Thoughts on the story line of “Lone Survivor”:

In case you haven’t played it yet, Lone Survivor is a new retro, 2D survival horror game.

I… really don’t know how to sum it up properly so I’ll just take the synopsis straight from it’s site:

The masked protagonist must escape from a city ravaged by disease, by any means. Starving and exhausted, he has begun to question how much of what he even sees is real…

Created by Jason Byrne, the mind behind indie developer Superflat Games, Lone Survivor is… not what you think.

If you haven’t played it through yet, then STOP READING NOW! Also go play it, you great oaf.

So far I’ve played it through twice. First time I got the blue ending (as most people seem to?) despite doing a lot of green stuff (adopting the cat, taking care of my psyche, eating good food such as fruit salad and cooked ham, etc.) except I also gave Hank an awful lot of blue pills, so I guess the good wasn’t enough to balance out the bad.

The second time I played I wanted to get the red ending, so I deliberately went insane, sleeping little, and eating bad food (rotten milk, rats, etc.) and killing everything I saw. Except killing everythign I saw meant needing lots of bullets… which meant trading with Hank… which landed me another blue ending >.>

SO getting to the reason I wrote this post. 

My theory on the story is this: None of it ever happened. The entire story your character is actually in the hospital psych ward. 

Why do I say that, you ask? Well, allow me to explain it in great detail!

You and The Girl in Blue were living happily, but in a land of conflict… maybe during a war? Anyway. Someone sets off a bomb on a bus (possibly a suicide attack?) that The Girl was riding on. Evidence throughout the story suggests the you were at the scene and saw her die. But you weren’t harmed at all, suggesting that you arrived after the blast. My theory on this is that given his handiness with a pistol, he must be a police officer who was called to the scene, which also explains how he got there in time to see her die. 

This traumatized you. Your consciousness retreas into the recesses of your mind while it tries to decide how to proceed from here. Your body is, of course, brought to the psych ward. That’s why the pills keep magically restocking themselves, your psychiatrist (The Man Who Wears A Box?) gives them to you.

Enter you, the player.

If you choose the blue path, what I think happens is your character goes insane, shoots himself, and is reunited with The Girl at the end. Presumably the green ending is… he moves on? Either that or he realizes what’s going on and shoots himself anyway, to be with The Girl.

As for the red ending… I have no idea. Maybe you just stay insane forever, without killing yourself? Wandering the desolate, nightmarish town that is your subconscious forever?

Who knows. 

Has anyone who has gotten the other ending fill in some of the blanks?

Endnote: You may think I’m reading too deeply into this game but trust me, I’m not. It’s abundantly clear the Jasper Byrne, the creator, put a hell of a lot of thought into this game.

Endnote #2: Yes Mom, I know that new retro is an oxymoron.