Transistor Ending / End Subscribe Here / @rabidretrospectgames Twitch Channel Here / rabidretrospectgames Be sure to drop a like and leave a comment below.
As someone who wasn't sure how to feel about this ending at first, I thought I'd share my feelings. I think a huge misconception about this is that Red's motivation is to fix everything. Restore the city, take down the Process and Camerata, etc. But that's OUR motivation, as the player. We assume it is hers too, since she can't speak. The Transistor speaks for her, assumes her actions, and therefore that is what we go on. (Intentional by the creators, of course.) Red's motivation, from the beginning, is love. Everything she does makes sense when you look at it from that angle. Parts of the game are mysterious to us because, I assume, they don't matter to Red. All she cares about is getting her partner back. And when that proves, impossible, well... yeah. This ending happens. But I find it hard to say she "killed herself" - I'm guessing she saw it as going somewhere else; y'know, to the Country. After all, she knew where she was going. She knew she'd meet him again. Another point: she loved singing, it was her passion. Why would she want to live voiceless for the rest of her life in an empty city? I do disagree with the idea down in the comments that soft = not strong. (Though I suppose strength is subjective.) Red is strong AND emotional. She lost her love, her passion, her city, and she adapts. She powers through a Process-infested city to bring her partner back to her, and when that's all for naught, she brings herself to him. Red has fulfilled her only goal - to be with her partner. And that's where her story ends. And I realized I like it that way. It's unexpected and sweet and powerful. ANYWAY just my opinion, obviously. No agreement required, but I hope it's given some thought.
YES thank you. Red's motivation throughout the story wasn't justice or to save Cloudbank or to be a hero or even revenge. Her motivation was to find a way to restore the things she had had stolen from her - her voice and her lover. Those two objectives just so happen to coincide with eliminating the Process and taking down the Camerata. Red never wanted to be a hero or save the city; she just wanted the things she loved back. Like you said - "She loved singing, it was her passion. Why would she want to life voiceless for the rest of her life in an empty city?" Without her voice AND her lover, what was left for her? An empty city completely devoid of life that she never really cared about anyway? The way you phrased it - "She powers through a Process-infested city to bring her partner back to her, and when that's all for naught, she brings herself to him" - is fantastic. You're brilliant.
exactly. Red knew where she'll end up after she gets stabbed by the sword. I think the other players confuse this as taking her own life. But it just so happens to ALSO be the way to transfer her into the Transistor where her lover is. And THAT is why she did this.
I was mid conversation with my wife with my headphones on watching this for the first time and Ive never pushed my computer table over saying no no no over and over while she stared at me like I was insane. The one and only time I've had such a visceral reaction to anything in a game
megamakbladespirit I hope if they ever make a life action that they stick to the game, I know it’s a turn-based game but I hope they keep the plot in its entirety perhaps even using the information you get from Red’s abilities she gains from people’s traces and change them into flashbacks of their memories. But above all this ending must remain the same, because it’s this that defines our protagonist as a character with such amazing depth.
This ending. At first I hated it, but then I realized how much deeper Red was than I first saw. It was the only way she could be with her lover. Before he was much like us, an onlooker. He couldn't do anything. Now they are together. It's a tragic, but also happy, ending.
Yeah, as the game progresses, Red's typed out comments seemed more and more hopeless and depressed. It's such a deep character, and she didn't even say anything. I guess in that sense, she's a bit like R2-D2 (as dumb as it sounds). It's a beloved character, yet the audience only hears hums and sees their actions.
***** The transistor can't bring back the "dead". even if she restored the city, she'll live alone (since the others are processed or stuck inside the transistor)
It's established in the story itself that the Transistor can not bring back the dead. You may consider it "too simple", but Red would essentially have lived in the world completely alone. She choose companionship instead.
***** Some more characterization on Red's part would probably help understand more people understand why she chose to kill herself. If you look at Romeo and Juliet, it's clear Romeo has lost a lot and Juliet is being oppressed by her family, so their death is ultimately tragic. Red's suicide was a bit overshadowed by the lovey shadow pictures of those two together. I found them lovely still, but I wished there was a little more in the ending where we could understand her despair, visually when we see her with her lover in the shadow pictures. I suppose the choice was just to leave it up to interpretation which is unfortunate, because I really did like Red's character a lot and I thought she deserved a little bit more in the ending. Hopefully this doesn't offend the people who love the ending - just my honest opinion, coming from a place of love of this game.
