I personally like the first and second theory combined. Maybe the girl died by falling from the treehouse as a child. Then the boy later died in a car crash. He is trying to get through limbo and reach her so they can leave together.
Mariam K limbo takes place in between heaven and hell according to some christian religions. This is a result of the child not being baptized. The enemies in the game are what the protagonist fears, like the big spider. In this game your basically confronting your living fears and destroying your fears until theres none left and once it gets to that point, you leave limbo.
I have a theory, the window breaking means him escaping limbo, the little girl is his little sister, but she can't climb up the treehouse (heaven), because she is worried about her brother, and the worrying is her own limbo, she has to try and survive those emotions, of the possibility she will never see her brother.
The treehouse doesn’t look like heaven, it’s all rotted and broken. I’m pretty sure in the ending the boy makes it back to the land of the living and reunites with his sister.
This game always freaks me out. It it's such a fun game. It's ine of those games without jumpscares but will give u creepy noises, environments, and deaths. I totally recommend playing it
@@Green-ys3wo this is awful... Reminds me of carrion a bit... You begin at the end and see the light outside the building and the place where you need to go, but it takes the whole game to finally get outside. As you are playing the monster, it's not even that special... You helped the monster escape the facility. And in limbo you search and search, but always in the same dark environment, no goal to escape in the end you got your sister, but nothing changed about your situation
That doesn't surprise me. It happens with Tripitaka in the final stages of Journey to the West. There is also the popular Western example of Charon ferrying souls across the River Styx, in addition to the River Lethe and two other rivers in the Greek underworld.
My theory on Limbo: It is very similiar, except I think that the brother and sister had seperate deaths. The brother was in a car that drove off a cliff and crashed into the forest he woke up in. The sister, however, died from climbing up the unstable ladder to get up to the treehouse, and was hung by the neck from the rope, where she woke up at the treehouse. Therefore, I assume the sister died before the brother, due to the fact that one of the brother's fears was shown where the fabric mannequin that resembles his sister was hung from a rope. With that being said, if you'd enter the LIMBO, you would wake up where you've last been before you died. EDIT: I assume that the brother grew the fear of his sister's death because of what happened when they were alive. As young children, the brother was climbing up the ladder to the treehouse having no trouble, which explains his excelling ability to climb in the game. Unfortunately, the brother warmly encouraged his sister to climb up, and when she tried, she died from being hung by the neck. Due to her brother watching her die, that's how he grew his fear.
nice theorey there brother i had the same in my head like he said in the vid the dangers we faced was all his phobia or dark things that happend in his life so might be the death of his sis made a deep crater in his mind which contineued to haunt him
Heres my theory: The boy and girl go to their treehouse in reality, after the boy gets into the tree house, the ladder snaps when his sister started climbing and she either hit her head on a rock or landed on her head, breaking her neck or giving her a concussion and later died due to blood loss, the boy also fell through a loose plank in the tree house and also fell to his death. The girl wakes up in Limbo and makes her journey to the treehouse (the treehouse could also represent heaven). After the girl makes it to the tree house she waits in hopes that her brother can also make his way to the tree house or at the gates of heaven. When the girl makes it to the treehouse, the boy wakes up and the events of limbo takes place. When he approaches his sister, she hears footsteps and suddenly stops what she is doing, knowing that her brother is behind her. They reunite and go to heaven together. Second theory: The boy is the only one who died and thats why his eyes are glowing. The boys you cone across in Limbo could represent his fears of being made fun of by the older boys and thats why they try to kill him. At the end his sister buries his body and when the boys spirit comes close she senses his presence and stops burying him, possibly knowing he is now Resting In ☮️
those both make sense, however, you made a very interesting point about the glowing eyes, which makes me think that the second theory is closer to home 🤨 it sucks that we’ll never truly know 😕
imo i always thought it was the boy not going forward through limbo but going back, rejecting Limbo itself to return to the living world as a spirit. It would explain why sis looked spooked at the end.
