Returnal - Explaining The Entire Story

return all has one of the deepest yet most confusing stories of any game to date i stated in my review for the game that the story wasn't exactly a strong point but after a few more hours of playing finding new tidbits of lore and even doing some research outside of the game i pieced together the entire story of eternal along with what everything means needless to say once i understood what was happening it really made me appreciate the game more and i'm hoping that once you hear what i have to say you will also have a better understanding and appreciation for it as well and without any further delay let's get into it okay so right off the bat i'm just going to tell you the entire game of eternal takes place in celine's head and everything that she experiences is a comparison to how she is dealing with grief after going through a traumatic experience the first ending you get in return after you defeated the final boss ophion is pretty cryptic celine wanders lower into the depths of an abyss and she sees a car not being able to open it or see inside she walks past it and discovers this giant rick and morty face monster that she's seen before moments after she's died she asked it if it's the being who brought her here then the screen goes to black and we're met with a new scene that shows what appears to be celine driving with her child helios down a dark road late at night for those of you who may not be paying attention during the scene where you play as the child if you actually go back up to its room the door will slam in your face and you'll see the name helios posted on the child's bedroom door therefore confirming that the child's name is in fact helios celine changes the radio station and this momentary distraction turns into chaos when she looks up and sees an astronaut in the middle of the road she veers to avoid him and runs the vehicle off the side of the bridge while underwater celine catches a glimpse of that creepy rick and morty monster from earlier and quickly turns around and reaches for her child in an attempt to get them out however for whatever reason whether she was pulled or swam away to save herself she is unsuccessful in saving her child and shortly after the credits roll now after this celine returns to atropos like she's been doing and if the player decides to go to the house you will discover that the basement that has been blocked off previously can now be entered celine goes down there and discovers a wheelchair which i will explain a little bit further along mutter some dialogue and like before she wakes up outside of the house only this time she comes to the conclusion that she wants to burn the memory of the place down the player is then tasked with collecting six sun-faced stone fragments one in each biome and upon completion of this task she places all the pieces together to create a car key celine is then forced to go back into the underwater abyss to fight ophion again and upon her success she makes her way back to that car that was there previously only this time she's able to open the door at this point the ending changes and celine is met by this creepy woman-like creature in a wheelchair much like the one we saw in the house earlier the creature speaks and its name turns out to be thea which for those who took the time to read will know that theo was celine's mother who she seemed to have a pretty rocky relationship with the scene changes yet again and the revelation is made that celine herself was the one in the astronaut costume who caused the car crash that inadvertently caused the death of her child the final clip goes back into the perspective of the celine who was driving and we see her make her way up to the surface of the water before the screen turns to black and we hear her gas for air and say the name helios before the game officially ends so that's a lot of information to process without any real finite answers so let's get into what everything means like i said earlier this game relies heavily on symbolism and reading between the lines the first thing i need to mention is that celine's character is actually greek american which is made clear in the game and some of the lore and literally everything in return has some form of greek name or meaning looking into some greek mythology i found some interesting comparisons that shed a whole new light on the game so here we go to start in greek mythology celine was the goddess of the moon likewise and in the mythology her brother was helios the god of the sun celine's mother in mythology was thea just like she was in the game and her father was actually hyperion who for those that don't remember was the boss celine fought who was playing the organ like my boy davey jones from pirates of the caribbean then we have the five bosses of the game who all have names for mythology as well there is the first boss freyk i believe that's how you pronounce it who is the spirit of horror then we have ixion who was basically just a really bad dude that tried to sleep with zeus's wife which didn't work out all that well for him he's actually considered by many to be the father of the half horse half human hybrids that we know as centaurs then we have nemesis who is the goddess of retribution and revenge i already mentioned hyperion and lastly there is ophion who's the final boss the titan god of the earth and whose name translates to serpent which is pretty much a direct representation of the sea monster with tentacles that we got in the game oh and we can't forget about the planet itself atropos who in greek mythology was the goddess of fate and destiny or one of the three fates depending upon where you look it up so with all this information drilled into your heads here is what officially happened celine at some point had a child named helios on that dreadful day when the car went off the side of the bridge helios died and celine survived the astronaut that caused it can be interpreted in a few different ways maybe it was a way to let the player know that it was celine's fault that helios died on the ship you actually see that there is a rejection letter from what seemed to be an astronaut program of sorts so maybe it was supposed to represent a failed dream and the reason that celine seemed so out of it that night she was feeling immense guilt as any parent would and judging by the pill bottles on the table in the house she was either taking antidepressants or possibly painkillers as a means to numb the pain there are also a couple audio logs that sound as if celine was in some kind of therapy all of this probably caused her to reminisce on many things in life including the relationship she had with her mother which from everything i've read and heard seemed very strained maybe even abusive all of this trauma in celine's life is packed into her brain and she creates the story of her as the space explorer who we play as in her head she actually confirms this theory if you take a look at the xenoglyph tablet at the beginning of the underwater biome it reads white shadow ignorant of inevitable this time i act without thought and reach for the lost child my negligence is the reason i am here shifting black shadows are my guilt in the shape of an astronaut that became the cosmic afterbirth so when celine crash lands on atropos this is a direct reflection of the car crash where her child died this is where her sorrow begins and why she can never escape it you can even see the child's toy octo in certain instances when you come back to the ship the reason she cannot escape the planet is because atropos and everything that takes place there represents the pain she's feeling and how her sorrow is something that she cannot escape even the clocks in the house and a certain moment of dialogue all reflect the time 8 36 which is the exact time of the accident the argument can even be made that each of the biomes that the player explores and each of the bosses that celine fights are direct representations of a stage of grief that she's overcoming but that's more of my own personal theory nemesis who is the third and in my experience the most difficult boss in the game was interesting because after you beat it there's this weird scene where it seems like celine was rescued from the planet only to get sent back years later i feel that this moment was once again showing us the player how even though celine found peace at a certain point in her life the pain of losing her child is always there and it will never truly be gone unless she confronts it head on hyperion was another interesting boss who celine confronts and i actually have a theory that this represents her father there are multiple scenes where we see celine playing the piano and even when she begins the fight she asked it if it taught her the song that's being played there's also another xenoglyph underneath this boss fight that reads as follows this endless song bleeding out into space the inescapable ascent from the abyss of self and the planet where i found hyperion waiting upon the spire bound to an organ i never spoke to him afterwards or heard his music again this makes me want to believe that perhaps her father was the one playing an organ at her child's funeral or maybe even her mother's funeral and it seems like it was the last time they spoke indicating that celine truly felt alone and abandoned which is a direct reflection of her time spent on atropus all alone so there you have it celine was in a terrible car accident that killed her child this and other terrible circumstances in her life caused her to create this world in her head that represents the tragedy and never-ending cycle of pain that she's experiencing it took her traveling to the center of the world to discover what the source of this pain was and confront it head-on it was here that she gained her freedom to finally end the cycle and break the surface [Music] helios

Channel: The Last Bonfire

Views: 250,005

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Id: i9M_7AhWE_M

Length: 9min 29sec (569 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021