I thought the ending is fitting contrary to what most of us found. At first, it left an anticlimactic and bittersweet taste to me and I was like "Wait, what just happened?!" and had to immediately start Recursion in hopes of finding a clearer ending... I think Red is a pretty realistic character. In our idealism, a lot of us probably believed she should have restored the world and "live on". But the ending clearly showed that despite her newfound power, she could not bring the one she loved the most, even she is able to bring back anyone at all. If she couldn't bring back anyone, the messages in the OVC gave hints that more or less, everyone is "gone/processed", what's the use of recreating the world with just you in it. And even if she could, she found no meaning in a world "without" that man. Maybe some of us, if placed in Red's shoes, would've chosen to recreate the world. But Red's world was the man in the transistor. She found no meaning in her "new" world without him, so it's logical that she made her choice... Her choice may be "weak" in the eyes of society, but then in the end, even "society" had no power over what she found precious and thus can't stop her from making her choices. So in the end, I think she's pretty unique and realistic in her thoughts. I guess it's pretty much the same to us, our values, and society... Sorry for the long post or for sounding scatterbrained.. :D
Yeah I really thought it fir perfectly. What's she going to do? Go rebuild a whole city for a few survivors and be alone? I thought entire game was setting up a beautiful tragedy story, and it totally delivered. It's just like people and the Bioshock Infinite ending, people hate any kind of creativity.
It's sad and happy. It's sad that Red was the only person left and chose to end her life but happy in that she got to be with the guy in the end. Oozy, they don't hate creativity, they just hate feeling like they had their time wasted as you go through all that hard work just to see it not pay off in the end with a sad ending. It's easier to get away with that in a film than a game as you don't have control over a film
...Okay. I just rewatched this some times after finishing the game, and after hearing the "Hi - hey" exchange I had that thought. "Wait... I'm sure that when I played it, the silence between the hi and the hey lasted at least several seconds" And that when I realized I was hoping so much that red would answer that the silence seemed like an eternity at the time. Supergiant Games, you magnificent bastards.
Yeah, I had the same feeling that the silence was longer. I mean, the ending was terrifying, when Red not only decides to stab herself but that we have to do the input ourselves while the guy is begging us not to. But when it gets to the end, the "Hi - Hey" exchange? That was just plain beautiful. That was the happy ending Red deserved.
She chose that ending because, let's face it, her city is dead. Everyone she ever knew and loved is gone, either to the process or the transistor. Even if she were to rebuild and live out her days, all that would be there would be ghosts. She can't even really hold the hand of the one she loves anymore. Fuck, I would take throwing myself into the transistor world over living out decades of loneliness and quiet for the rest of my life.
+Sergio Bon Sadly, only until Recursion. "We can't run but we can try." at the end of the song refers to that. So does the first line of the game: "Hey Red, we're not going to get away with this one, are we ?" which basically means that everything had already happened before (and will happen again) and they won't get away with living together in the Country forever.
Now, for all those who thought that the ending sucks, please read this. Red, is not a strong character. She's very soft. Back then, if you read her Crash ability's story, you would know that she confined herself in order to compose new songs that doesn't really sounds revolutionizing as one of her fans stood out and scold her for changing things the way they are. But she had to be. She must be strong in order to get through all of this hardship. At the beginning, right after the attack, she was still in her dress and walks around slowly, shocked that her partner died. But then, she found out that he's still there, just that it's in the Transistor already. So in order to protect him, and herself, she must be strong and get through all the waves that the Process sends to her. During some of the comments that she typed, you can clearly sees that she was hesitating about her wordings already, that shows a sign of uncertainty. A sign where it shows that she was unclear of what to do next, but to move forward for the sake of her partner, and for the sake of seeing it until the end. And the end, is of course, Red defeated Royce, and went back to the world. She had the ability to recreate the city now, with Transistor in her hands. But you can see that after recreating the bridge and realize she had the power to recreate anything that was at a blank state, the first thing she went for was her partner's body. She revived him, but he didn't went back to his body. For all this time, the only thing that motivated her to move forward and to see it through the end, was the hope of her partner's revival. But it didn't worked. He's still in there. So, losing the motivation that kept her going, she was given a choice to either be a god, or live within the Transistor with her lover. And as I mention above, Red was a soft woman who needs to be strong in order to revive her partner. She's not some power-thirsting conqueror who wants to rule the world and make her own empire. She's just a woman who needs some love. And without love, nothing will ever be worthwhile anymore. Sorry for the long ass post, but this will give you an idea of why most people including me, thinks that it's a perfect ending for a game like this.