Everyone without eyes must be alive. Those "older boys" probably thought they saw a ghost an attacked and it might be why his sister sensed a presence. The kid might not be a kid at all, the factory could be where he himself worked, he just took a child's form.
Don't know how you handle recommendations but if you can could you look into the indie games Yume Nikki and/or OFF? Both games are old indie games that are famous in the RPG Maker community. Time Nikki is a horror game while OFF is an RPG, and both have very interesting and cryptic stories. If its alright I don't want to so anything else for fear of over hyping or ruining the surprise.
I am a fan of both of these games and I second this. (For people reading this, I recommend Yume 2kki for more exploration and HOME for a unique conclusion to OFF's story. (They're both fangames.))
Yesss, I love both games, and I’m planning on replaying both soon. Imo, OFF and yume nikki are some of the best made rpgs, and will always be a classic.
Maybe the boy died during world war 2. Say he lives in Germany or great Britain while it was getting bombed. That's why the tree house is damaged. It was hit by a bomb
Could the boy be a jew? Forced to live in a tree house in the forest and while the sister was off to get something, the boy was attacked? It's a theory to ponder but one with perhaps not a lot of merit.
@@Cinna3unnz (disclaimer: I'd never even heard of this game until I saw this video) that's actually what I was thinking. I thought maybe the glass symbolized Kristallnacht, but as a start of bookend. Essentially, this child's hell began with glass breaking and now it ends with glass breaking. The other boys are gentile children who, due to their brainwashing under the Nazi regime, became violently hostile. The corpses of other children represent him having to sever any emotional ties to the many people he's lost in the war.
I may have a theory: The city part in the game was where the siblings were born before they moved into the resedentials where the boy's sister died from accidentaly hanging itself because of the unstable ladder and the boy died in a car crash that fell of a cliff and landed on a forest The girl cant climb the treehouse AKA heaven because her sibling isnt there to support her to the afterlife
It's actually a place where innocent children and babies who hadn't even lived a moment (dead ones ofc) stay at BEFORE entering death. In lombo, they confronts their biggest fears and tests that make them "judge able".
Here’s my interpretation. The boy is dead, but the sister isn’t. I think the treehouse theory is true, but I think only the boy died in it. Limbo is different from, but has pretty much the same concept as purgatory. Purgatory is a realm between heaven and hell. It says the boy is unsure of the fate of his sister, which means he doesn’t know if she’s dead or not. So the whole game he’s journeying through limbo trying to get back to the land of the living to see if she’s there. Apparently if you die in limbo, you die forever, as evidenced by none of the enemies ever returning and some intentionally killing themselves. The boy wasn’t pure enough to get to heaven, and he wasn’t evil enough to get to hell, so he ended up in the middle. The other humans he encounters are other souls, and they’re hostile because they are afraid of everything. Anyway, since it’s a supernatural realm, it doesn’t make sense. Hence why there’s a hotel and a factory area in it. I’ve heard some people say that the reason the boy’s eyes glow is because he’s a ghost, and when he makes it to his sister, because they’re still glowing, he’s dead or a ghost still, but I think that’s not true. The other humans in limbo don’t have glowing eyes either. I’m pretty sure his eyes only glow so that we don’t confuse him with someone else or lose track of him. So. The ending. The glass breaking scene, I think, is symbolic of him breaking through to the land of the living. As a ghost or in his physical form, I’m not sure. There’s a key detail here: you can see the sister digging in the ground. Digging the boy’s grave. She survived and the boy died. The reason the game ends with the boy getting to the girl is because, he made it. He got back to the land of the living and his sister. I know it looks grey and gritty, but I think that’s symbolic of the grief she’s going through after her brother’s death. Edit: My theory is further supported by the achievement you get when you beat the game. “Perseverance has its own reward.” A reward. Also the glass breaking scene is pointless if not symbolic of the boy getting to another side. It’s not bright enough to be heaven, but it can’t be Limbo, because we just left there. It’s the land of the living.
