Limbo Ending

[sharkinz]

*SPOILER WARNING*

I just finished playing Limbo and I must say that I thought the ending was outstanding. It seems to me like it is an ending you can interpret for yourself so I was wondering how some other people from The Escapist have interpreted the ending and whether or not you liked it.

 

[Meggiepants]

Spoiler: my interpretation

That is was a dream the boy had. He wakes up and goes to his friend.

And dude has scary ass dreams. Those spider things creep me out.

Anyway, that's what I figured it meant.

 

[Captain Pirate]

I have yet to complete it, but I'll post again when I do.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

I think that the correct interpretation is that the game needs to be out on steam. NOW.

 

[scnj]

Spoiler warning!

On the main menu, there are two things with flies buzzing around them. After finishing the game, I think that they are the bodies of the boy and his sister. They died somehow (judging by the smashing glass at the end I'd guess a car crash) and ended up in Limbo. Dante's Inferno describes Limbo as the first circle of Hell, beyond the river Acheron. In my opinion, it is that river we cross in the boat at the beginning of the game.

At the end of the game, the boy finds his sister within Limbo and walks towards her. Whether they will continue to descend further into Hell or be forgiven and ascend to Heaven (if one defines Limbo similarly to Purgatory) is open to interpretation.

 

[Captain Pirate]

-snip-

Just finished it, and scnj, good interpretation, that would also work for possible sequels too. I personally think the boy may have been tested in Limbo, and simply at the end he finds his sister, because he was searching for her, after all. I have no clue what happens after that. But scnj, I really am liking your version, so my mind's drifting towards beleiving that.

Mostly I'm just happy I got a little frog creature as an avatar pet! That was my favorite bit, the widdle froggy.

 

[Merum01]

ForThis game I think the biggest puzzle is figuring out what it means. I'm leaning more towards a freak car accident. On the main menu screen you see a car on a branch of a tree that looks like at one point it was a tree house. I'm not sure if it belonged to the boy and his sister or not or if they were playing on it at the time of the accident or if they were in the car and were launched. If they were launched from the car that would explain some of the heavy mechanical symbolism in it and some of the zero gravity switches in the game. If you've ever been into an accident you should know how difficult it is to take control of your body while it is constantly shifting and changing direction. I think this game covered a time lapse from maybe five to ten seconds and all the obstacles he went through to save his sister was just his mind's enhanced and keen illusion of what he may have thought possible to do before he died to save her. At the ending his death is shown when he crashes through the glass you them see a light and he is laying in the opposite direction that the game started in. That shows that something is very different this time. You try too walk back in the direction you came but nothing is there. In fact his direction when he awakes challenges you to go back and you will find that nothing was there. You walk in the opposite direction and there you will a young girl, his sister. There are many things she could be doing, writhing in pain, grieving over the loss of er brother possibly over his dead body I really don't know who died first or if they both died at the same time. But both are taken aback as the boy approached. It's possible they both imagined seeing each other one more time because there bond was so great. It's also possible that his soul approached her and she just heard a noise. There are soo many possibilities

 

[Gumball]

*Warning spoiler* please play the game before you read this, you'll enjoy it

I just finished the game as well but after the ending I just wanted to keep going, to keep finding answers. This game dictates the mood of the user throughout the whole game and I felt that is where the key to the whole story of the game lies, its us who make up the story behind the game and to make our own conclusions.

To me the story of the game was that the boy was in search of some sort of answer, at the start of the game you get no picture of whats going on, but at the end you get a taste of what he was searching for. My conclusion from the ending was that he died from some accident and he was in search for whether his sister had survived or also suffered the same fate. At the beginning you are filled with confusion with the simple forest setting, and the multiple layered background and of course everything is in black and white, plus that eery white noise just adds to that conclusion. Nonetheless the game is based on the boy going through a journey of obstacles which heavily revolve around one outcome "death". Through the game the setting changes from a simple and natural forest environment into a mechanical and almost unrealistic type setting with clockwork machinery and anti gravity machines. These to me show that the boy goes from a confused state of mind regarding the reality of his sister's fate, he then tries to create some sort of logical yet imaginary world filled with objects and mechanisms that make him feel in some sort of false sense of security because he doesn't want to learn the real fate of his sister. Up until the end where he flies through that pane of glass he enters back into the forest or maybe he enters back into reality, the scenery is almost the same as at the beginning but there is one difference, instead of just white noise you get this nice harmonic sound that kind of removes that confused feeling, then as he walks further into the woods, he faces what he was seeking for, the sound then goes back to white noise, but this time we don't feel confused but we feel speechless as if the boy found the answer he was seeking for but the answer was not what he wanted to believe.