And here's another explanation for why the ending would be DIFFERENT if Royce were to win the battle. Royce is a man who wanted to advance further more than he already had by now. If he were to win the battle and leaving Red inside the Transistor, sure it would've been a good ending for Red, since she can be with her partner earlier without going through the self-impaling process, but what about Royce? A man who strives for more knowledge, he would rebuild the city and kept on study the functionality of the Transistor, and who knows, he might have make the same mistake again like how the Process wiped out the entire city just because he trusted that other guy ( forgot his name, but he died along with his assistant on the roof ). And he might even used the Transistor for a lot more research, thus creating the cycle again and again, endlessly until someone stops him and let it be, but I doubt that would ever happen, since the entire city's population had been decrease to none as stated in the reporter's last statement. So yeah, just let the Transistor be still as it is. No disturbance, just peace, and they can live within it forever and ever.
ZeniixTV It would, but I think they wanted to make a closure to their games. No sequel or prequel, just that game. Which is good because it brings closure to the plot, unlike most of the game nowadays which uses cliffhanger as their ending *cough*masseffect2*cough* (Of course, ME3 is good, so the wait is worthwhile.)
HintForGood Yeah I know it brings more closure, and I'm satisfied with the ending but I just wished it was longer or to see any options for a dlc in the ending.
This proves... no matter how strong you are, when you find that special person in your life, and its taken away from you, its very very difficult to carry on. In a situation where Red could have lived in seclusion in a destroyed world with her beloved, or live in the Country (Heaven) with him, no matter how short, or infinite. She, and likely many of us would pick the same as her.
So... I will jsut leave this here and wait for answers :3 For me, everything yes what you said. Getting ready to play again. And then probably again again, just to see different outcomes.
A little thing that I noticed: See the bridge? With the man on one side and the woman on the other? Also notice how they're reaching towards each other, but the ones closer to where Red is at the beginning of this clip don't have their hands overlapping. But, the ones closer to Mr. Nobody's body have their hands overlapping. I'm not sure if I'm just seeing meaning where there is none, but if this was intentional, the attention to detail is just absolutely phenomenal.
supergiant is devious in that we've spent all that time invested in red's skillsets, customising our character in deeply idiosyncratic and esoteric ways, and then to have us let go just. like. that. :( fantastic experience.
Ya think the ending suited the game. I just think it needed to be a bit longer, when this ending hit, i was only just figuring out the really good combos, and found a really really OP combo of Jaunt() + Spart() + Purge(), which does huge splash damage, and generates homing seekers on ever dash with Jaunt()
The ending was fantastic I think. I feel like some people who complain about the ending on here didn't even play the same game as me, because it all makes perfectly sense and I don't know how you can't see that.
I've been playing computer games for over 25 years and I'd become jaded to the attempts of game companies to manufacture emotional tension. Transistor was the first time, in a long long time, I found myself invested in the characters, in the plot and in the ending. Thank you, Supergiant Games, for allowing me to share in Red's story and shed a tear at the end.
Living without her passion; her voice and the guy is pretty much same as death. Only cowards would rather live that way. This ending is the best I could imagine of.
+Marcos F. The Transistor can build ,but not resurrect. Red rebuilding a city knowing no one will live in it is an empty gesture. It's not a "together 4ever" ending. We know little of red ,so we can assume 4 things are running in her head: Find out what's happening, stop the process, save everyone, save her bf ,but since all 3 things were no longer possible, she decided to save her bf by living with him through the transistor.
The ending struck me hard, because yes she could rebuild the world however she wanted to. But what would the point in that be, when he was HER world? *SNIFF*
There's a lot of comments calling Red weak, but frankly I think she's the strongest character in the game. The "weak one", and I really think that's a bad term to use, is Breach(), her significant other. I say this because on multiple occasions he basically he expressed not wanting to be left behind, and when a Spine was around his unfiltered emotional state revealed just how fragile he was. This is not surprising, after all he had just been murdered, his lover was harmed and his soul is trapped forever in a sword. I think Red stabbed herself with Transistor to be with him. Not out of despair, not because she couldn't save anyone, simply to be with who she loved because she didn't want to leave Breach() alone in Transistor. I wouldn't even say it was suicide. After all, they start in a semi "digital world", and the transistor is really just another kind of world. There's a lot of comparisons to the after life, but if Breach() is still considered "alive" in someway, then why isn't she?
