[SPOILERS] I don't get the ending at all... [SPOILERS]

[AVtechNICK]

Could you please explain what exactly happens in the end? Was Carl dead all along and everything was just in June's mind? Or Carl actually traveled back in time and died instead of June? I'm so confused right now...

[Darqflame]

It would be great if you use the spoiler tags in your post as well :)

[Axion]

Well there is one thing I don't get Why didn't they both just wait in the car, until it stopped raining. What was the hurry to get back? Or wouldn't it have made a difference because no matter what the universe would fight back and find some way of killing her?

[In3rtiC]

Well, as you could see Carl found a sketch book of June. She already was in his situation and tried to save him and she did.. with the cost of her life. So, in very beginning of the game, she already knew what is going to happen.
Carl realized that it is never ending loop, he or she must die no matter what he do. He choose sacrifice himself.
One life in trade of two, as we see she gave life to a child.
Also, in the "ghost memories" we can see, that the child is actually died after a birth. This is again, no matter what he or she do, someone must die.
I may be wrong, but thats how it looked for me.

[ElusiveOne]

I thought the ghost memories of the lost child were from other alternate timelines we didn't get to experience as the player, such as the one where June is in a wheelchair. The child is clearly not dead in the final (true?) ending. Did you stay for the epilogue after the credits? You see June hugging Carl Jr who must now be something like 4 or 5 years old, looking remarkably like his father.

It's a very touching story.

[In3rtiC]

Yep, i saw Carl junior. The biggest question is.. whats in the box? )

[AshenDreams]

I thought that the memories of pregnancy were from a previous pregnancy that was lost either before the baby was born or after. June crying in the wheelchair could have been from just after losing that first baby. I reasoned that that was why she was making a big deal out of telling Carl about this second pregnancy. Also with the memories of him gifting her a paint brush set, she seemed down and so I thought the sequence of events must be that she lost a pregnancy, grew depressed and Carl helped invigorate her will to live by gifting her a paintbrush set and helping her paint things within the town.

Also I don't think it would have mattered much if they waited or not as I figured the point of the story was that the past can't be changed and part of dealing with loss is learning to accept it.
For June that meant not going over and over again in her head how she could have changed things and saved Carl.

[IsaeK]

This is what I thought about this gameOur dude was dead in the first place and all that he did was just part of his, like, the way to relief

[Rack]

My interpretation was different and the achievements seem to bear it out.


At the start of the game June crashes the car and Carl dies. Everything that follows is her coming to terms with it. The game seems to follow the Kubler Ross model which is why the final prompt you get is "Accept". You need to accept that Carl is dead and there's nothing that can be done about it. The penultimate achievement "Wait for it" has the subheading "Accepted the truth." In addition the last crash achievement is "Prevented the crash caused by June" but you get this BEFORE it's revealed June was driving.

This is also indicated by the increasingly circuitous ways it is impossible to prevent the crash. All that really should have been necessary was to speed up or slow down the boy's actions, even just a little, but instead it was like there was some malevolent force demanding it to happen. That's not really consistent with reality but it is consistent with the mindset of someone who is recently bereaved.

[Jakaris]

Thanks this post help me saw some different angles about his story.

[horiami]

well , if carl was dead from the beginig why did he had a wheelechair elevator in his house ?, why did he changed seats with June ? how could June predict everything and write it in her journal , i like to belive that she had the option to sacrifice herself for carl , it is hard to belive she made it all up as a way to cope with his death

[Rack]

The wheelchair detail does seem inconsistent, but that cuts both ways. When June was the only survivor she wasn't wheelchair bound. I think the game needs to put the player in a wheelchair to keep them from going upstairs and to give them a tengible sense of loss. Overall though this does undercut the theory.

I think them changing seats is just one of those random details. It's possible June was a better driver and he didn't feel comfortable driving in the rain.

There was really nothing to predict in the journal, as everything was playing out in June's head. She couldn't save Carl's life because people can't trael through time, but the different events were her making sense of it. For the diary to coexist with Carl June would have had to have survived in the original timeline. It's just making it clear she couldn't sacrifice herself to save him because he'd sacrifice himself to save her.

If you find it hard to believe she made it all up that's fine, but it's also hard to believe it literally happened. Time travel isn't possible and if it was then there needs to be a reason why there was no way to prevent the car crash. That does leave the core message which is what gets backed up by the achievements.

June caused the crash in the first timeline.
Carl died in the first timeline.
It was impossible to save Carl's life..

[Diogo]

If the child in the epilogue is from a second pregnancy, the wheelchair bit becomes consistent, I suppose. June was in a wheelchair after the miscarriage, as shown in one the "ghost memories". So the elevator may have been installed then, I suppose.

[Frozenfire]

I think it was all June trying to imagine an alternative scenario. Three reasons:
1. June's screams every time you complete Old man's part (got Goosebumps when they started)
2. The way all the outcome cards got scratched out implied something was wrong. When the world collapse started, I thought we're going to have 'collapsing reality' plot line
3. But then, we see June's journal. To me, that was enough evidence to confirm my theory. The above points really made sense then. Plus, as another person here noted, the Achievements imply the same

[Pulgoso]

I just finished this game, and, well... I truly believe you guys must stop thinking about hard sci-fi alternative timelines or scientifically accurate mental illnesses and start thinking about magical realism this time.

[brandonmiller355]

"Any philosophy that accepts death must itself be considered dead, it's questions meaningless, it's consolations worn out" -Alan Harrington