Backbone Ending Explained *Spoilers*

[praguepride]

This isn't meant to defend the ending but to help put it into context.

Origins: It is implied that all the animal species are either mutations of humans or animals that humans experimented on. You see a human skull in the biochem lab and he talks about it as if it is some ancient ancestor which combined with the artifact makes me think that all the Kind are actually what is left of humanity.

Judging by the condition outside the wall and the ruined cities, humanity blew itself up somehow although the wars might have been more recent. In one of the dialogues it mentions that the war/wall were a few generations past but that might also just be a common myth, each generation being told it was just a little while ago when it may have been thousands of years.

Short Story: The key to understanding this game, in my opinion, is the title itself: Backbone. You have three characters that have all made choices out of fear and comfort all deciding to stand up for themselves. You primarily follow Howard, a self-professed coward who chose to do low-key work like track cheating spouses rather then actually commit his skills to the police force or apply in any other way. There are frequent dialogue options where you can try to just run away from the problem but he keeps dragging himself back into place to try and make a difference.

For Renee she was always on the fence. She wanted to do rabble rousing and really make a difference but the failure of her first book made her fall into safe and secure work. While she was pursuing Clarissa and the Apes on her personal time the message on her corkboard about the chapter implies that she isn't fully committed to uncovering the truth and that comes into play in the final conversation she has with her boss.

For Clarissa it's a bit more of a stretch and IF you believe her final talk with Renee it is about standing up for all the Kind against their current hierarchies. Women and "lesser" Kind alike are being trampled on and everyone is told that beyond the wall is nothing but death so they should lead safe and comfortable lives under the thumb of the Apes..

While the game is very short and withholds a lot of details from the perspective that it details a point where three different people all showed backbone, so to speak, it does tell a complete story. Again I am not here to say whether it is good or bad but to just point out that a lot of reviews seem to misunderstand that.

By all means critique the game for being too short, for the genre shifts, for writing or characters or game mechanics but just because the story is short does not make it incomplete. It just doesn't follow a traditional story structure.

[SkullTrauma]

[unclesporky]

Sorry, I don't feel like this explains or properly contextualizes anything. Everything you say is already apparent in the game, and then you conclude by saying "everyone showed some sort of backbone, therefore complete story." I don't think that necessarily follows.

[Roy Calbeck]

I'm figuring it's a century or so since the bombs dropped, being as that the Steam Clock was built in 1977 and is a Vancouver heritage site. It actually runs on the downtown-wide steam-heating distribution system, meaning that and the plant which supplies it must be intact. These may have been refurbished, of course. Also, the Science Center is actually the Hotel Vancouver, both on basis of the building's unique design and its unique Pegasus gargoyle, which is also a well-known Vancouver landmark.

So it's been a few generations but we're not talking a thousand years or anything like that.

Regarding your discussion of themes, yes, it would fit the theme of the title if these characters "displayed backbone" (particularly Howard ha-ha not actually funny), but every story has a theme including incomplete or badly-written ones.

You touch on the latter even as regards the theme by noting that we can't necessarily believe Clarissa's take. We certainly can't, as regards anti-Kind bigotry, because she herself embraces it to keep certain Kinds out of The Bite. It's almost as difficult to credit her argument about the specialized oppression of women, and women having to literally kill to get any power or comfort, because we see throughout the game that isn't real. Not in post-apoc Vancouver, anyway.

Renee's motivation revolves around class warfare, and is painted up by opposition to the cannibal ring, which she asserts as targeting the poor on behalf of the rich. She additionally says it's because no one will miss them. Problem with that view being that the poor are actually excluded from The Bite and therefore from being cannibalized. Instead, the middle classes are getting it in the neck.

So as far as anyone can tell, these people are standing up against oppressions that either may not exist at all or are being misidentified. Which actually detracts from the theme.

[praguepride]

I agree there are a lot of critiques to be made and it does feel like budget/scope hit them hard. The prologue was amazing with its varied approaches and interesting puzzles and all of that was dropped for the remainder of the game. Getting to play as Clarissa convincing Renee was a very interesting take and reminded me of Farenheit when you play as the serial killer hiding evidence AND the cop uncovering it so you, the player, get to decide how competent each one was. That being said throwing it in right at the epilogue was an interesting choice. It makes it feel like the game was intended to have a lot longer story where you get to pick up Renee/Clarissa to fill in Howard's gap but then it just ends.

I think my conclusion is that it tells a complete story but it has a lot of hints towards a much better story that went untold.

[Stardust]

Well, this attempt to fill in a lot of plot details that were missing from the actual game would work if the story had some actual focus.

[irleman]

They are literally furries. Humanity finally got the power to go all-way through with it and - as any sane person would have expected - furries ruined the world. That's the origin of the Backbone characters.

Plus, Howard isn't a coward. Cowards don't sneak around slaughterhouses and top-security government buildings and penthouses and the slums. Little fella is brave af. Renee isn't really coward either - in fact, she is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ since she does ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ during the game. Don't get me started on Clarissa. She literally planned and executed the murder of several people to feed the rich. She didn't need that ♥♥♥♥, she clearly already had blackmail material on pretty much everyone in power.

[Monster]

I have not heard anyone talk about the fact that on the terminal at the place that Howard is being tested it mentions research day 3000 and something and talks about how not many of us are left? Implying time travel?!?