I feel like we will now expected bittersweet endings from Super Giant now. Not a bad thing, my favorite narratives have had bittersweet conclusions. Because that's how life is. Happy ever after isn't something that happens. You have to find joy in what happens.
+scw55 The Transistor can build ,but not resurrect. Red rebuilding a city knowing no one will live in it is an empty gesture. It's not a "together 4ever" ending. We know little of red ,so we can assume 4 things are running in her head: Find out what's happening, stop the process, save everyone, save her bf ,but since all 3 things were no longer possible, she decided to save her bf by living with him through the transistor.
OH HEY ! the bridge…that red made…are those statues of her reaching out to her lover ? After all Red is in control of the Brush, and the City is her canvas. They are also reaching out towards each other, almost able to touch.
I'm pretty positive, yeah, that the statues are Red and Breach (her lover). The whole bridge thing is very symbolic, because during that sequence she's humming "Paper Boats", in which she sings "I will always find you / Like it's written in the stars" and in the little circle mural thing is an image of two hands clasped together surrounded by stars. Anyway, I'm pretty positive the man is Breach at least, because of the weird gauntlet things on his arms, which I believe reflect the bandages he wears IRL (we see his arms wrapped in them in every cutscene he appears in).
Is this ending so tear-jerking and wonderful? Yes, of course. Is this an amazing game? Yes, of course. What I want to say is that this voice actor for The Transistor (and I know it's not him) sounds just like Andrew Rea from Binging with Babish. Is it just me?
I actually got the soundtrack to this game before actually playing it, and the soundtrack is awesome. So I thought might as well try the game, even if it is half as good as the soundtrack, I would most likely enjoy it. So many times you see games/movies have awesome soundtracks, but the Movies/games themselves are nowhere near as good. Tron Legacy comes to mind. However this game, this game is the exception, the game and soundtrack complement each other so well, and the game itself, is just awesome and surprisingly emotional.
In a way...it IS bad because it's like "Oh hey! Suicide solves all your problems!" Like..."Would you commit suicide if you knew you were going to Heaven?" Yet at the same time it's like being the last person on the planet so there's no one alive to grieve for you anyway. At the same time it's understandable too because as Royce has said "You can get in but you can't get out. How about that! You can get in but it's a one-way street, a one-way road. It's like the Country. You don't just go for a visit you go for good." Meaning that even if Red DID make a body, she wouldn't be able to get the traces out of the Transistor. Obviously she just made the body so she(hers) could be by her lover's and "die" as he did and meet him in the Transistor though. As other people have pointed out, she was just fighting for revenge, not with the intent on saving the world, hence the reason she didn't just outright let Royce "kill" her. -----See you in the The Country.
She was fighting because her lover was in the Transistor and she had hope of reviving him. The Camerata knew how the thing worked, so it wasn't entirely revenge. In fact, it was minimally for revenge.
DarkSaborComa At first it was to save him, but when she fought Royce at the end she was just thinking about revenge. I was just talking about the ending, not the game from beginning to end, sorry heheh.
doughboy011 To be honest, I'm not sure o_o I think it's just the city as you said, but there are a lot of theories on Transistor that I'm not even sure @_@
***** True, plus, no one else is there. 15 million people, gone, and they can't come back. Having a city to yourself? No thank you. Mold the city? Why mold it when no one will live in it? Red made the right choice, stop the Cammerata, and return to her lover.
***** Uhh the difference here is there was PROOF there was a heaven, namely the disembodied voice of the boyfriend inside the transistor. All he had to do was get stabbed by it to get sucked in there. Logically, it would do the same to her. Your religion doesn't apply here.
I don't quite understand how people says that she is the last person in the world, when in the entire story, if I remember right, was about a specific city. At the end I believe the damage was only limited to Cloudbank City. I remember her lover (transistor) said they could rebuild the city or finally leave the city to a different place.
That's true, but to really understand the ending you've also really got to understand Red as a character. All she cared about in the world was 1) singing and 2) her lover, and in the end, even with her newly-founded godlike abilities, she wasn't able to have either of those. The whole story isn't about revenge or vengeance, it's a journey to regain what she's lost - her voice and her lover's life. They were the only two things in the world that mattered to her; life without either of them wasn't life at all for Red.
