All the deceased Selene corpses you find are previous iterations that are causing the loop to continue in perpetuity. This loop begins in which the first Selene shoots down the next, and the cycle continues. A wild take on things can be found on Reddit, which suggests that the planet itself manipulates Selene into causing the first crash which injures her mother, which allows her to become an ASTRA scout, meaning she'll travel to Atropos. It's All Really HappeningĪn alternative take on the story is that the game's events are actually taking place, and Selene really is just stuck on Atropos in this time loop. So, there's this theory, which explores the idea that the game's events are all in Selene's head as she deals with the trauma and guilt from her life, but there are other suggestions. It makes sense that all this stuff is so convenient if it's all coming from Selene's mind. Some of the Xeno-archives depict an ASTRA scout, some of the Xenoglyphs refer to her past, and all that "alien" tech she puts on her suit works perfectly. These could simply be Selene's imagination running wild and inventing the Severed and the Hivemind, as it all ties back to her. Then there's all the business with the game's ancient civilisations. We take that to mean Theia, her mother, didn't like to listen to the song because it reminded her of her late husband.
This could be why, at one point, Selene plays the record in a House sequence, and comments, "She never liked this vinyl". Perhaps we're reading into this too much, but we think it's possible that Hyperion represents Selene's father, who played piano and loved the song. The fourth biome's boss, Hyperion, plays the organ, and you repeatedly hear a melody that sounds a lot like the first notes of (Don't Fear) The Reaper's opening verse. Throughout the game, especially in the second biome, you'll see spires that look an awful lot like spinal columns, representing her mother's injury. An obvious one is that the ship is also named Helios, and whenever you leave the crash site to go on another run, it says 'Helios Abandoned', just like how Selene leaves her son in the car. There are aspects of the game that reflect on all of this in clever ways. We see Selene remove her belt and reach for Helios, but she appears to be dragged away by tentacles before she can help him. The car spins out of control, smashing over the side of the bridge and into the water - the same location from the first crash. Along the bridge, she sees the astronaut - a figure that's haunted her throughout the game - and swerves to avoid them.
SHADOW OF MEMORIES TRUE ENDING FULL
He asks, "Do you see the white shadow?", seemingly referring to the full moon. Selene seems distracted and absent as she drives, and her son, Helios, is in the back. In this cutscene, we see Selene driving through country roads at night, Blue Öyster Cult's (Don't Fear) The Reaper playing on the stereo. After defeating Ophion at the end of Act 2, you'll see the game's first ending. A focus on her career, sometimes even leaving her son home alone.įast forward through the game, and it seems the idea of cycles and recurring events goes deeper than the title's rogue-like loop. Just as Theia was distant from Selene, Selene struggles with her son Helios - she's repeating the same steps.
She becomes very much like Theia, and that extends to her relationship with her child. Selene grew up to resent her mother, but was equally obsessed with space. Selene got through the accident unscathed, but it seems her mother became very cold towards her, even blaming her for the crash and for her dreams being dashed. In a House sequence, it's pretty clearly spelled out that Theia suffered major spinal injuries from the crash, leaving her wheelchair-bound for the rest of her life, and thus unable to fulfil her dreams of becoming an astronaut. She crashed off the side of a bridge and into the lake below, with a young Selene in the back. The mother, named Theia, had aspirations to go into space, but a car accident changed her life for the worse. Selene and her mother had a very distant, possibly abusive, relationship. Through the game's audio logs, Xenoglyphs, and sequences inside the House, we can pick up on a few key details. However, we subscribe to the idea that most of the game's events are a construct Selene has made for herself. So, how do we explain Returnal's story and ending? It's a tough one, as it's mostly left wide open for players to draw their own conclusions.
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