You spend a couple dozen hours in a game that keeps hyping up the Vault. The game keeps getting bigger, funnier, more daunting as you progress... You get to a truly epic final boss who is guarding the Vault and... Then the Vault doesn't open. That's it. You beat the game. It ends. It was one of the most limp-dick experiences I have ever had playing a videogame. The boss dies, the credits roll.

You get to the mountain you have been chasing the entirety of the game. You find a companion along the way who guides you and helps you solve puzzles. You feel a sense of companionship that few games have accomplished before or since. The Journey has been long, tough and exhausting but you have had someone at your side for most of the way there. You keep going because of them - They keep going because of you.

You climb the mountain. The elements become too much to bear but you and your companion keep pushing on... Through the snow, through the blizzard. If they can keep going, so can you and you are willing one another to make it to the top of that mountain. The controller starts to feel heavy, you trudge through the snow. you know you're almost there, you know you're going to make it.

And that's when it happens. Your companion falls face-first into the snow. Your heart stops... They couldn't make it. They died, right there in front of you. Right before the destination you had been striving for. They don't move... You can't believe it... But you trudge on. you keep pushing - For them more than yourself at this point. You start to slow down, the controls stop responding. You fall in the snow and die. You don't make it to the top. Neither of you did. the screen goes black and the game ends...

Except PSYCHE! You're both alive! And you are FLYING through magnificent colors and landscapes, circling the mountain! You made it! You are free and everything is grand and you get to the top of the mountain, the peak, you enter a light... and the game starts over. You are reborn and you make the Journey again.

I understand the reasoning. I understand the theme of life and death. But to me, if you and your companion had both died, face-down in the snow, before you reached your destination - The Journey would have been more important. And that's literally the name of the game. It would have been a daring ending, and to me, it would have been more impactful. Not everything needs to be happy or magical. Sometimes you don't get to where you're going. And it's about the journey, not the destination... I wasn't just offended by the tackiness, I actually didn't have fun in those final moments. It was a very restrained experience and the last 8 or 10 minutes are such a cliched experience.

There are two endings you can choose from at the end of this game, however, I believe there is a third ending hidden in plain sight and I think the game would have been the unquestionable best game of all-time if the developers had the balls to have gone through with it.

Before I get to that, there are two official endings in E33 that you get to choose between at the climax and regardless of who you think was "right" or justified, I think both endings are very poor conclusions to the story. There are some things in the conclusion of the game that I really appreciate. For one, Renoir finally stops trying to control his family and their grief. He lets his youngest daughter make her own decision for once, finally accepting her as a young woman and an adult capable of making her own choices in life. It really is an unexpected turn for a patriarch that seemed hellbent on controlling his family, almost punishing them for the death of his sole male heir. He finally understands that you can't control how others grieve and his character is redeemed, offering a satisfying character arc that was unexpected and very human.

Maelle's ending: In Maelle's ending, you choose to save the painting and preserve the life within it. You don't end Verso's suffering, and you restore Lumiere and the entire population from before the opening Gommage and hide the painting to prevent Aline from entering it again. On paper, this is the "happy" ending. The entire cast gathers at the theatre in Lumiere to watch a solo piano performance to be performed by Verso. Everyone looks happy. But the happiness quickly makes a turn. The camera focuses on Verso, who hesitates to start playing and then on Maelle's face, the dread creeping as she hangs in the balance waiting for Verso to perform. A dissonant chord hits and we see Maelle's face crack and the game ends with the implication that all isn't as well as it seems.

I'm not going to get into the themes and interpretations of this ending because that's a huge rabbit hole. The reason I think it's an unsatisfying conclusion is because Verso, like him or not, agree with him or not, wants to die. He has made this clear - He dreads his existence and he feels like the century he has lived has been full of enough suffering for him to handle. Maelle has no issues letting Alicia choose to be erased/gommaged and she justifies why she chooses to let her end her life. So the character growth we see from Maelle gets ignored if she doesn't let Verso also make that same decision for himself. Maybe she made him mortal, maybe not. But forcing him to live an existence he doesn't want and worse yet, to perform for everyone and pretend as if everything is okay kind of undoes her character development over the course of the game.

Verso's Ending: In Verso's ending, he chooses to completely erase the painting and everyone within it. He thinks that by destroying the painting, it will prevent Aline's suffering and allow her to move on and let go of her son. She is essentially killing herself slowly by staying within the painting and he believes that this one person is more important than literally all of the people in the painting. The people he has spent the duration of the game with. Getting to know them, moving on from his past, all of that - Doesn't matter. He hates his existence, he sees his mother suffering and he chooses to end all of it. The beautiful, fascinating world of the painting isn't as important as his suffering and his family's grief.

It is such a slap in the face to the player. Verso isn't a very likable character. He basically lets Gustave die, he murdered his lover and an entire expedition, he abandons his friends, he has an Oedipal suicide complex and he is self-absorbed and selfish. However, we play as Verso. We see his character development as we play as Verso. Wherever I thought he was going as a character, however much I thought he grew over the course of the game, all of that gets thrown out in the end. Everyone has to die. Everyone. And he's shortsighted in thinking that destroying the painting could end his mother's suffering - People will grieve how they must and she could just as easily kill herself now that it's gone.

Not to mention, he doesn't care about Alicia/Maelle's feelings. He doesn't comprehend that she is terribly scarred in the world outside the painting. She is mute, alone and isolated. The painting offers her a second chance at the life that was taken from her in the fire.

Now, this is ultimately why I think both of these endings are bad...

The REAL ending: To me, the developers had a perfect ending to this game. They even put it in the game. At the end of Act III, after defeating The Paintress, we go back to Lumiere. Everyone is celebrating their victory - The first Expedition to defeat The Paintress. Verso sits at the docks and opens a letter that was given to him by Alicia, his sister. She divulges information that the player wasn't aware of and gives him the choice to tell his companions or withhold the terrible truth - When The Paintress dies, the Curator will perform a final Gommage, erasing everyone in the Painting. We panic as the camera pans back to the denizens of Lumiere, celebrating, happy, free... And everyone gommages. Before we have time to process the information, everyone is gone, the game ends and the screen turns to black...

Except it doesn't. We get an Epilogue and a Final Act that is such a stark contrast to the events of the preceding game that I really wonder if the developers were forced to add it. We have plot points introduced that completely change the implications of the game and leave too many questions, introduce too many variables.

We go from what would have been one of the absolute most bold endings to a videogame, movie, book or any story - to two polarizing, unsatisfying conclusions that created a discourse that distracts from the game itself. I was very disappointed that they pulled such a bold move only to psyche us out.

Instead of holy shit, everyone gomagged at the end... We have Maelle copium vs. Verso stanning and arguments over who was right and why... And whether or not one ending is canon, what the lore means, etc... It really takes away from the story and themes of the game and as a player, I don't need a choice in the last 10 minutes of the game like that. I need the developers to conclude the story in a satisfying way that fits the narrative.