Oh no I understand the story I just don't understand the pile of comments saying she's the last person in the world, instead of city. I understand at the end, to her it was like the end of the world. She no longer had her voice and her lover was no longer physical anymore.
Red... She lover him so much she confined herself into the Country... Yet happy... Because the love of her life was there, she cleaned the Process of the city, and when her job was done, because that was what they all would have wanted, she went back... with him... It literally made me cry, the moment the Transistor kills her and brings her to the Country, with him... With her voice, as that beautiful song plays... This game has made me believe in true love again, honestly. Literally my favourite game ever.
I Really, really loved this ending, I thought it was great. I just have one problem with it... There isn't really any room for a sequel form this ending, ever. Cloudbank was such an interesting place, and it was only one city in this whole world, we never really got to see the people there, how it worked without the process... There's still so much to that world, but unfortunately, the only way we'll ever get a sequel is with different characters which would just feel... wrong.
In some way, I see the world of Cloudbank as a virtual reality and "the Country" as reality and the Transistor, a key back to reality. Realizing that the world had been massively corrupted and most (if not all) its inhabitants murdered, she eventually decided to leave the virtual world and meet her lover in the real world, who knows, maybe she only knew him through the game and this was her chance to finally see him in person. I love that this game leaves everything open for your interpretation!
my thoughts is that the world they live in like cloudbank is like the matrix and the camarata wanted to escape and wanted to use the transistor which is basically the master key or neo and use the process to force eject everyone but apparently after losing the transistor people are killed by the process and permanently die so everyone's consciousness is corrupted and die, and at the end the guy inside the transistor cant escape because he's become part of it and red knowing that there is no other way of being with the one she loves but to have her consciousness merge into the transistor
I thought the game was incredible. The only thing that frustrated me to no end was that you only fight 2 of the Camerata. It was such a tease because in my mind I had the 4 most powerful people in the city on my hit list, and I couldn't wait to see the type of abilities they had....and you finally get to them...aaaaand they killed themselves.
Can we expect transistor 2? As you guys aleady know Royce now is in the transistor. And I don't think he gave up his ambitions. So, what if Royce makes some problems in transistor? Then somebody in transistor has to stop him. And what if that person would be Red's boyfriend? Well, I hope there will be transistor 2 someday
I think the ending is brilliant. She's uncertain whether or not that recreated version of her partner will really be the original him. They live in a world of data, where anyone's attributes can be created to their exact specifications. It's the star trek transporter dilemma. Sure transporter y will get you to transporter x. But in the process, subject z will be ripped to shreds, essentially dying in the process and will be recreated on transporter x. There will be another version of you running around that perhaps he/she may not be chronologically accurate to you, but he will have all of your memories, experiences, attributes, genetics, etc. He is YOU. In transistor we see that version 1.0 can't even be ripped to shreds and reprocessed, though if this were to happen, Red would face a greater moral dilemma. Her partner is trapped and all iterations made outside of her transistor may be him, may realize himself existentially as him, but is not the original him. If that makes sense. It's a soul crushing reality that you can recreate but never move programs out of the database. She opts out as the questions of identity and agency are too much for her and she chooses instead to join the only original rather than make an exact copy in her world.
I am not expecting this ending. I am playing this game too and I can't accept this ending. I am more like expecting happy ending that the man can be brought back to his body, not Red coming to the afterlife to see him :'( Edit: I know if that ending is impossible, then this ending is the best :') because they can met again in the afterlife/The Country. And Red regain back her voice, so yeah. This is really great game
There needs to be a DLC that explains things more. Maybe from the Camerada's point of view. But I love the art at the end. Plus I think it might actually have been better to move on inside of the transistor than in the broken world they used to be in. Perhaps that was Red's way of using the paintbrush?
The funny thing about this is that due to the nature of the world the whole suicide scene was really a glorified right click + move here. (still a sad ending though due to recursion)
Another theory is that Cloudbank is sort of like the Matrix, and being 'killed' logs people out while leaving the traces of their character still around. The Transistor is basically an admin tool, according to this theory.
+Sverrir Ebeltoft i think it's the opposite. logs them deeper, another layer of a virtual reality. the fight with royce took place in a "higher" level, where you actually saw user tanks, yet far from real life. or something we can call "middle ground," the fight for the admin tool. 15 tanks on the battlegrounds, many more out of the border - fighting for the control of the 16 functions directly. the 16th is Red herself.
