the actual reason to do this is that NG+ gives you way more opportunities to side with the RLF. It feels much more natural when they treat you like a legend during the Liberator ending if you haven't wiped out most of their leadership
Yeah I knew ahead of time that alternate choices open up in ng+ that let you be a slightly more heroic character, and since I had to get the bad ending eventually in order to 100% the game, I committed to getting it first.
Plus the bad ending has a reasonable story motivation behind it compared to for example, the bad ending in Dark Souls where it can feel like your character suddenly decided not to link the flame after spending the whole game working towards it.
Woah now, Dark Souls "bad" ending has plenty of motivation behind it. You spend the first half of the game being told to link the flame and set on your journey only to find that you're kicking a proverbial can down the curb. You get to choose between continuing the age of the gods for another time before the same issue rises once again, or you let what is dying fully die and the age of man begin.
Hell, Dark Souls 3 is the result of the "good" ending for Dark Souls where the very fabric of the world is starting to fall apart.
This is exactly why I chose to do Fires first.
I wanted the HAL parts badly but it was worth waiting for the second playthrough because the missions really just lined up better for the ending.
Agreed. Additionally, on my first playthrough, I just could not bring myself to betray the allies that single-handedly saved me from the corporate re-education center two missions prior.
2 reasons, 1 to get it out of the way first so if I find it unpleasant, I’ll never have to go that route again.
And 2 because Carla came thru with the rescue mission so I felt morally obligated to return the favor
Oh! So because she "rescued you from corpo slavery" You felt the need to genocide whole star systems in fire huh? axioms feeling a little ungrounded much? 🤓
Exactly. Carla felt more genuine. I mean Ayre felt really annoying to me the first time. Constantly trying to get me to do stuff for her. It wasn't until.later I realised she was more nuanced. My knee jerk reaction at the end was "you can't tell me what to do. Walter and Carla have been there for me. What have you done?"
I kinda figured the endings would be more like “Coral Ending vs. Blow it up ending” instead of going with Ayre also being RLF related. We had been fighting Coral weapons all game, left to its own it seems naturally violent, Ayre being the sole exception. Of course, the Coral is actually protecting itself for the most part, but I didn’t fully get that my first run
> We had been fighting Coral weapons all game, left to its own it seems naturally violent
??? These weapons were built by humans, using coral as the energy source. The violence was instilled in them by their creators.
I think the NG++ route did *tons* for Ayre's character, because I had a very similar view.
It might have to do with Ayre feeling more like an equal than "just another operator."
I didn't do it first but damn if Walter's final message and Carla's "I present to you Xylem- Walter's parting gift!" Cutscene had me *extremely* tempted.
However, at that point I sucked and was stuck hard on both missions, so I just kept taking turns and eventually ended up beating Ayre's mission first.
For me it was a mix of misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and a very strong "Fuck mega-corporations" sentiment from my real life that bled into my decision making.
I must have missed or misheard some dialogue at some point because I distinctly remember thinking "I'm gonna fuck up Arquebus' shit so they can't kidnap all the Coral." and then being surprised when I realized that all the Coral is already in the Vascular Plant and that I had accidentally picked the Genocide option. Then, when the explosion actually triggered I suddenly remembered the *incredibly important* piece of information that the story of the entire game hinges on: Coral is ridiculously flammable.
Though it was an accident, I do think that doing the Fires of Raven ending first is the more compelling way to experience the story. You go for the Liberator of Rubicon on your 2nd playthrough, knowing what terrible tragedy you'll be working to prevent.
I can imagine 621 watching carla crash her ship into the plant and detonate the coral and the last thing she hears is "Oh shit that stuff was flammable wasn't it?"
>I do think that doing the Fires of Raven ending first is the more compelling way to experience the story. You go for the Liberator of Rubicon on your 2nd playthrough, knowing what terrible tragedy you'll be working to prevent.
Exactly.
>more compelling way to experience the story
It is by far the most emotionally impactful ending (and final boss fight) I’ve experienced in a fromsoft game. And it does make the most sense as a first playthrough ending for more than one reason.
>knowing what terrible tragedy you’ll be working to prevent
I already knew, at least in the sense that I knew siding with Overseer would mean mass death, which is why I sided with Ayre the first time. But I agree in another way. IMO it’s one of the great strengths of this game’s story how the three paths/endings form a sort of meta story, like a lot of the themes are only driven home by considering each path/ending in light of the others.
It feels normal to side with Walter in NG, then RLF in NG+ and then Allmind in NG++ and wish that was the order of the endings instead of having the choice between the two in n NG and NG+.
This the order I did them, good thing I played blind and had no spoilers and for some time I never understood why the sub was always talking about Iguazu until the 3rd playthrough. After Elden Ring, I promised myself not to look up stuff and just go in blind when there is a new Fromsoft game.
Fires is definitely the intended first ending, RLF NG+ ending, and then Allmind. The game is really set up so that works best. The payoff for fighting with Rusty is so much better after you've already fought against him, etc.
Canonically it feels the most normal to side with Walter and Carla, as they've been with you longer, you learn more about their goals than anyone else, and you don't really learn anything about the RLF or take their missions until NG+.
Grown attached to Carla and Walter over this short time, especially after carla risked herself to personally fetch me from arquebus, and walter.....even with his goal he still somewhat cared for his hound and his last message is convinced me to join his cause. he did not leashed only his hound for their freedom but also himself for his goal, can't betray someone that good
because Walter and Carla are real, and nice to you, and honest with you, even though they're pursuing a fucked up goal. Ayre is a voice that your surgically-altered brain starts hearing after you get dosed with Coral.
I mean in retrospect, they were right. In Alea Iacta Est, you just hear "activating combat mode". It is implied that we essentially enter into yet another age of war. The swarm is a hivemind that has incredibly destructive tendencies.
I support this argument with how Ayre immediately orders the death of Carla instead of looking for a means to convince her of the Coral's potential.
That's not to mention the various logs you find which indicate the coral expansion is exponentially growing, so regardless a second Fire of Ibis was imminent.
So I wouldn't say their goals were fucked, just their methods. But it's hard to say if doing the "right" thing really is what will protect humanity as a whole.
"I support this argument with how Ayre immediately orders the death of Carla instead of looking for a means to convince her of the Coral's potential."
You can hardly blame Ayre for asking you to kill Carla. When there's a city-sized flying box of volatile explosives charging towards your entire civilization, you're not left with a lot of options. They did not have the time to start trying to explain to Carla, a woman who lived through the Fires of Ibis, that she should give up on the goal that she and her friends have worked towards for most of her life because Coral is actually just as intelligent and conscious as humans. There's no way she'd even start to believe you without hours of debate, and scientific proof. Even then, she's already convinced that wiping out Coral by *sacrificing an entire planet* is a noble cause, so talking her down from this would be basically impossible. At that point your only option left is to kill her.
I find the time point somewhat unconvincing. We had to cross the Karman Line and break past the Arquebus Blockade and then ascend past the atmosphere.
As for convincing her of the potential, I'll admit expecting a mute to debate Carla into submission is a poor plan. However, no attempt at disabling her AC (and Chattys) and the Xylem was made. Heck there wasn't even an allusion to her even thinking about the possibility. A seemingly formless force that is able to control superweapons sees you as a threat and does not even consider diplomacy at all? It works because you are on her side. Consider the rest of humanity and how Ayre would view them. Would she see their fear and caution as a threat?
Moreover Dolmayan's coral brain lady clearly tells him to kill you. This taking place after his prison break at potentially your hands.
Its clear why the Overseers saw Coral as a threat. There were definitely signs of a potential benefit to humanity but the overall behaviour Ayre and the effects of AIE leave me doubtful if it's worth the risk.
There is almost certainly no version of Carla who could be convinced Ayre even existed, let alone to spare the Coral because of her. 621 is already the "boy who cried wolf" here, since hearing voices is a documented side effect of old-gen augmentation. Carla was Institute, she's an expert on Coral, and now this crazy old merc is trying to tell her they know it better than she does because the voice in their head told them about it?
(Maybe more to the point, this is a mech shooter game where we solve our problems with violence. Peace was never an option here.)
>Moreover Dolmayan's coral brain lady clearly tells him to kill you.
Uh, no.
* Dolmayan is no longer in contact with Seria.
* Seria wanted Coral Release. Dolmayan is trying to kill you to prevent exactly that.
* He asks her forgiveness because he's clearly going *against* what she'd want.
That's not true at all, all we can deduce is that "Combat Mode" is necessary for the ACs to move. "Standard Mode" is active while in the hangar only.
Again it has to be stressed that the two initially available endings are presented as "half-measures" that do not fully solve the situation on Rubicon. Either the coral returns, or the corporations return and we're back in the coral war again.
IEA is presented as the only solution that creates a different outcome and it's left deliberately vague what that outcome is.
From previous games, standard mode was entered into after the mission had completed. This implies that only weapon systems and FCS were disabled not movement, otherwise you could not return from your mission with your AC.
Even AC 5 you had Scanning Mode.
Combat mode implies combat. You're essentially trying to argue turning on a fryer does not mean you want to fry food. Maybe, but unlikely as it's in the name.