I loved this explanation! Thank you so much, that definitely makes a lot of sense, I believe the one with they're both dead and hes searching for his sister, and they meet at their special place, the ladder one seems off cause I dont think any child can die from that kind of fall, unless it's very high like 2 or 3 stories, I just think they show the treehouse again cause that's how it looks in real life, old and abandoned and flies everywhere.I love this game! Thank you Superhorrorbro!
This is really interesting. I've beaten the game on many separate occasions getting pretty familiar with all the areas and atmosphere, but I had never done the additional Dark Room until the day I'm writting this. That genuinely creeped me out. Almost all of it is pitch black, much of what you hear are loud, harsh noises of metal or bullets firing. Every time there is a little bit of comfort in the light, it is abruptly snuffed out and you are suddenly forced to run for your very life. It doesn't add much to the actual story, but I think it, like the rest of the game, also has some very strong symbolism. It feels like a state of emotional panic for the boy, perhaps representing what he felt during his life in the world around him. The saws, the guns, the mechanisms all crashing around, it may be all of the anxiety finally catching up to the boy and crushing him. One section in particular near the end of the Dark Room has a breif moment of silence in the darkness broken only by the lazy drone of an insect. But just as you start to settle in, it dies to the columns of machine guns firing constantlyon either side of the boy. I really wonder what this signifies, if anything at all. I think it could possibly have something to do with the reminder of how close his freedom from LIMBO was when he had grabbed onto the insect's leg before, which is actually the same area that you enter the Dark Room from. Again, that little bit of hope, that small chance...destroyed. Well in any case, I've written enough. I hope if anyone ends up seeing this that you were entertained by my banter. Have a great day/night/dawn/dusk.
8:44 I think instead of it being his mother and/or father that worked at the factory, it was instead the boy himself who worked there. There was-and in some countries, still is-a time when children were “employed” in factories and made to work around incredibly dangerous tools that could very well kill them if they weren’t careful. I think maybe the abundance of buzzsaws and other deadly mechanisms stems from that fear from such a dangerous environment.
I immediately thought of Beatrice and Dante Alligheri when the ending was presented. A call back to another climactic exit from purgatory/limbo into a Heavenly realm, leaving the fears and suffering of Purgatory and the punishments of Hell behind.
LOVE the explanation! I just finish playing Limbo last week and with that ending, I really wonder about the story of this game, I really amazed by how deep the story is for a simple Video game like this, amazing! I hope you don't mind if I link your video to the end of my Gameplay 😀
The game's description on the Steam store page tells us "Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters LIMBO." I love this description because of how ambiguous it is. We don't know if the sister has entered LIMBO, or even if the boy has entered by choice to look for her. All it tells us is that he is uncertain of her fate, and that he has entered LIMBO. Which is why I tend to side with the "sister is alive at the end" theories.
Something I thought of when seeing the ending was that, maybe the girl and the boy were abused, and they were thrown out? The window pane smashing would either be the boy being thrown out, or the boy trying to get back in. The girl would either be his sister that died with him in the treehouse of starvation, or, again, the one burying him.
Thanks for making this! Great vid! Some brief notes on possible symbolism: Water: Representative of memory, dreams, the subconscious, the emotions, transitions (especially deeply emotional ones) Spiders: Representative of patterns of fate, important choices Trees: Representative of multiple levels of existence, enduring life Hotels, factories, cars: Could represent the soul encased in a body, and/or the oppression of capitalism that the protagonist transcends
Such a beautiful, depressing game. And often infuriating. But I love it, regardless. Such a sad ending. Like many other games like this had very sad endings: the Little Nightmare series, Inside, and Another World. (Another World’s ending isn’t exactly happy, imo)
The game itself said that he is looking for his sister, LIMBO means "The edge of hell" that the boy is trying to get over his fears and try to find his sister, but his fears keeps getting in his way and blocking the path to find his lost sister, the boy felt really depressed when he found out that his parents died in a accident or something like that, the reason why the game itself is black colored is because it represents his depression of how he feels when his parents died, the boy probably slept and later he found out that he is in another world and by another world I mean "the edge of hell" he probably was so worried about his sister cause he doesn't want to lose another person from him, to find his sister he must stand up from his fears and seek light from god, and when he got smashed from the window and he is back in the forest he finally found his sister sitting next to the light now you might be wondering, "what was the point of that breaking into the window thing?" It means that the boy finally escaped from his fears and he made it to heaven, this is all I got lemme' hear your theories will ya'?
