the one who wrote those messages, but forgets everything each time it resets. Either way, both possibilities show that this whole thing was completely pointless since it's either an illogical infinite loop with no clear solution or a horror story that Joey told. Everything we know and experienced is utterly meaningless.

Henry trying to escape the studio? Pointless.

Henry's friendship with Boris? Pointless.

Henry trying and failing to save Boris? Pointless.

All of that information and plot from the other characters? Pointless.

All the lives Joey ruined? Pointless.

Bendy's fight with the Projectionist and sparing Henry's life in Chapter 4? Pointless.

The horror visions Henry had? Pointless.

The after-credits images? Pointless.

Henry talking about his wife and how he misses both her and Boris? You already know what I'm going to say.

So in the end, nothing was gained and nothing was lost because none of it apparently mattered.

tl;dr: Overall, Chapter 5 feels rushed, short and the ending is a complete mess compared to previous chapters, which is weird because it was delayed until the 26th of October, which makes me wonder if it would've been worse if it originally released on the 12th. Then again, maybe it was a bad idea to work on the Chapter while developing Chapter 4.

[Fierce1]

Originally posted by Ink Halloyeen:

I think everyone is taking the game a litle too literally. And that's why everyone is so disappointed. I think I understand the real meaning of the game....and it's honestly flooring me. Still working some things out, but I think I understand, for the most part. Look beyond what your eyes are telling you and maybe you guys can see what's really going on.

Enlighten us.

Also... Just throwing this idea out there.
-Henry walks down a hallway, through the large doorway at the end he sees a bizarre looking chair, akin to a throne atop a mound of ink. There are what appears to be mangled limbs and various objects, projectors, film reels, and even part of Boris' head and a bendy cutout are stuck in the goop. Henry notices a tape recorder. He presses play.
Yadda yadda same message as the game's one. Yadda Yadda. Only THIS time.
-Ink Bendy drops down onto the throne. Ink immediately begins pulsating around Henry on the walls and drips from the ceiling. As the message finishes, Henry holds "The End" in his hands tightly. Inky Bendy reaches forward, but Henry backs away and Bendy stumbles forward. It's clear that Henry won't hand it over. Ink Bendy begins to twitch and spasm uncontrollably, the grin on its face remains but is clearly straining, until suddenly "CRASH!" The Ink Demon uses his gloved hand to shatter its own mouth, breaking his teeth and causing them to fragment into razor sharp fangs. From its newly opened "mouth" the ink demon unleashes a horrific SCREAM! It continues to move and twitch and spasm seemingly out of control as it makes a mad dash at Henry, slamming him through a wall before running off...
----Then the boss battle plays out.----
-Henry returns to the throne and places "The End" in the projector reel. As it flips on, Inky Bendy comes dashing down the hall, jaws open hands reaching like razor claws ready to rip Henry to shreds, but as he leaps forward, the projectors activate and shine a strange light on him, this stuns him. Henry quickly turns each of the projectors to point at Bendy, as he is engulfed in more and more light, the words "The END" begin flashing all over him. It almost looks as though the ink demon is burning or boiling. The ink that WAS pulsating all around and dripping down begins to draw toward Bendy and shroud him, he continues to writhe and scream in pain as more and more ink is seemingly drawn into the room and concentrated onto himself. The projectors continue to beam the words "THE END" onto Bendy.
-We see glimpses of various monsters, puddles, and beings around the studio as the ink melts off of them, sinks into the floor and is drawn back to the machine where it too is drawn to Bendy. From that we see the former employees' humanity restored. "We're saved! We've been FREED!" They begin to cry out in joy all across the studio.
---As the last of the ink is drawn onto Inky Bendy a bright flash of light from all combined projections completely fills the chamber and Henry is forced to cover his eyes.
-Silence-
When Henry opens his eyes he sees a perfect statue of cartoon Bendy with its arm up as though waving goodbye at him. Henry wonders if he should take the statue with him when suddenly he hears loud clangs and bangs as though the entire studio is collapsing around him, in truth, it was mostly the ink machine inner workings collapsing from the ink having been all drawn into the gears earlier so that the machine was collapsing in on itself, and seeing as the machine's pipes ran all over the studio...
"Time to go". Henry dashes out to see the now-human versions of Tom and Allison still waiting for him, they begin to dash out of the studio as it collapses, helping any of the other employees they encounter so that as many of them make it out as possible.
Henry is the last one out as the studio building finally falls in on itself. Looking back, Henry says "Goodbye. Bendy..."