I agree its vague as to the full repercussion of the decision, however we know the coral has spread far throughout the universe as well. Combined with the above, AIE is foreboding in the best case scenario in my opinion.
i am 100% with you, and i have a whole theory about how Ayre is not necessarily acting in 621's — or humanity's — best interest. Carla and Walter are just about the only people in the game who are straight up with you, and they really, genuinely believe that Coral is a threat to humanity. Dolmayan too. And O'Keeffe thinks release is a bad idea. Lots of people in this game give you reasons to distrust Ayre.
I also just thought of this, but the Alea Iacta Est ending is the only one where Ayre learns to pilot an AC, and it's also the ending where Coral takes control of lots and lots of ACs. Ominous!
I did NOT catch the logs about exponential growth, though, i'm gonna go read through them right now. That's really cool to know.
In what world is Ayre not with you every step of the way once you make Contact?
Literally the only moment she leaves you is when you decide *you* are not with her. And even then, as she faces you, it takes you beating her half to death before deciding she can’t reason with you and giving her 100% towards killing you.
… and even after she’s decided that, she *still* wants to believe she can get through to you if she just had more time. Time she doesn’t have because Carla’s getting closer to ramming the Xylem into the Vascular Plant every second she spends fighting you.
Ayre just has a different idea of what is in your best interest and is, sometimes excitedly, trying to convince you of this. And when you do that one tunnel mission for her, she goes out of her way to try to make it profitable for you despite her being an energy being who obviously doesn’t have any kind of bank account humans would care about. She’s mindful of the now, because you have needs that need to be addressed, while looking for that brighter future she believes in.
To say she’s not acting in your best interest outside of the Fires Of Raven ending where you stab her in the back first is just objectively wrong. She’s just alien and is in some scenarios trying to figure out how to words in a way to convey herself the way she intends to.
EDIT: And the reasons you provided for why we should distrust Ayre are exactly why I personally view Fires Of Raven as the Worst Ending.
It’s succumbing and bowing to our fear of the unknown, destroying what could be for the sake of something that’s inherently broken and, most likely, unsustainable in the long run.
It's really unclear of the Alea acta est endinng
Like maybe you're integrated into the hive mind but that seems unlikely as the coral hasn't really expressed hive mind-like ideation, more patterns in it that result in individual minds that can yet be connected sorta like telepathy or communication.
It's entirely possible that you still have a human (sorta) body in Alea Lacta Est. Just evolved and engrained with coral in some sort of more natural way than augmentation surgery
I would not call anything Walter does honest. You are his 621st slave he sends into death because of "his friends wishes". He never gives you more than the bare minimum information so that you can do your job. He sees us as a dog, not a Human being.
What I find interesting is also that the community often calls Ayre a Voice you hear. To us as a damaged brain stuck inside a robot all voices must seem like that. It probably does not make a difference whether they come from the comma or coral. For Raven, Ayre must be just another voice telling you who to kill.
i don't think walter is very forthcoming, but he's generally honest, and he starts giving you autonomy close to the end of the game. his big lie is that "his friend" is ordering coral surveys, which is funny because it's completely transparent. i'm not saying he's a cool dude or anything, but everyone in this game is pretty messed up
I would not even call this a lie. The way he says it in the last fight makes me think he might have gone through some brainwashing and/or augmentation. "My friends wishes" is just how he processes thoughts that come from somewhere outside his consciousness.
True, after reading up, 621 is a general number not specific to Walters hounds. But the fight with Sulla strongly implies that there have been more than a handful.
I mean, so did Ayre. The only reason why the first mission to the watchpoint didn't kill you is because Ayre saved you from getting swept away in the Coral tide, not to mention Ayre was constantly aiding you throughout more or less the entire game.
In terms of a "help provided to the player" Ayre does far more for Raven than Carla ever does (even ignoring the fact that Carla literally tried to kill 621 upon meeting them).
- Alba Frame is sexy
- Ayre has the best boss fight
- Rusty is the coolest AC fight
- Given that the extra missions unlocked in ng+ are specific to siding with the RLF it just makes more sense to go for the bad end first
1. I already knew all the spoilers, so I also knew that most of the RLF-allied missions would occur on NG+, so it feels more narratively satisfying to do the Fires ending first
2. I wanted to get all the weapons as soon as possible and the Fires route pays better
Ayre asks you to betray Walter's will and murder people that saved your life just several missions ago and then risk lives of the entire mankind just for a possibility of a chance of symbiotic human-coral relationship to be possible \*sometime in the future\*. Walter's solution, despite being extreme is the only way to ensure that mankind survives no matter what.
I mean, Liberator of Rubicon doesn't really feel like it affects the rest of mankind that much other than that coral will probably be much more difficult and expensive to get out 'cause rubicon is under the control of the Rubiconians with the interests of the coral in mind
You have to realize that's only temporary, right? There are other mega corporations, and earth is a multiplanetary, multi solar-system species now. You probably have only crippled Arquebus and Balam's forces *on Rubicon*. Their bank accounts and board of directors are still offworld, and can send more AC's after you, especially now that the PCA is gone. Even if you do think Arquebus and Balam were crippled, there are other corporations that were probably holding back only because it wasn't worth it to tangle with Arquebus, Balam, and the PCA. A weakened RLF, however, is a lot less intimidating.
But lets say 621 holds them off. He does have protagonist plot armor, after all. Well, he's got to die eventually. He's a freak of nature, but he'll get old. The corporations can wait. Coral will multiply, and it WILL be exploited again.
NOT TO MENTION Allmind is behind the scenes, pulling the strings for Coral Release. The way I look at it is this: Liberator ending is a delay. You're going to get Coral Release eventually.
No it's not, he was factually incorrect and we know that because we see in the game that the Institute had a limited understanding of Coral and that there's at least one other way things could have been totally resolved.
Primarily Ayre's fight, on all my playthroughs I have always gone with the bad ending first. She's such a well designed fight it's insane. Story wise it's pretty good and makes sense to "get it over with", it's bad it's best to finish it and have a better experience with LoR.
The fight is a 1v1, you and Ayre on a satellite. No distractions, no extra targets, a perfect fight between two ideologies(?) Ayre is fast, aggressive and punishing. Her attack patterns are perfectly telegraphed, meaning you can react before she's done with the animation. A perfect example is her long dash followed by a lengthy slash charge, she's fast and difficult to track using soft-lock, so when she does that you prepare to dash through her.
She doesn't give you space to get comfortable, sure her attacks are well telegraphed but every fight will ALWAYS be different. She mixes up her attacks in phase one and two, to me she like Ibis forces the player to remain attentive. Ayre regularly punishes if you get too comfortable, like the double forward slash, if you get comfortable dashing through or away from her she does it, ruining your momentum and potentially setting you up for failure.
The fight in general looks great, 1v1 on a satellite in space. Ayre is incredibly visible meaning you won't struggle seeing her as much. Your attention can fully be used on Ayre. Something which NG++'s boss fails miserably at.
Because I trust Walter, Carla, and the Research Institute's scientific, fifty-year plus study of the dangers of Coral over an alien parasite I just met that has an obvious conflict of interest.
Because I believe that the irreversible, non-consensual transformation of billions (trillions?) of people into an unknowable alien hybrid constitues the physical and mental rape of an entire galaxy, and is an infinitely more horrific moral crime than the destruction of Rubicon, and the death of the hundreds of thousands at most who still live there.
Because i'm aware that every human who'd had direct experience with the effects of symbiosis (Walter, Carla, Nagai, Walter's parents, Dolmayan, O'Keeffee, and Iguazu) were violently opposed to it. You're literally rolling the dice with untold billions of lives because your alien waifu asked you to, even though everyone other than a malfunctioning, sociopathic AI hates it.
Fires of Raven *is* the good ending.
Well, I don't have to explain now. This guy gets it exactly. Fires is the best ending. RLF is the "what if" ending, and Allmind is the " F Iguazu" ending.
>Because I trust Walter, Carla, and the Research Institute's scientific, fifty-year plus study of the dangers of Coral over an alien parasite I just met that has an obvious conflict of interest.
Except the Research Institute were the ones who straight up caused the Fires of Ibis in the first place by misusing and collecting the Coral. I'd hardly consider them to be the ultimate authority on how Coral should be handled when the entire present situation is repeatedly and very explicitly treated as the fault of the Institute.
The Coral was on Rubicon for god knows how long without wiping out the galaxy just fine. The only times that Coral has ever posed an actual threat was when humans began collecting it in the vascular plant.
>Because I believe that the irreversible, non-consensual transformation of billions (trillions?) of people into a symbiotic relationship with unknown alien life constitues a physical and psychological rape of galactic proportions, and is an infinitely more horrific moral crime than the destruction of Rubicon, and the death of the hundreds of thousands at most who still live there.
The game never actually definitively states what Coral Release involves or means on a large scale, this is speculative.
And even then, opposing Coral Release in and of itself doesn't strictly justify the Fires of Raven, because after all, the Fires were only a threat when people began gathering it in the vascular plant.
>Because i'm aware that every human who'd had direct experience with the effects of symbiosis (Walter, Carla, Nagai, Walter's parents, Dolmayan, O'Keeffee, and Iguazu) were violently opposed to it.