[desando.a.r]

at the park we can see a figure without tail simbol, signifies the existence of humans before.
i think artifact are the remaining human-forming components, the mammals evolve, the lizard and bird are next.
talk about the ending. at first, I thught Howard turned into a raccoon literally, like some backward evolution or something. but it seem like his body is forced to evolve with the artifact and then explode. maybe he is dead maybe he is not.
the new backbone is gonna be a prequel. if it about Howard, i think the prequel will have a better ending, but it can still be sad.

[praguepride]

The "there's not many of us left" I think refers to the human researchers dying off or evolving into Kind.

[badfluffy]

Originally posted by praguepride:

it details a point where three different people all showed backbone, so to speak, it does tell a complete story.

How is showing "three different people" doing whatever relates to the title "telling a story"?

[praguepride]

You've never heard of an antholgY? A collection of short stories linked through a common theme.

[Space is the Place]

Originally posted by praguepride:

You've never heard of an antholgY? A collection of short stories linked through a common theme.

That´s really reaching honestly, an anthology? What other short stories where here other than Howard´s? You control Clarissa during one conversation and the same for Rene, you don´t control 3 different characters in 3 different stories, which it´s what it would need to happen for this to be consider an anthology.

Also, neither your OP or the suggestion this was an anthology excuses bad writting, and this game is filled with bad writting. No matter how many clues you think the game provides that everyone is a mutant (it doesn´t, I don´t know where you get all that just because there was a human skull in the ending, by the way, notice how the skull appears already in the final acts, which is what people have an issue. People are not criticizing the ending, people are critizicing a complete 180º shift on the story that comes out of nowhere, it has no build up, and what´s worst it ditches the previous story which was good for a new one that is trash.

The only mystery about this game is how anyone could have giving it a positive review. You can like it the same way I like bad B movies, but a bad narrative is a bad narrative, and any teacher in literature will tell you how stupid is to change the themes and story of your detective mystery midway. Romeo and Juliet doesn´t change into a space opera, Robin Williams doesn´t get superpowers at the end of Good Morning Vietnam, and the characters of A Clockwork Orange do not transform into a band of frog mariachis in the final act.

TL;DR no amount of words will change a bad story poorly writen, this is a bad story poorly wirten, deal with it.

[BruisedLee]

♥♥♥♥ it I liked this game--the art, the characters. The shift was definitely strange but it didn't completely detract from my enjoyment. I've played a lot of P&C games with rote stories but when the shift happened all I could think of was, "okayyy, where the ♥♥♥♥ is this going?" Sometimes, I just need to be surprised and this game did it. For better or worse :)

[wcc]

The shift was more than welcome. The more it became like "oh my gosh, the Science minister's involved, and the president, and there's a secret cult amongst the elites", the more it got me yawning. A bit more foreshadowing would have helped - weird hybrid mutations found on the streets, some stories about genetic meltdowns in the past, a strange excavation operation by the Science ministery ppls. are talking about. Without that, it felt a bit random.

[Nickhilist]

I know its old thread, but as I recently had the pleasure of playing the game, I wanted to add few things to this discussion. However be mindful that those are just my personal opinions, and of course I respects everyone's right to a different opinion and to disagreeing with my interpretations, as those are interpretations trough "my eyes" my perspective and are very much subjective to me.

So I will say that similarly to the OP I would agree the story to be a complete narrative and now defying the general sentiment on a personal level I liked the ending.

Here's why: the game themes are somewhat philosophical, specially as it relate to Identity. And as someone that studied the topic in depth on academical level, it hit me hard on very emotional and personal level, as the questions of Identity of the self is very difficult one, and I myself often wonder why did I get to a point where I am. Also the question of whether or not choices matter is very faintly contextually present, but since our (player choices) it gives a strong feeling of "predestination", but also while events are viewed as predetermined dialogue options and interactions would give us different emotional reactions, so while narrative stays intact the feelings associated differ.

The story structure imo doesn't change genre abruptly it evolves based on what Howard and Reene and by association you the player learn. And its noir core remains throughout, even if it introduces and re-focuses element akin to sci-fi and horror. I feel that from the moment conspiratorial element is introduces it allows the story to go in that direction.

Originally posted by irleman:

They are literally furries. Humanity finally got the power to go all-way through with it and - as any sane person would have expected - furries ruined the world.

While the description is somewhat accurate deduction of events, is it really justified to blame them for ruining the world? I seem to be more akin to a different version of events, lets now say hypothetically that humans would have this kind of tech to make themselves into anthropomorphic animals, and leave in a settings that is walled off. This leaves a question why was it walled off in a first place. I think that given how we the humans are struggling to work with one another in peace is this a stretch to say that most likely normal people wouldn't want to live with "anthromutants" and so the city was made for them walled off from rest of the world so that they could live in peace. I strongly believe its the "normal men" that destroyed civilization and well the animal kinds are all that is left from humanity.

Now also the ending yes it is unsatisfying but so is many things in life not everything ends with a neatly wrapped narrative, sometimes things just end, ex. I spend three years studying at university with high aspirations that things will change and get better, and like half a year of hard work working on final paper, that I thought would be great, but the reception from my friends and family was mid, and I didn't even get its final chapter approved yet. Similarly maybe more relatable example is exactly what happens in game, you don't know when you are going to die, when your story will end, for many people it will end abruptly with many unresolved things. Inevibility and uncertanity of death are what have driven culture and philosophy, "to be or not to be", the final unknown, that leaves us in grief when someone close to us is gone.

The ending is unsatisfactory because it was suppose to be - the themes explored troughout those of identity, change and freewill are brought to their natural albeit depressing conclusion. The characters strives to make a positive difference in a world and yet, they get hurt, and studs quo shifts slightly in favor of Clarissa but is by an large maintained.