The reason the treehouse is in the ending scene the same way that it is also on the game menu is simple: we didn't reached the end, we reached the starting point again and we have to play again. Thus, the neverending limbo theory.
I put off finishing it for a few years so did an entire play-through today and my God, it's visually and philosophically beautiful. So much meaning to be found
I think Limbo is the death of children to the Blitz during WW2 This game is something I keep coming back too. The brutality and sadness is very pervasive. First time I finished I breathed a sign of relief and thought "It's done now honey." It really got to me. It's an amazing game.
@@johnnestorzapanta1712 six is used to the 3d world she is in before she went to limbo Besides. She'd kill herself because most of the time the hardest part for her wouldn't be the enemies, but the environment itself. She is more used to enemies giving her a hard time rather than the environment
I feel like the car accident explanation makes the most sense, in my opinion anyway. When I first played this game, I read its description in the App Store because I had no idea what it was. I think it’s a very notable peice of evidence, because it tells about a boy trapped in limbo, due to him being “uncertain of his sister’s fate”.
The Redex it's fun to play ^_^ I've seen my siblings play it all the time and complete it but I've only played a bit of the beginning bc I used to be scared of the game XD
These are interesting theories. But I always saw this game as a boy’s struggle between life and death. The light & his sister being life & everything else being death. This accounts for the accident theory that could put him in a coma like state and his desire to find his sister (someone he loves dearly) keeps him going. This also accounts all the obstacles & darkness he faces to represent his fears and losing means death. Final scene cutting abruptly could indicate him waking up. The scene with his sister could be him listening to her subconsciously calling out for him to comeback.
I remember my dad first introduced me to this game when I was four. I’ve always remembered the fun gameplay and interesting graphics. I’ve never really understood the meaning behind the game and finding this was really cool! Always got tripped up on the worm parts though! Thank you for making this!
Somebody said the PS updated Limbo's description to "Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters limbo." My take on the story is the boy and a girl special to him (sister maybe) were both involved in a treehouse accident. The girl survived but since the boy passed away he couldnt know if she was alright. He is in a state of limbo until he can find the truth. In limbo, the boy is faced with the anxieties of his life. I think the industrial chapter is a final test to overcome the possibility of eternal entrapment in Limbo. There are allusions to approaching a true afterlife (heaven, hell). The boy cannot reach the light with the bug because his journey to the girl is not finished yet. The gravity changing represents the uncertainty of being stuck between the afterlife worlds. Finally when the boy bypasses the glass, he momentarily returns to the land of the living to achieve peace with the girl's safety and the girl senses his return. With this peace, it is likely the boy can enter heaven.
I remember playing the demo of this game a long time ago, I just had to know how it ended. Thanks so much! Its such a sad story but cute and eerie art style.
I always thought the game's story was just of a boy's very vivid imagination taking hold while he is on his way to go see his friend at her treehouse. The boy is suffering from both anxiety and a vivid imagination, which combines into a terrifying experience for the boy to go through, when in reality the world isn't anything like what he saw.
9:06 I'd say it's more related to WW1 then WW2 because WW2 was a very mobile war, with frontlines changing constantly with the endless offensives and counter offensives. WW1 on the other hand was a rather static war, where the machine gun was a very vital key to stop people from charging over the trenches.
I've liked this game since I first watched a Let's Play of it in 2017. It reminds me so much of my dreams, with all the shadows, spiders, the natural landscape blending into an urban one, paths that defy physics, right down to the death of a loved one. It's like they got inside my head and turned my nightmares into a game.