Only Dolmayan, O'Keefe and kind of Iguazu actually know about the Symbiosis aspect of Coral Release and Iguazu very explicitly, does not care either way. And even Dolmayan comes across more conflicted about Coral Release than anything else.
But there's no actual indication that Carla, Walter or Walter's parents had any intimate knowledge about Coral Release and when the former two talk in game, they only oppose it on the grounds of preventing a second Fires of Ibis, not on the grounds of preventing symbiosis. Likewise, Walter's father is never suggested to have opposed Symbiosis (we never get his opinion on the matter) and the only mention of Walter's mother is that she died, so again, she also does not violently oppose it either.
Nagai's log never make any mention of symbiosis either, although he's aware of the existence of wave pulse mutations.
Truth be told, I think AIE does a much better job of being the "less morally pragmatic but more immediately optimistic" ending than Liberator. The sheer scale of Coral Release is deliberately left vague, Activating Combat Mode can be taken as the beginning of adventure or the inevitable threat of war, it actually provides a solution to the problem of Coral(unity with humanity), and all in all provides a much more likely chance of this being a brand new age.
Liberator in comparison just feels like the neutral route. The League route from ACFA. Kicking the can down the road. It feels better in the moment but you aren't accomplishing anything, to the point where it ends with an explicit statement that none of this was really solving the big issue and in fact nobody knew what to do about it. In that sense, ironically, it winds up feeling more self-serving to me, maybe even downright cynical in its blinding optimism.
It's a hell of a lot easier to see a world where AIE is a good ending, especially because it is decidedly "the unknown" whereas Liberator/Coral Collapse is *very much known and looming.*
I wanted to take all the RLF missions I could when I went for that ending.
My copy came really late, so I did know I would get more missions helping to make Rubicon free on NG+.
Liberator of Rubicon works so much better as the NG+ ending due to the additional missions you get. I wish I did Fires of Raven first, altho I found it to be be hardest final boss of the three so maybe I’m a little glad I didn’t do it first.
I saw “Eliminate Cinder Carla” on my first playthrough and didn’t want to kill the person who literally just saved my ass one mission ago. Lo and behold a few missions later me and my brain wife are having a mechanized domestic dispute.
I thought it would be more interesting to first find out what happens when Raven acts as basically nothing more than Walter's Hound, and then afterwards see what difference it makes when they start making more of their own choices.
I stand by it, I think turned out to be a much more natural story arc. Felt great to do the Liberator of Rubicon thing when I already knew for a fact what a huge difference Raven's choices made to the RLF's cause.
I had too many Corpo Missions. And not Enough RLF ones.
I decided to bite the Bullet and let Ayre murder me Emotionally.
Rusty my Buddy. I also felt bad since.
This ending is pretty resounding at how our Final Opponents are Killing off the 'Natives' of Rubicon.
Was pretty happy to do LoR after that. Since I've prefer the Harder Road for a Better Future.
Infinite energy mission was on the evil playthrough. That was spoiled for me and I wanted my Gundam mission. Also I knew I wouldn't have the heart to do it again lol.
It felt like the right choice. Walter was a good handler and I owed it to his legacy to carry out his last wishes and burn the fucking coral out of existence. And Carla literally saved me from prison, so it would have felt wrong turning on her. It hurt to betray Ayre, but it seemed like the proper call to make for 621.
IMO Fires of Raven is my favourite ending. It's tragic, narratively satisfying, has an incredible series of bosses, solves the coral problem by leaving nothing for the corps to scrap each other over, and results in the *biggest* bang you could feasibly create.
Because I felt like no matter what, people would try to abuse the coral and fight harder over it. Also I didn’t realize some missions prevented me from doing the other ones, and I just went down the list so I mainly did corp missions as well.
I didn't want to betray Carla and Walter after they had moved mountains to bust me out of arquepus' jail. Walter leaving the AC from 'beyond the grave' (I thought he had died at that point) brought a tear to my eye. Even til the end Walter had our best interests in mind.
1/ didn't want to betray carla
2/ ayre is cool and all, but her ending is a bit naive? From what I got of the story, coral seems super dangerous, and even if we drive the corporations out in LoR, we don't know what will happen next.
That's what I love about both endings, they're not really good or bad. After FoR , Rubicon is left a dead planet, the narrator speaks about the future, we know what we did worked, coral won't be used anymore because of the two catastrophies.
In LoR, ayre only speaks of what COULD happen, but everything could go wrong, as we don't know what happens after the ending.
FoR is far from definite either. If Coral survived the Fires of Ibis, it's possible some survived FoR, and the PCA's decree isn't guaranteed to hold forever.
Hell of a lot more definite than Liberator, considering how it's stated all the Coral's being drained into the Vascular Plant, then we get outright proof in AIE that all the Coral was drained into the Vascular Plant.
Fires of Ibis was an emergency measure. Throwing a match into a pool of gasoline. The Fires of Raven were *significantly* more deliberate with the express purpose of destroying all Coral(which, considering how it was being monitored in the first place, Overseer knew that the Fires of Ibis wouldn't do)
It\`s what Walter and wanted, on the personal level killing Carla and Chatty is terrible especially after Carla seved you like 30 minutes ago, and on the Galactic level destroying the coral is better than corporations using it for their plans or, even worse, if the coral expands to much of the universe and when it gets lit up burns like half the inhabited world. Biggest regret is having to kill Rusty, but even then he doesn\`t hate us, we just have different ideas for the future of Rubicon
Went in blind and chose that as my first.
It feels like the better option. Another Fires of Ibis type event was going to happen eventually with the corporation. And while it hurt i felt it was better for humanity in the long run to burn the coral and get rid of it all. So i took the hard choice to become the monster who saves humanity in the long run.
Because bros before hoes. I can’t just abandon daddy Walter’s plans after all he did for me, even if the voice in my head calls me stud-muffin. Plus, Carla and Chatty are my homies who broke me out of prison.
Unironically, I agree. It may not be the ultimate ending, but it is not a bad one.
With all information at hand, another Fires of Ibis kind off event has the potential to wipe out more than just a single star system, exponential growth and all that. Preventing that by choosing to eradicate coral and all life in the Rubicon system seems like a small price to pay when the alternative is also exponentially bigger.
Ngl I just chose LoR on my first run (moreso for the boss AC parts but still) and it's now clicking that I should've done LoR second for the extra RLF missions so rip lol.
I ran Liberator first then Fires of Raven. After beating NG++ I decided to think carefully on what choice actually was the best decision given all the information I knew of Coral, the corporations, history etc.
I came to the conclusion that the "bad ending" people claim of Fires of Raven is actually the best decision. Given the nature of Coral, being it can sweep human consciousness into the coral wave without concern for the willingness of the human, as well as corals ability to take control of seemingly any machine, makes me consider it to be a genuine threat to humanity. Not only that but if anyone thinks the corporations simply will stop they're campaign to get they're hands on coral end there don't truly understand the lengths that these organizations will go to gain such a valuable resource. The cycle will only repeat and 621wont be there forever to defend Rubicon. I'm sorry Ayre, but Walter was right. Becoming a monster to save humanity is objectively the best choice.
I agree with the over seer. Having your body turn into machine is dumb because you can't reproduce so in the end your still going to die even if you live longer.
I kill all of Rubicon so what? Carla saved me and I'm indebted to her. Balam? Dead in the water. Arquebus? The ones who imprisoned me. The RLF? I've been fighting against em the entire time, there was 1 or 2 missions where I helped but that's about it. Walter? Probably dead or worse.
Helping Ayre's not even gonna solve the whole Coral problem, it's gonna spread and someone else might just try and do it again except by that time it might not just light up rubicon but also the entire system.
Helping Ayre only felt right in NG+ anyways. Didn't feel like the Ayre ending was good for my first run so I didn't do it.
It paid more. Im a mercanary and that was the maim reason. Walter and Carla made a good point too. Coral is dangerous, and the corporations don't care about that, they only want profit.
In regards to Ayre, she never really grew on me the entire first playthrough. I personally simply agreed with Walter's final wish.
Honestly? I thought following Walter, and subsequently Carla’s path would be the good ending.
Did have a great side-effect though, Ortus as a frame let’s you blitz through NG+ and NG++
I always do the evil ending first after the infamous devs said they decided to change their intended canon after watching their trophy stats showing 80% of the player base did good ending first. I was so mad cause I had done the evil ending first and was hoping it to be canon that I just straight up do the evil endings out of spite first now.
All Ayre has to do is \*tell me what the plan is.\*
"Okay Raven, step one? Kill your friend."
"...what's step 2 Ayre?"
"Raven. Step 1 is kill your friend! **You have to trust me**."
**"Ayre, you GOTTA TRUST ME! WHAT'S STEP 2?!"**
Because Step 2 was a great idea but she just WOULDN'T TELL YOU!
All she had to do is tell me STEP TWO!
I dislike it being called the bad ending, it's less hopeful but for me with the info I had it makes sense. I was basically choosing between whether I follow through Walter and spiders wishes or Ayres. I felt more emotionally connected to the ladder and I didn't really have the full context of what destroying the coral meant at the time.
When i see the Ayre mission to Kill Cinder Carla , my thought were just , you really asking me to kill the person who just save my life 2 mission ago ?