^
THAT was the ending I think we wanted.

[Pumpkin Potion]

Originally posted by ElateKitty:

It doesn't matter whether we're seeing this realistically or not. The game presented a narrative to the player. It should at least conclude that narrative semi-clearly. We can only gather clues about the narrative from what's presented in-game, not from anything outside of it, so I don't understand how taking information from what's presented in game leads us to a false conclusion.

This right here; Kitty gets it.

I could go through and discuss the 'deeper meaning' and jump down the long rabbit hole of "what it truly means"; is Henry dead and is this a personification of his regrets in the after life? Doomed to relive his involvement with Joey Drew Studios as a punishment for his sins? Is 'Bendy' the representation of his unfinished business? What actually is 'Joey Drew Studios'?

...It's not that deep, fam.
You're looking way too hard into this.

Even if you look at this ridiculous 'looping' concept, there's so many unresolved holes with the narrative and storytelling that make absolutely no sense, even if I chose to remove the 'realism'.

When we first play Chapter One, we have no knowledge of this looking glass that allows you to see writing on the wall and in fact, we have no knowledge that the writing is even there to begin with. Henry has no clue; which implies that every time he's gone through the loop, he doesn't remember what happened during the last trip.

So if that's true, and he's supposedly been through the loop hundreds of times-- I would love an explanation of why this one particular time through, he suddenly has the looking glass with him when we didn't at the original start of Chapter One.

Or that all of the previous times that the loop 'reset', he somehow miraculously remembered to scratch a tally on the wall and look at it-- yet simultaneously wouldn't know the tallies were there as a result of the same reset. You can't remember to put a tally on the wall if you don't remember the fact that you've been through the hallway before. Psychologically this is borked.

That is a glaringly, unavoidable plot issue and that level of writing is inexcusable-- even moreso if Meatly had this written from beginning to end before the game's development and didn't recognize that problem.

[Talon]

Also like to know why only Henry can see the writing, such as the number count, why would he forget the loop and what hes been through this time yet the past 50 or whatever time he added to it? did he have the seeing item? what is he using to write the messages. If he knows he is looping why not do anything different?

You can see a door he drew to where Bendy drags Norman off, would of been nice if stuff like that wasa new path to find items to trigger a different ending.

Over all the looping makes no sense, it is interesting don't get me wrong like he is stuck in his own cartoon that has no ending so he cannot escape but was kinda given to us wrong is the word? It gave us so many plot holes if anything that are hidden as questions we wont get the answer to.

I am worried Meatly will make a 2nd game, which I do not mind! but I remember him saying he would never do that, I just hope he doesn't do the Scott route and make game after game, say it was planned when really just riding off fan theories to keep the money rolling. I am sure he won't and look forward to a 2nd game if that is the way he wants to go as there is a lot he can do in the 2nd game of course which hopefully will answer stuff and not just more questions.

Shame we never got to see actual innocent Bendy like the cartoons, sucks we got stuck with Ink Bendy which I don't mind but not when he turns into every cliche strong-boss transformation ending and looks like the monsters from Scooby Doo Island! Though nice teeth.

[ashleyy69]

I exactly agree, they only leave the theorists to make a ''Good'' story and then just go off and write things that they didn't put effort into, 'Oh look a jumpscare, that'll be cool'', ''Sammy's back, what a twist that's quite cool'', people like the game and say ''Wow! Bendy's backstory is so nicely written!'' beacuse the theorists make the story, not the developers.

[LetsGoToWalmart]

This is one of the things I hate, but love.
Bendy does it so sh!t, but so good at the same time.