I'm actually proud I managed to solve all puzzles in the game without any help. The puzzles at the end of the game are very tricky and can seem almost impossible. Also, I'm disappointed the Spider wasn't more involved in the game, as that was one of the most awesome and creepy aspects of the game. Thus, the beginning of the game is the best, because in the middle and at the end of the game, all you do is solving puzzles, not engaging with any enemies. I enjoyed the game, but I think the creators could have included a lot more creative enemies and kept the Spider returning throughout the game.
The first possible explanation was my favorite because it felt wholesome,... well as wholesome as going through Limbo and making it to heaven can be...
My theory is that the boy and girl run away from home(the city and all the industrialization) and parents(control bugs) live in the forest. To a kid water, older kids and bugs are scary so in limbo those are things that try to kill him the most. Unfortunately because they are children they don't build a steady tree house and find whatever to build it, they both either fall though the flooring or one of them falls out of the trees. The menu screen has 2 sets of flies(boy and the girl) that you would see if something dead or whatever attracts them was just lying there. It could have been that the girl or boy falls and dies while the other tries to save them dying in the possession as well. We all know that 6ft is all you need to kill someone or due, since they were so young that height in the tree will do the trick. The reason I think this I'd in the game certain heights that you wouldn't think to kill you does so you have to take account of your body and the height of things. So because no one knew where they were their bodies are rotting on the forest floor. They boy goes through limbo to meet with his sister again prolly because is the oldest and took his sister with him to runaway. The "glass shards" I think represents him finally leaving Limbo and being able to be with his sister who is waiting at her death site "burying" the bodies. The fact that they can't actually do this in the living world. Their dissaperanxes could mean a few things 1 the boy and girl assended or 2 because you can start the game over or even pick chapters means that they will never be able to leave and the cycle for them to try and meet will never become a reality until someone finds their bodies. The menu screen is just there to show where they died and how much time passed with he tree house.(this is my main theory) 2nd theory is simple, a man grows up living through war or war times and the only thing he liked or really loved was his deceased sister and childhood because of simple times. As he is dying he passes through limbo and goes through tribulations that impacted him in his life. This would explain the forest, older kids, the hotel and the factory. In limbo he sees his sister and tries to approach only to be mind controlled by the big representing things that annoyed him but couldn't break free from. At the end he finally finds her and they leave.(the sister could also be alive since she doesn't have glowing eyes. The sister could also represent the things he loved but could never aquire, that could explain why we don't ever see him reach her.
I searched a walkthrough for one puzzle And ever since that one search, this video kept popping up in my recommendations and I didn't want to watch because I didn't finish But now I can
Comparatively late coming to this game, having just started and finished it. It is without doubt tgr most atmospheric and emotionally impactful games I've ever played! The way they linger on tge boy's re-death? each time manipulated my emotions in an incredible manner, lingering on rhe moment just enough to make me feel empathy and sadness. An absolute masterpiece!
Such a lovely video And especially what a wonderful game limbo is So so so so deep game I played it as kid like 12-14 yo, didn't understand much at that time now as 18 yo kinda starts understanding the game (BTW great explanation by you)
A friend of mine had bro night sleepovers around like 2011 or something. We played a lot of Halo on XBox 360 and chowed down on snacks and played all night just to sleep in super late. One of us saw Limbo in the menu and played the free demo which was great. At a later sleepover I couldn't attend, the guys got the full game and finished it and enjoyed it, though they needed some assistance with walkthroughs or online advice. Told me it was a lot of fun. Fast forward to 2018 and I got my first smart phone so I got Limbo and passed the demo and got the full version for $2.99. Passed it in one day on a snowy Saturday with a few pointers from walkthroughs. Felt guilty for wasting the day but my brother/roommate basically said if you enjoyed it the day wasn't wasted. The nostalgia hit hard while playing and still does seeing videos like this. Those bro night guys and I have grown apart but I'll always cherish those days. These days are pretty good too in a different way. Always something to be grateful for. It's like that saying, something like "One day we'll look back at right now as the good ol days" and there's probably several versions of that quote. Basically you don't know what you got til it's gone. However that changes if you practice gratitude and enjoy the now while it's here. Appreciate the little moments along the way and be thankful for the people in your life right now. I've adopted this attitude and it helps. There are things to enjoy now while they're here and different things to enjoy down the road. These are the good days, and that's always the case in each chapter of life. Not sure why I shared all this but it felt good to.