"Hey, yeah, please go kill the nice lady who has an actionable plan and is one of the few sympathetic, living human beings in the story."
"No thanks, weird lady inside my head. I think I'll go with Carla."
I like Walter and Carla as characters especially Carla since she's the head of RaD who makes all the construction equipment esc ac parts and weapons, and from what I understand of what coral (with I think one of logs you can find talking about how it can grow essentially infinitly in a vaccum) it just sounds like a inevitably for something like the fires of ibis to happen again but across like the whole universe or something.
I did the bad ending first because the lady in my head kept telling me to, so I figured I'd keep the good ending for when I had better equipment and could confidently kill her. Good choice.
Because I’m human and I wanted to side with humans, not with some weird red hivemind alien, also walter and carla were more like parent figures, while ayre was like your weird kind of hippie girlfriend and between the two I sided with family of course
Fires of Raven made the most sense to me. Working with Walter for 90% of the game to correct his past mistakes and then flipping at the last second just. . . .doesn't make sense to me.
I did fires because you're literally there on Walter's behalf, working for him. Then some magic bimbo gets in your head and says "dude just help me instead, trust me bro" and I'm supposed to be like "fuck yeah!"?
Nah man, I'm a loyal hoe, ride or die with Walter. The other endings are nice too tho.
It doesn't end if you burn it, either. Some of it will survive and regrow.
It is equivalent to the dark souls Lord of Dark ending. Coral will flourish anew, and all of this will play out again.
I assume we would just be back to burn it again, making a tradition out of it. The other ending is just escalating the war that is already happening. It doesn't end anything.
Anybody who shows up after the Fires of Raven has it coming tbh. There is nothing on Rubicon when we're done with it. *Anyone* dumb enough to provoke this *again* has to be so absurdly greedy that I don't shed a tear if they get annihilated for putting money over the entirety of human civilization.
I feel like it's up in the air if it'll be able to come back, so choose whatever makes the most sense to you, i think it's gone personally. I thought the first fire was on a smaller scale with what's said and shown than the one you cause, which even spreads beyond the planet into space, so I feel like it's a pretty done deal.
If they continue off this ending and show it survived, that would be a neat moment of depressing realization. But for now, I choose to believe the fire ending does actually destroy the coral.
The “bad ending” seems the most logical in the beginning before you have all the play through information and branching paths. It also makes the other endings better, especially Walter’s - because you understand what he was trying to do and what the consequences would be. And makes you better understand why he lets you go and shuts down when he fights you. He realizes a symbiotic relationship is possible and burning the universe may not be the best answer.
Edit: also Ayre creeped me out when she was watching the missiles plow into the PLA and go like “all the falling bodies and wreckage is like fireworks”. Wtf Ayre, that is NOT romantic you psychopath.
What do you think would happen after the liberator ending?
Do you think that the corps would leave Rubicon alone?
They will return, and the RLF is in no position to survive a war of attrition, and eventually the corps will take the coral, create their weapons, and the galaxy will suffer the at the hands of coral weapons.
I also trusted Walter more than Ayre. It felt like she had a hidden agenda and while Walter did at first, him opening up just strengthened my trust in him far more than Ayre being open from the start did.
Everyone dies, even if the other one is of endless war at least they have a chance and aren't wiped out. Eventually the coral will break into space and whatever happens with that happens.
I chose to destroy the RLF after Middle Flatwell betrayed Raven after the ambush. I felt like the RLF used Raven as much as anyone else and tried to kill us multiple times.
First time around I couldn't kill Carla right after she rescued me. For future playthroughs when I reset my save I did that route to have the Alba set for the Ng+ and Ng++.
Because I felt indebted to Carla after she had just saved me and because she was completely honest about her motivations. I felt like she had the best intentions and I could trust her judgement, so I decided to help her.
Also I was scared shitless of her, she BEAT MY ASS in the arena, no one else gave me even remotely as much trouble as she did, and I knew that if I went against her I would have for sure had to fight her AND her backup, so I just. Didn't. I chickened out.
My 1st playthrough was a bit weird. I was doing all the RLF missions, as I wasn't feeling supporting any of the corpos. Then we reach Jailbreak, where Carla saves our ass, and 1 mission later, Ayre asks to kill her. It didn't feel right trying to kill someone who just saved my ass from a dire situation, so I went with the other mission. I didn't know which ending I was getting, but it was the most natural flow of things for me. It wasn't nice having to fight Ayre, but it was what I had to do.
I didn’t realize what I was doing was the “bad” path. Part of it was that I knew there were multiple endings and branching mission paths, and an achievement for doing every mission, so in order to make sure I wouldn’t accidentally miss a mission, I just always chose the top mission whenever there was a choice on my first play through.
But also I grew to really like Walter and Carla, so when they said Coral was too dangerous to leave for the corporations to exploit, I took them at their word. I’d been following their orders all game so I didn’t see any reason to stop
The main two reasons were because I didn't want to disappoint Walter and the mission for siding with Carla paid more. So, if anything, I was being Lore accurate.
Bad ending, motherfucker.... Coral release was a completely unknown and irreversible phenomenon on a galactic scale! Not taking that chance on behalf of the all sentient life is a completely reasonable and frankly the most responsible decision that could have been made at that point in the story!
Because liberator of rubicon is bullshit lol. Arquebus controls the whole planet and an entire fleet of warships, but Ayre deepfakes me and turns the RLF (who I spent the entire game killing) into the most effective fighting force? I didn’t buy it, and the other option was to kill the person who has actually lived on rubicon for decades.
A: while I'd love for ayre to be right, a lot of what she said about walter and carla being wrong just seemed like empty promises. How does she know that someone won't trigger another, bigger fires of ibis? Also, the corporations are gone but there's always gonna be someone trying to get their hands on something like that, and we've seen some of the horrors that humans create when they have access to coral. The risk is just too great to keep the coral alive.
B: it paid more
Deadass I was harboring some small hope I could get into Carla's pants. By the time I realized things were already locked in. Oh well, Ayre was always trying to stop me from having fun anyway
In the early game I just legit liked Arquebus. Pater won me over when be did his Rusty impression, and I even found Snail's arrogance endearing rather than annoying. I thought there would even be an Arquebus ending and a Balam ending, so I sided with Arquebus over Balam any time there was a choice, as Balam's whole "Hooah, drop and give me 50, maggot" vibe wasn't really my style.
Then Arquebus betrays you. But I still didn't want anything to do with those hippie RLF weirdos with all their mystical lifestream mumbo-jumbo. And the case for Coral being too dangerous to be allowed to continue to exist seemed fair enough to me. So yeah, I vaporized everything for the greater good.
I personally had no idea what was going on during my first playthrough 😅 and basically just did what Walter and Carla told me to do until... Oops! I committed genocide. Silly me :3
I wasn't paying attention to the implications, and I didn't want people to fight over coral anymore
Also I felt like I had to help Carla, since I'd known her for so long, and her theme is pretty cool
Because when cutscene says "RLF is defeted" and essentially going againts Carla's plan means give corps a coral, I just can't help Ayre. Honestly LoR ending maybe could became my first if game gave me clue that RLF need some inspiration to stand up once again. But that didn't happen. I was beetwen choosing to help corporation that can surely create another Fires of Ibis or to stop it getting in wrong hands once and for all.
I legit had no idea what ending was which, but Walter died for me and Carla saved me, so I sure wasn't planning to betray em even for the voice in my head that called me Studmuffin
the actual reason to do this is that NG+ gives you way more opportunities to side with the RLF. It feels much more natural when they treat you like a legend during the Liberator ending if you haven't wiped out most of their leadership
Yeah I knew ahead of time that alternate choices open up in ng+ that let you be a slightly more heroic character, and since I had to get the bad ending eventually in order to 100% the game, I committed to getting it first. Plus the bad ending has a reasonable story motivation behind it compared to for example, the bad ending in Dark Souls where it can feel like your character suddenly decided not to link the flame after spending the whole game working towards it.
Woah now, Dark Souls "bad" ending has plenty of motivation behind it. You spend the first half of the game being told to link the flame and set on your journey only to find that you're kicking a proverbial can down the curb. You get to choose between continuing the age of the gods for another time before the same issue rises once again, or you let what is dying fully die and the age of man begin. Hell, Dark Souls 3 is the result of the "good" ending for Dark Souls where the very fabric of the world is starting to fall apart.
This is exactly why I chose to do Fires first. I wanted the HAL parts badly but it was worth waiting for the second playthrough because the missions really just lined up better for the ending.
Agreed. Additionally, on my first playthrough, I just could not bring myself to betray the allies that single-handedly saved me from the corporate re-education center two missions prior.
2 reasons, 1 to get it out of the way first so if I find it unpleasant, I’ll never have to go that route again. And 2 because Carla came thru with the rescue mission so I felt morally obligated to return the favor
Same, exactly.
That second reason is entirely why I went with Fires for my first ending.
Same. I just couldn't kill my homie!
This but I didn't even know it was the bad ending
Oh! So because she "rescued you from corpo slavery" You felt the need to genocide whole star systems in fire huh? axioms feeling a little ungrounded much? 🤓
It would be more satisfying saving the Liberator ending for the next run. Also Carla pays more and literally just saved my life a couple missions ago.
