What an amazing game. (Game ending discussion) [heavy spoilers]

[Uldra]

I just finished the game, took me about 150 hours to finish, pretty sure I completed 90% of the game.

Just wondering what other endings are there?
I got the ending where I had to kill the black guardian and then flee with my companion to the star city.

Figured since the cleansing already happened and felt like destroying the beacon and dying in the process is exactly what the high ones would want because I kill the only thing that could possibly stop them (already has some insight of whats going on)

Still ... I have this feeling that this whole game just plays in your mind and in reality your just split seconds away from dying on the ocean floor and the fact you're supposed to be a undead is just a way for your mind to believe that you get to live forever.

So in that sense with the ending I chose I chose to be inside the illusion forever, where sacrificing yourself means you finally rest.

Thoughts & comments?

PS: I can obviously be absolutely wrong but ether way, one of the best games I played in a very long time. Really shows what developers can do when they are not pushed by dead lines
and corporations.

[Sidian]

Afaik, there are three endings. The Ending where you escape into the sky, the ending where you die to shut down the beacon and the ending where you shut down the beacon and survive with your companion but cannot be sure if you really survived or if you just created a dream world for you to live in.

[DarrkPhoenix]

There are three possible endings- two that you get the choose between and a third "secret" one that's accessed by following a series of quests through the game.

First possible ending is the one you chose, where you and your companion escape to the Star City while the Cleansing wipes out the rest of civilization, with the hope that in the next round of the Cycle you'll be able to guide humanity on a better path so that the High Ones can't manipulate them.

Second possible ending is that you have your companion escape by myrad while you go to destroy the Beacon, with the resulting explosion killing you and destroying the continent of Enderal. After the destruction of the Beacon you find yourself back in the dream environment (where you normally meet your father), but this time there are graves for all the members of your family there. The scene then slowly fades while your companion provides narration that your sacrifice has provided the rest of humanity with a chance to re-evaluate their actions, and possibly have another chance to fight against and destroy the High Ones, but still only a chance with nothing guaranteed.

The third "secret" ending (introduced in Forgotten Stories) requires you to follow a series of quests that lets you create a Dreamflower Elixir. There are stories that this Elixir greatly increases the power of whoever drinks it, but Yuslan also warns you that these stories are false and the elixir just puts a person into a coma where they dream the reality that they want. If you drink the elixir and then destroy the Beacon you again end up in the dream environment similar to the previous ending, but a more nightmarish version of it. You then wake up with your companion who tells you that you survived the explosion and were rescued by them, and together you can continue the fight against the High Ones, although there's the lingering suspicion that Yuslan's warning about the elixir was true and you're just in a coma (starting the moment you drank the elixir) and the Cleansing is still proceeding in the real world.

My own interpretation of the different endings is based on the game basically being a deconstruction of the typical narrative of these kinds of fantasy games- in which you're playing a character that has some special quality that allows them to be the key person in averting some crisis the world faces. Enderal turns this on its head by using this belief (held simultaneously by both the player and their character) to manipulate both the player, player character, and other characters in the game onto a path that ultimately looks to bring about the very thing the player thought they were preventing (this is particularly effective from a narrative perspective because it acts on the player in the same ways both in character and out of character, so carries a lot more kick once everything is fully revealed).

The three endings give the player three different ways to respond to the reveal that they've been duped with their own desires used to manipulate them. For the Star City ending, the player can maintain the belief that they/their character is still a special existence and the only one capable of ultimately fixing things, even if it means that humanity must be sacrificed in this round of the Cycle so that the player character can help create a better humanity in the next round of Cycle (there are some hints that the Aged Man is another Fleshless that chose this path, only to find after several attempts that he still couldn't avert the Cycle and he was just continuing to be driven by his pride).

The ending to destroy the Beacon is acceptance that the overall conflict with the High Ones is not something that the player character has the power to resolve, and the most that they can do is limit the damaged they've helped to cause, while leaving an ultimate solution in the hands of other people. This also equates to a rejection of the belief that both the player and player character held up to this point, that they were a special existence that was the key to resolving the game's conflict.

The third ending with the Dreamflower elixir seems to be an even stronger take on the view that the player character is a special existence needed to resolve the game's conflict. In this ending the player not only insists that the player character must survive, but also rejects conceding this round of the Cycle to the high ones, insisting that the player character has the power to both halt the current plans of the High Ones, and also remain around to lead the fight against them. However, the ambiguity that the elixir may have just put the player character into a dreaming coma suggests that this choice is really just choosing to dive even deeper into the illusion that was used to manipulate the player and player character through the entire game.

[KiRBEY]

Deep as hell