I remember watching my dad play this when I was little and being terrified. He said one day I would have to play it because I needed to get over my fear and I was so scared. I never did but you never know...
Same, all I did was watch him play. I didn’t quite yet It because all I saw was the spider. But further into the game, I saw the dead bodies. So I got it.
The ending reminded me a lot of Jacob's Ladder movie. In my theory the boy is dead. And the girl in the end is either a relative or a friend who came to pay respects. Feel the presence of the boy but the ladder next to girl is stairway to heaven. The beginning and ending is connected so If you start over the game you will begin almost where you left of. Therefore boy is in a loop of this living nightmare because he refuses to go up (heaven / hell) and is a soul who just there.
I accept your theory as truth dammit, I'm DONE, Ive had endless theories for years now lol. I accept this, my limbo is done and I'm going to suppress Inside...forever.
i think the brother and sister both died, that would explain the two decaying things at the menu screen when you beat the game. but he didn’t know if she died or not, so they both found eachother and exited “limbo”
I’ve seen a few theories very similar to this, but I really wanted to share. I agree with the theories that the boy traveling in Limbo died during world war 2. It explains the weapons, traps, and other people trying to kill the boy; their enemy soldiers. Everything is worn down and in poor condition possibly because the area was bombed or in the middle of an active war zone. A lot of people like to theorize that the boy and his sister died at the tree house; however, I think they died in the factory. During world war 2 there were still very little laws concerning workers. Men, women, children; young and old; everyone was working in order to scrap up enough money to survive. In the game we actually see a glimpse of the sister in the factory implying that she worked their with the boy. The factory is the last place the boy is at before he breaks through the glass. I think it represents that he died there, probably due to being maimed by machinery he was working with. At the end he meets his sister at the tree and they leave Limbo for the afterlife. When returning to the title screen we see the same treehouse, but it’s worn down and flies are flying around where the two siblings were. The treehouse was probably their favorite place to play and their parents decided to bury them there after they died.
I used to watch my dad play this when I was little He alway told me that the girl was the boy’s sister and the game was his journey to find her cuz she was missing or something Like that the story was of a boy trapped in a limbo looking for his properly missing sister where he alway starts over every time he almost reaches her
I think the boy died in a car crash, the girl is his sister, and he can't get over something that happened to her when they were younger, as the description of the game on Steam is "Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters LIMBO." Maybe she fell out of the tree house and died while he was supposed to be watching her and he can't move on to Heaven until he can get over his guilt. All the people in the game(like the older boys who hunt him)don't have eyes except for the main character, and they all represent fears he has to get over. His sister doesn't have eyes either, which might mean she is an obstacle like the older boys even if she doesn't attack. He sees her a couple times, representing how he tried and fails to confront his guilt because he is so afraid of it despite all the other things he is going through. The girl is burying/digging something later surrounded by flies, which could symbolize how she is the key to leaving his body/sins behind as he is dying in the hospital. After going through Limbo the boy finally has the courage to reconcile with his sister and can move on, the ladder and light at the tree house representing him going up to Heaven to join his sister
Man this game really grabbed my attention and afterwards I didn’t know what to do next guess you could say it looked like I was in a sorta L I M B O hAHA sorry.
What if the boy worked in a factory? Maybe he was an orphan in need of a job? The hotel could have been the place where he met his employer, or maybe his last memory of his parents. The forest probably represents his early life, the peacefulness before it all abruptly went downhill with war and death, which is why he ends up in the forests again. It could also represent the place where he could find respite in his factory life, away from the other boys who would make fun of him. The tree house might have been his sister and his' hangout spot, but one day the ladder broke and he fell, dying on impact. But then again, that's just a theory! A comment theory😆