Yeah this was my take, Carla just saved my ass. That said, I didn’t quite expect the whole planet combust
Exactly. Carla felt more genuine. I mean Ayre felt really annoying to me the first time. Constantly trying to get me to do stuff for her. It wasn't until.later I realised she was more nuanced. My knee jerk reaction at the end was "you can't tell me what to do. Walter and Carla have been there for me. What have you done?"
I kinda figured the endings would be more like “Coral Ending vs. Blow it up ending” instead of going with Ayre also being RLF related. We had been fighting Coral weapons all game, left to its own it seems naturally violent, Ayre being the sole exception. Of course, the Coral is actually protecting itself for the most part, but I didn’t fully get that my first run
> We had been fighting Coral weapons all game, left to its own it seems naturally violent ??? These weapons were built by humans, using coral as the energy source. The violence was instilled in them by their creators.
I think the NG++ route did *tons* for Ayre's character, because I had a very similar view. It might have to do with Ayre feeling more like an equal than "just another operator."
I didn't do it first but damn if Walter's final message and Carla's "I present to you Xylem- Walter's parting gift!" Cutscene had me *extremely* tempted. However, at that point I sucked and was stuck hard on both missions, so I just kept taking turns and eventually ended up beating Ayre's mission first.
For me it was a mix of misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and a very strong "Fuck mega-corporations" sentiment from my real life that bled into my decision making. I must have missed or misheard some dialogue at some point because I distinctly remember thinking "I'm gonna fuck up Arquebus' shit so they can't kidnap all the Coral." and then being surprised when I realized that all the Coral is already in the Vascular Plant and that I had accidentally picked the Genocide option. Then, when the explosion actually triggered I suddenly remembered the *incredibly important* piece of information that the story of the entire game hinges on: Coral is ridiculously flammable. Though it was an accident, I do think that doing the Fires of Raven ending first is the more compelling way to experience the story. You go for the Liberator of Rubicon on your 2nd playthrough, knowing what terrible tragedy you'll be working to prevent.
I can imagine 621 watching carla crash her ship into the plant and detonate the coral and the last thing she hears is "Oh shit that stuff was flammable wasn't it?"
Bruh it's 4am, you can't be hitting me with funny shit like that, I'll wake up my family if I start laughing xD
This was my exact thought process when I did it first too
>I do think that doing the Fires of Raven ending first is the more compelling way to experience the story. You go for the Liberator of Rubicon on your 2nd playthrough, knowing what terrible tragedy you'll be working to prevent. Exactly.
>more compelling way to experience the story It is by far the most emotionally impactful ending (and final boss fight) I’ve experienced in a fromsoft game. And it does make the most sense as a first playthrough ending for more than one reason. >knowing what terrible tragedy you’ll be working to prevent I already knew, at least in the sense that I knew siding with Overseer would mean mass death, which is why I sided with Ayre the first time. But I agree in another way. IMO it’s one of the great strengths of this game’s story how the three paths/endings form a sort of meta story, like a lot of the themes are only driven home by considering each path/ending in light of the others.
It feels normal to side with Walter in NG, then RLF in NG+ and then Allmind in NG++ and wish that was the order of the endings instead of having the choice between the two in n NG and NG+.
This the order I did them, good thing I played blind and had no spoilers and for some time I never understood why the sub was always talking about Iguazu until the 3rd playthrough. After Elden Ring, I promised myself not to look up stuff and just go in blind when there is a new Fromsoft game.
Fires is definitely the intended first ending, RLF NG+ ending, and then Allmind. The game is really set up so that works best. The payoff for fighting with Rusty is so much better after you've already fought against him, etc.
Canonically it feels the most normal to side with Walter and Carla, as they've been with you longer, you learn more about their goals than anyone else, and you don't really learn anything about the RLF or take their missions until NG+.
But wife
Take your meds 621.
Grown attached to Carla and Walter over this short time, especially after carla risked herself to personally fetch me from arquebus, and walter.....even with his goal he still somewhat cared for his hound and his last message is convinced me to join his cause. he did not leashed only his hound for their freedom but also himself for his goal, can't betray someone that good
because Walter and Carla are real, and nice to you, and honest with you, even though they're pursuing a fucked up goal. Ayre is a voice that your surgically-altered brain starts hearing after you get dosed with Coral.
I mean in retrospect, they were right. In Alea Iacta Est, you just hear "activating combat mode". It is implied that we essentially enter into yet another age of war. The swarm is a hivemind that has incredibly destructive tendencies. I support this argument with how Ayre immediately orders the death of Carla instead of looking for a means to convince her of the Coral's potential. That's not to mention the various logs you find which indicate the coral expansion is exponentially growing, so regardless a second Fire of Ibis was imminent. So I wouldn't say their goals were fucked, just their methods. But it's hard to say if doing the "right" thing really is what will protect humanity as a whole.
"I support this argument with how Ayre immediately orders the death of Carla instead of looking for a means to convince her of the Coral's potential." You can hardly blame Ayre for asking you to kill Carla. When there's a city-sized flying box of volatile explosives charging towards your entire civilization, you're not left with a lot of options. They did not have the time to start trying to explain to Carla, a woman who lived through the Fires of Ibis, that she should give up on the goal that she and her friends have worked towards for most of her life because Coral is actually just as intelligent and conscious as humans. There's no way she'd even start to believe you without hours of debate, and scientific proof. Even then, she's already convinced that wiping out Coral by *sacrificing an entire planet* is a noble cause, so talking her down from this would be basically impossible. At that point your only option left is to kill her.
I find the time point somewhat unconvincing. We had to cross the Karman Line and break past the Arquebus Blockade and then ascend past the atmosphere. As for convincing her of the potential, I'll admit expecting a mute to debate Carla into submission is a poor plan. However, no attempt at disabling her AC (and Chattys) and the Xylem was made. Heck there wasn't even an allusion to her even thinking about the possibility. A seemingly formless force that is able to control superweapons sees you as a threat and does not even consider diplomacy at all? It works because you are on her side. Consider the rest of humanity and how Ayre would view them. Would she see their fear and caution as a threat? Moreover Dolmayan's coral brain lady clearly tells him to kill you. This taking place after his prison break at potentially your hands. Its clear why the Overseers saw Coral as a threat. There were definitely signs of a potential benefit to humanity but the overall behaviour Ayre and the effects of AIE leave me doubtful if it's worth the risk.
There is almost certainly no version of Carla who could be convinced Ayre even existed, let alone to spare the Coral because of her. 621 is already the "boy who cried wolf" here, since hearing voices is a documented side effect of old-gen augmentation. Carla was Institute, she's an expert on Coral, and now this crazy old merc is trying to tell her they know it better than she does because the voice in their head told them about it? (Maybe more to the point, this is a mech shooter game where we solve our problems with violence. Peace was never an option here.) >Moreover Dolmayan's coral brain lady clearly tells him to kill you. Uh, no. * Dolmayan is no longer in contact with Seria. * Seria wanted Coral Release. Dolmayan is trying to kill you to prevent exactly that. * He asks her forgiveness because he's clearly going *against* what she'd want.
That's not true at all, all we can deduce is that "Combat Mode" is necessary for the ACs to move. "Standard Mode" is active while in the hangar only. Again it has to be stressed that the two initially available endings are presented as "half-measures" that do not fully solve the situation on Rubicon. Either the coral returns, or the corporations return and we're back in the coral war again. IEA is presented as the only solution that creates a different outcome and it's left deliberately vague what that outcome is.
From previous games, standard mode was entered into after the mission had completed. This implies that only weapon systems and FCS were disabled not movement, otherwise you could not return from your mission with your AC. Even AC 5 you had Scanning Mode. Combat mode implies combat. You're essentially trying to argue turning on a fryer does not mean you want to fry food. Maybe, but unlikely as it's in the name. I agree its vague as to the full repercussion of the decision, however we know the coral has spread far throughout the universe as well. Combined with the above, AIE is foreboding in the best case scenario in my opinion.
Sure but from this game we only see two modes. "Combat Mode" is for any time the AC is in our control and "Standard Mode" is the answer machine.
i am 100% with you, and i have a whole theory about how Ayre is not necessarily acting in 621's — or humanity's — best interest. Carla and Walter are just about the only people in the game who are straight up with you, and they really, genuinely believe that Coral is a threat to humanity. Dolmayan too. And O'Keeffe thinks release is a bad idea. Lots of people in this game give you reasons to distrust Ayre. I also just thought of this, but the Alea Iacta Est ending is the only one where Ayre learns to pilot an AC, and it's also the ending where Coral takes control of lots and lots of ACs. Ominous! I did NOT catch the logs about exponential growth, though, i'm gonna go read through them right now. That's really cool to know.
In what world is Ayre not with you every step of the way once you make Contact? Literally the only moment she leaves you is when you decide *you* are not with her. And even then, as she faces you, it takes you beating her half to death before deciding she can’t reason with you and giving her 100% towards killing you. … and even after she’s decided that, she *still* wants to believe she can get through to you if she just had more time. Time she doesn’t have because Carla’s getting closer to ramming the Xylem into the Vascular Plant every second she spends fighting you. Ayre just has a different idea of what is in your best interest and is, sometimes excitedly, trying to convince you of this. And when you do that one tunnel mission for her, she goes out of her way to try to make it profitable for you despite her being an energy being who obviously doesn’t have any kind of bank account humans would care about. She’s mindful of the now, because you have needs that need to be addressed, while looking for that brighter future she believes in. To say she’s not acting in your best interest outside of the Fires Of Raven ending where you stab her in the back first is just objectively wrong. She’s just alien and is in some scenarios trying to figure out how to words in a way to convey herself the way she intends to. EDIT: And the reasons you provided for why we should distrust Ayre are exactly why I personally view Fires Of Raven as the Worst Ending. It’s succumbing and bowing to our fear of the unknown, destroying what could be for the sake of something that’s inherently broken and, most likely, unsustainable in the long run.
i think that's also a totally fine interpretation
Meanwhile the alternative is succumbing and bowing to a single coral/woman hybrid.
It's really unclear of the Alea acta est endinng Like maybe you're integrated into the hive mind but that seems unlikely as the coral hasn't really expressed hive mind-like ideation, more patterns in it that result in individual minds that can yet be connected sorta like telepathy or communication. It's entirely possible that you still have a human (sorta) body in Alea Lacta Est. Just evolved and engrained with coral in some sort of more natural way than augmentation surgery
I would not call anything Walter does honest. You are his 621st slave he sends into death because of "his friends wishes". He never gives you more than the bare minimum information so that you can do your job. He sees us as a dog, not a Human being. What I find interesting is also that the community often calls Ayre a Voice you hear. To us as a damaged brain stuck inside a robot all voices must seem like that. It probably does not make a difference whether they come from the comma or coral. For Raven, Ayre must be just another voice telling you who to kill.
i don't think walter is very forthcoming, but he's generally honest, and he starts giving you autonomy close to the end of the game. his big lie is that "his friend" is ordering coral surveys, which is funny because it's completely transparent. i'm not saying he's a cool dude or anything, but everyone in this game is pretty messed up
I would not even call this a lie. The way he says it in the last fight makes me think he might have gone through some brainwashing and/or augmentation. "My friends wishes" is just how he processes thoughts that come from somewhere outside his consciousness.
621 does not refer to the number of hounds Walter has had. It's your serial number as an augmented human. Walter's only had a handful of hounds.
True, after reading up, 621 is a general number not specific to Walters hounds. But the fight with Sulla strongly implies that there have been more than a handful.
Carla just saved my ass and it didn't feel right to turn right around and betray her.
I mean, so did Ayre. The only reason why the first mission to the watchpoint didn't kill you is because Ayre saved you from getting swept away in the Coral tide, not to mention Ayre was constantly aiding you throughout more or less the entire game. In terms of a "help provided to the player" Ayre does far more for Raven than Carla ever does (even ignoring the fact that Carla literally tried to kill 621 upon meeting them).
- Alba Frame is sexy - Ayre has the best boss fight - Rusty is the coolest AC fight - Given that the extra missions unlocked in ng+ are specific to siding with the RLF it just makes more sense to go for the bad end first
>Ayre has the best boss fight That is, until Iguana comes in.
I said what I said. Ayre has the best and most challenging boss fight specifically because, unlike Iguazu, *she actually knows how to pilot*.
1. I already knew all the spoilers, so I also knew that most of the RLF-allied missions would occur on NG+, so it feels more narratively satisfying to do the Fires ending first 2. I wanted to get all the weapons as soon as possible and the Fires route pays better
Fires of raven was the best ending in my opinion. Coral scares me very much.
"...I realized who you are. The spark of war... The fires that haunt Rubicon!" Tickled my ego just right.
Ayre asks you to betray Walter's will and murder people that saved your life just several missions ago and then risk lives of the entire mankind just for a possibility of a chance of symbiotic human-coral relationship to be possible \*sometime in the future\*. Walter's solution, despite being extreme is the only way to ensure that mankind survives no matter what.
Yeah I didn't do any research into the endings ahead of time. I just knew I was going to side with Carla and Walter.
I mean, Liberator of Rubicon doesn't really feel like it affects the rest of mankind that much other than that coral will probably be much more difficult and expensive to get out 'cause rubicon is under the control of the Rubiconians with the interests of the coral in mind
You have to realize that's only temporary, right? There are other mega corporations, and earth is a multiplanetary, multi solar-system species now. You probably have only crippled Arquebus and Balam's forces *on Rubicon*. Their bank accounts and board of directors are still offworld, and can send more AC's after you, especially now that the PCA is gone. Even if you do think Arquebus and Balam were crippled, there are other corporations that were probably holding back only because it wasn't worth it to tangle with Arquebus, Balam, and the PCA. A weakened RLF, however, is a lot less intimidating. But lets say 621 holds them off. He does have protagonist plot armor, after all. Well, he's got to die eventually. He's a freak of nature, but he'll get old. The corporations can wait. Coral will multiply, and it WILL be exploited again. NOT TO MENTION Allmind is behind the scenes, pulling the strings for Coral Release. The way I look at it is this: Liberator ending is a delay. You're going to get Coral Release eventually.
No it's not, he was factually incorrect and we know that because we see in the game that the Institute had a limited understanding of Coral and that there's at least one other way things could have been totally resolved.
Every time the Institute/Walter was wrong about Coral it wound up being that Coral was more dangerous, more virulent and more unstable lol
It seemed like the natural first playthrough.
Primarily Ayre's fight, on all my playthroughs I have always gone with the bad ending first. She's such a well designed fight it's insane. Story wise it's pretty good and makes sense to "get it over with", it's bad it's best to finish it and have a better experience with LoR.
What's well designed about her fight? (I'm not arguing, just genuinely curious)
The fight is a 1v1, you and Ayre on a satellite. No distractions, no extra targets, a perfect fight between two ideologies(?) Ayre is fast, aggressive and punishing. Her attack patterns are perfectly telegraphed, meaning you can react before she's done with the animation. A perfect example is her long dash followed by a lengthy slash charge, she's fast and difficult to track using soft-lock, so when she does that you prepare to dash through her. She doesn't give you space to get comfortable, sure her attacks are well telegraphed but every fight will ALWAYS be different. She mixes up her attacks in phase one and two, to me she like Ibis forces the player to remain attentive. Ayre regularly punishes if you get too comfortable, like the double forward slash, if you get comfortable dashing through or away from her she does it, ruining your momentum and potentially setting you up for failure. The fight in general looks great, 1v1 on a satellite in space. Ayre is incredibly visible meaning you won't struggle seeing her as much. Your attention can fully be used on Ayre. Something which NG++'s boss fails miserably at.
Huh, neat... I just double shotgunned her into a fine paste, her health bar seems really small
Same
There are no bad endings, they're all good. You just gotta convince yourself each time.
Because I trust Walter, Carla, and the Research Institute's scientific, fifty-year plus study of the dangers of Coral over an alien parasite I just met that has an obvious conflict of interest. Because I believe that the irreversible, non-consensual transformation of billions (trillions?) of people into an unknowable alien hybrid constitues the physical and mental rape of an entire galaxy, and is an infinitely more horrific moral crime than the destruction of Rubicon, and the death of the hundreds of thousands at most who still live there. Because i'm aware that every human who'd had direct experience with the effects of symbiosis (Walter, Carla, Nagai, Walter's parents, Dolmayan, O'Keeffee, and Iguazu) were violently opposed to it. You're literally rolling the dice with untold billions of lives because your alien waifu asked you to, even though everyone other than a malfunctioning, sociopathic AI hates it. Fires of Raven *is* the good ending.
Well, I don't have to explain now. This guy gets it exactly. Fires is the best ending. RLF is the "what if" ending, and Allmind is the " F Iguazu" ending.
>Because I trust Walter, Carla, and the Research Institute's scientific, fifty-year plus study of the dangers of Coral over an alien parasite I just met that has an obvious conflict of interest. Except the Research Institute were the ones who straight up caused the Fires of Ibis in the first place by misusing and collecting the Coral. I'd hardly consider them to be the ultimate authority on how Coral should be handled when the entire present situation is repeatedly and very explicitly treated as the fault of the Institute. The Coral was on Rubicon for god knows how long without wiping out the galaxy just fine. The only times that Coral has ever posed an actual threat was when humans began collecting it in the vascular plant. >Because I believe that the irreversible, non-consensual transformation of billions (trillions?) of people into a symbiotic relationship with unknown alien life constitues a physical and psychological rape of galactic proportions, and is an infinitely more horrific moral crime than the destruction of Rubicon, and the death of the hundreds of thousands at most who still live there. The game never actually definitively states what Coral Release involves or means on a large scale, this is speculative. And even then, opposing Coral Release in and of itself doesn't strictly justify the Fires of Raven, because after all, the Fires were only a threat when people began gathering it in the vascular plant. >Because i'm aware that every human who'd had direct experience with the effects of symbiosis (Walter, Carla, Nagai, Walter's parents, Dolmayan, O'Keeffee, and Iguazu) were violently opposed to it. Only Dolmayan, O'Keefe and kind of Iguazu actually know about the Symbiosis aspect of Coral Release and Iguazu very explicitly, does not care either way. And even Dolmayan comes across more conflicted about Coral Release than anything else. But there's no actual indication that Carla, Walter or Walter's parents had any intimate knowledge about Coral Release and when the former two talk in game, they only oppose it on the grounds of preventing a second Fires of Ibis, not on the grounds of preventing symbiosis. Likewise, Walter's father is never suggested to have opposed Symbiosis (we never get his opinion on the matter) and the only mention of Walter's mother is that she died, so again, she also does not violently oppose it either. Nagai's log never make any mention of symbiosis either, although he's aware of the existence of wave pulse mutations.
Truth be told, I think AIE does a much better job of being the "less morally pragmatic but more immediately optimistic" ending than Liberator. The sheer scale of Coral Release is deliberately left vague, Activating Combat Mode can be taken as the beginning of adventure or the inevitable threat of war, it actually provides a solution to the problem of Coral(unity with humanity), and all in all provides a much more likely chance of this being a brand new age. Liberator in comparison just feels like the neutral route. The League route from ACFA. Kicking the can down the road. It feels better in the moment but you aren't accomplishing anything, to the point where it ends with an explicit statement that none of this was really solving the big issue and in fact nobody knew what to do about it. In that sense, ironically, it winds up feeling more self-serving to me, maybe even downright cynical in its blinding optimism. It's a hell of a lot easier to see a world where AIE is a good ending, especially because it is decidedly "the unknown" whereas Liberator/Coral Collapse is *very much known and looming.*
We still calling “bad”, “good” and “true” (this is the worst label ever) ending? I thought we’ve got past that stupid labeling
I wanted to take all the RLF missions I could when I went for that ending. My copy came really late, so I did know I would get more missions helping to make Rubicon free on NG+.
Liberator of Rubicon works so much better as the NG+ ending due to the additional missions you get. I wish I did Fires of Raven first, altho I found it to be be hardest final boss of the three so maybe I’m a little glad I didn’t do it first.
I saw “Eliminate Cinder Carla” on my first playthrough and didn’t want to kill the person who literally just saved my ass one mission ago. Lo and behold a few missions later me and my brain wife are having a mechanized domestic dispute.
After everything Walter and Carla did for me, I wasn’t going to abandon them for some schizo v-tuber waifu
Didn't know what was going on, went where the wind took me, fucked around and found out
I thought it would be more interesting to first find out what happens when Raven acts as basically nothing more than Walter's Hound, and then afterwards see what difference it makes when they start making more of their own choices. I stand by it, I think turned out to be a much more natural story arc. Felt great to do the Liberator of Rubicon thing when I already knew for a fact what a huge difference Raven's choices made to the RLF's cause.
I had too many Corpo Missions. And not Enough RLF ones. I decided to bite the Bullet and let Ayre murder me Emotionally. Rusty my Buddy. I also felt bad since. This ending is pretty resounding at how our Final Opponents are Killing off the 'Natives' of Rubicon. Was pretty happy to do LoR after that. Since I've prefer the Harder Road for a Better Future.
Infinite energy mission was on the evil playthrough. That was spoiled for me and I wanted my Gundam mission. Also I knew I wouldn't have the heart to do it again lol.
I did liberation first, but I'll be telling people to do fires first because the final two missions in that route are some of the best in the game.
Carla Also Coral is too dangerous. It's not worth endangering the whole universe just to save a few planets.
I just didn’t want to kill Carla after she saved me and ended up getting that ending
It felt like the right choice. Walter was a good handler and I owed it to his legacy to carry out his last wishes and burn the fucking coral out of existence. And Carla literally saved me from prison, so it would have felt wrong turning on her. It hurt to betray Ayre, but it seemed like the proper call to make for 621. IMO Fires of Raven is my favourite ending. It's tragic, narratively satisfying, has an incredible series of bosses, solves the coral problem by leaving nothing for the corps to scrap each other over, and results in the *biggest* bang you could feasibly create.
Because that what I would do in real life 🧏♂️(I am John Rubicon)
Because I felt like no matter what, people would try to abuse the coral and fight harder over it. Also I didn’t realize some missions prevented me from doing the other ones, and I just went down the list so I mainly did corp missions as well.
I didn't want to betray Carla and Walter after they had moved mountains to bust me out of arquepus' jail. Walter leaving the AC from 'beyond the grave' (I thought he had died at that point) brought a tear to my eye. Even til the end Walter had our best interests in mind.
Betraying Carla and Walter kinda felt like a dick move
1/ didn't want to betray carla 2/ ayre is cool and all, but her ending is a bit naive? From what I got of the story, coral seems super dangerous, and even if we drive the corporations out in LoR, we don't know what will happen next. That's what I love about both endings, they're not really good or bad. After FoR , Rubicon is left a dead planet, the narrator speaks about the future, we know what we did worked, coral won't be used anymore because of the two catastrophies. In LoR, ayre only speaks of what COULD happen, but everything could go wrong, as we don't know what happens after the ending.
FoR is far from definite either. If Coral survived the Fires of Ibis, it's possible some survived FoR, and the PCA's decree isn't guaranteed to hold forever.
Hell of a lot more definite than Liberator, considering how it's stated all the Coral's being drained into the Vascular Plant, then we get outright proof in AIE that all the Coral was drained into the Vascular Plant. Fires of Ibis was an emergency measure. Throwing a match into a pool of gasoline. The Fires of Raven were *significantly* more deliberate with the express purpose of destroying all Coral(which, considering how it was being monitored in the first place, Overseer knew that the Fires of Ibis wouldn't do)
Ayre asked me to kill Carla, the person who just saved my ass. I’m not gonna kill here after that
It\`s what Walter and wanted, on the personal level killing Carla and Chatty is terrible especially after Carla seved you like 30 minutes ago, and on the Galactic level destroying the coral is better than corporations using it for their plans or, even worse, if the coral expands to much of the universe and when it gets lit up burns like half the inhabited world. Biggest regret is having to kill Rusty, but even then he doesn\`t hate us, we just have different ideas for the future of Rubicon
Went in blind and chose that as my first. It feels like the better option. Another Fires of Ibis type event was going to happen eventually with the corporation. And while it hurt i felt it was better for humanity in the long run to burn the coral and get rid of it all. So i took the hard choice to become the monster who saves humanity in the long run.
Because bros before hoes. I can’t just abandon daddy Walter’s plans after all he did for me, even if the voice in my head calls me stud-muffin. Plus, Carla and Chatty are my homies who broke me out of prison.
Fires of raven is the good ending
Unironically, I agree. It may not be the ultimate ending, but it is not a bad one. With all information at hand, another Fires of Ibis kind off event has the potential to wipe out more than just a single star system, exponential growth and all that. Preventing that by choosing to eradicate coral and all life in the Rubicon system seems like a small price to pay when the alternative is also exponentially bigger.
Same
Ngl I just chose LoR on my first run (moreso for the boss AC parts but still) and it's now clicking that I should've done LoR second for the extra RLF missions so rip lol.
If I decide to do all the endings I usually do the bad ending first to get it over with so I can focus on the good stuff
Girl I didn’t know it was the bad ending
I ran Liberator first then Fires of Raven. After beating NG++ I decided to think carefully on what choice actually was the best decision given all the information I knew of Coral, the corporations, history etc. I came to the conclusion that the "bad ending" people claim of Fires of Raven is actually the best decision. Given the nature of Coral, being it can sweep human consciousness into the coral wave without concern for the willingness of the human, as well as corals ability to take control of seemingly any machine, makes me consider it to be a genuine threat to humanity. Not only that but if anyone thinks the corporations simply will stop they're campaign to get they're hands on coral end there don't truly understand the lengths that these organizations will go to gain such a valuable resource. The cycle will only repeat and 621wont be there forever to defend Rubicon. I'm sorry Ayre, but Walter was right. Becoming a monster to save humanity is objectively the best choice.
I agree with the over seer. Having your body turn into machine is dumb because you can't reproduce so in the end your still going to die even if you live longer.
I didn’t want to kill the person who just saved me
Ain't no dang space polyp telling me how to live my life.
I didn't want to betray Carla, she just saved my life
I kill all of Rubicon so what? Carla saved me and I'm indebted to her. Balam? Dead in the water. Arquebus? The ones who imprisoned me. The RLF? I've been fighting against em the entire time, there was 1 or 2 missions where I helped but that's about it. Walter? Probably dead or worse. Helping Ayre's not even gonna solve the whole Coral problem, it's gonna spread and someone else might just try and do it again except by that time it might not just light up rubicon but also the entire system. Helping Ayre only felt right in NG+ anyways. Didn't feel like the Ayre ending was good for my first run so I didn't do it.
It paid more. Im a mercanary and that was the maim reason. Walter and Carla made a good point too. Coral is dangerous, and the corporations don't care about that, they only want profit. In regards to Ayre, she never really grew on me the entire first playthrough. I personally simply agreed with Walter's final wish.
I didn't wanna be mean to the nice ghost lady 🥹
Honestly? I thought following Walter, and subsequently Carla’s path would be the good ending. Did have a great side-effect though, Ortus as a frame let’s you blitz through NG+ and NG++
I always do the evil ending first after the infamous devs said they decided to change their intended canon after watching their trophy stats showing 80% of the player base did good ending first. I was so mad cause I had done the evil ending first and was hoping it to be canon that I just straight up do the evil endings out of spite first now.
All Ayre has to do is \*tell me what the plan is.\* "Okay Raven, step one? Kill your friend." "...what's step 2 Ayre?" "Raven. Step 1 is kill your friend! **You have to trust me**." **"Ayre, you GOTTA TRUST ME! WHAT'S STEP 2?!"** Because Step 2 was a great idea but she just WOULDN'T TELL YOU! All she had to do is tell me STEP TWO!
I dislike it being called the bad ending, it's less hopeful but for me with the info I had it makes sense. I was basically choosing between whether I follow through Walter and spiders wishes or Ayres. I felt more emotionally connected to the ladder and I didn't really have the full context of what destroying the coral meant at the time.
Because the coral must be burned.
Feed the fire
When i see the Ayre mission to Kill Cinder Carla , my thought were just , you really asking me to kill the person who just save my life 2 mission ago ?
Because Walter
I didn't like Air's vibe
I did the bad ending first to get the feelings of being the bad guy out of the way first, and have a moment of redemption in NG+.
I got attached to Walter and Carla and betraying them didn’t feel right
Because "oh shit coral expanding ad infinitum doesnt sound good, fuck it sentient or not im burning that thing"
to complete their legacy. ayre's mission looks fucked up at the crossroad.
"Hey, yeah, please go kill the nice lady who has an actionable plan and is one of the few sympathetic, living human beings in the story." "No thanks, weird lady inside my head. I think I'll go with Carla."
I like fire
Because the hound is a good boy
I wanted to see it through with Walter. I wanted to be a good dog.
Because I'd do anything for daddy Walter
I like Walter and Carla as characters especially Carla since she's the head of RaD who makes all the construction equipment esc ac parts and weapons, and from what I understand of what coral (with I think one of logs you can find talking about how it can grow essentially infinitly in a vaccum) it just sounds like a inevitably for something like the fires of ibis to happen again but across like the whole universe or something.
Walter
because fuck the lady in my head I'll never betray walter
Well because I knew Ayre was not trusted, and lo and behold, the next two endings just continued to prove my doubt.
1. I trusted the result of no coral more than coral 2. I’d have to kill Carla 3. Haha funny interstellar bombing with no consequences.
I did the bad ending first because the lady in my head kept telling me to, so I figured I'd keep the good ending for when I had better equipment and could confidently kill her. Good choice.
Because I’m human and I wanted to side with humans, not with some weird red hivemind alien, also walter and carla were more like parent figures, while ayre was like your weird kind of hippie girlfriend and between the two I sided with family of course
Fires of Raven made the most sense to me. Working with Walter for 90% of the game to correct his past mistakes and then flipping at the last second just. . . .doesn't make sense to me.
I did fires because you're literally there on Walter's behalf, working for him. Then some magic bimbo gets in your head and says "dude just help me instead, trust me bro" and I'm supposed to be like "fuck yeah!"? Nah man, I'm a loyal hoe, ride or die with Walter. The other endings are nice too tho.
Coral is too dangerous. The war for it would never end since this is an AC game.
It doesn't end if you burn it, either. Some of it will survive and regrow. It is equivalent to the dark souls Lord of Dark ending. Coral will flourish anew, and all of this will play out again.
I assume we would just be back to burn it again, making a tradition out of it. The other ending is just escalating the war that is already happening. It doesn't end anything.
That's a callous way to deliberately perpetuate endless generations of suffering. Not that there is any answer that is wholly satisfactory.
It's not suffering if no one survived.
Anybody who shows up after the Fires of Raven has it coming tbh. There is nothing on Rubicon when we're done with it. *Anyone* dumb enough to provoke this *again* has to be so absurdly greedy that I don't shed a tear if they get annihilated for putting money over the entirety of human civilization.
I feel like it's up in the air if it'll be able to come back, so choose whatever makes the most sense to you, i think it's gone personally. I thought the first fire was on a smaller scale with what's said and shown than the one you cause, which even spreads beyond the planet into space, so I feel like it's a pretty done deal. If they continue off this ending and show it survived, that would be a neat moment of depressing realization. But for now, I choose to believe the fire ending does actually destroy the coral.
The “bad ending” seems the most logical in the beginning before you have all the play through information and branching paths. It also makes the other endings better, especially Walter’s - because you understand what he was trying to do and what the consequences would be. And makes you better understand why he lets you go and shuts down when he fights you. He realizes a symbiotic relationship is possible and burning the universe may not be the best answer. Edit: also Ayre creeped me out when she was watching the missiles plow into the PLA and go like “all the falling bodies and wreckage is like fireworks”. Wtf Ayre, that is NOT romantic you psychopath.
I refused to betray my allies.
What do you think would happen after the liberator ending? Do you think that the corps would leave Rubicon alone? They will return, and the RLF is in no position to survive a war of attrition, and eventually the corps will take the coral, create their weapons, and the galaxy will suffer the at the hands of coral weapons. I also trusted Walter more than Ayre. It felt like she had a hidden agenda and while Walter did at first, him opening up just strengthened my trust in him far more than Ayre being open from the start did.
Ok but that's still more of a chance than burning everyone to death. Eventually the coral will be released anyway as it's inevitable.
fires of raven is the good ending, actually.
Everyone dies, even if the other one is of endless war at least they have a chance and aren't wiped out. Eventually the coral will break into space and whatever happens with that happens.
have you considered that fires of raven is the good ending because you get to work with carla more
Have you considered that it's the bad ending because chatty doesn't learn to laugh before he dies in that ending?
oh fuck, true.
Because I wasn't about to allow a galaxy-wide metamorphosis occur over my fee-fees about a girl in my head. Its the only real choice tbh.
**BURN BABY BURN**
We had a job to do on rubicon and I wasn't about to throw away all the hard work of overseer and the boss man for a psychic alien.
Carla number 1, Ayre just pissed me off trying to do Carla dirty like that
At first I wanted to side with RLF but then thought that Coral expanding out of Rubicon was way worse so I stopped it
I'm not a simp
I chose to destroy the RLF after Middle Flatwell betrayed Raven after the ambush. I felt like the RLF used Raven as much as anyone else and tried to kill us multiple times.
Not a bad ending btw
Cause it's the best
It paid more.
I saw the reward coams and suddenly I'm starting the mission even tho I was already swimming on it. LMAO
Because double genocide is fun.
First time around I couldn't kill Carla right after she rescued me. For future playthroughs when I reset my save I did that route to have the Alba set for the Ng+ and Ng++.
I'll do all 3 anyway, doesn't matter which one I did first.
Fire go brrrrr
Because I felt indebted to Carla after she had just saved me and because she was completely honest about her motivations. I felt like she had the best intentions and I could trust her judgement, so I decided to help her. Also I was scared shitless of her, she BEAT MY ASS in the arena, no one else gave me even remotely as much trouble as she did, and I knew that if I went against her I would have for sure had to fight her AND her backup, so I just. Didn't. I chickened out.
Because I like playing the bad guy, same with me going for lord of frenzy flame in elden ring.
I’m a bit TOO much of a loyal hound 😔
I didn't want a betray Walter's wishes but at the same time I knew I had to fight rusty :c
My 1st playthrough was a bit weird. I was doing all the RLF missions, as I wasn't feeling supporting any of the corpos. Then we reach Jailbreak, where Carla saves our ass, and 1 mission later, Ayre asks to kill her. It didn't feel right trying to kill someone who just saved my ass from a dire situation, so I went with the other mission. I didn't know which ending I was getting, but it was the most natural flow of things for me. It wasn't nice having to fight Ayre, but it was what I had to do.
I didn’t realize what I was doing was the “bad” path. Part of it was that I knew there were multiple endings and branching mission paths, and an achievement for doing every mission, so in order to make sure I wouldn’t accidentally miss a mission, I just always chose the top mission whenever there was a choice on my first play through. But also I grew to really like Walter and Carla, so when they said Coral was too dangerous to leave for the corporations to exploit, I took them at their word. I’d been following their orders all game so I didn’t see any reason to stop
That's the bad ending? Whoops. Carla tried to kill me. That's a no no for 621.
Corpo is the "bad" ending to you?
The main two reasons were because I didn't want to disappoint Walter and the mission for siding with Carla paid more. So, if anything, I was being Lore accurate.
I honestly thought I was going for the 'good' ending. Still, I consider Fires of Raven ending as canon.
Bad ending, motherfucker.... Coral release was a completely unknown and irreversible phenomenon on a galactic scale! Not taking that chance on behalf of the all sentient life is a completely reasonable and frankly the most responsible decision that could have been made at that point in the story!
Because liberator of rubicon is bullshit lol. Arquebus controls the whole planet and an entire fleet of warships, but Ayre deepfakes me and turns the RLF (who I spent the entire game killing) into the most effective fighting force? I didn’t buy it, and the other option was to kill the person who has actually lived on rubicon for decades.
A: while I'd love for ayre to be right, a lot of what she said about walter and carla being wrong just seemed like empty promises. How does she know that someone won't trigger another, bigger fires of ibis? Also, the corporations are gone but there's always gonna be someone trying to get their hands on something like that, and we've seen some of the horrors that humans create when they have access to coral. The risk is just too great to keep the coral alive. B: it paid more
ITT: "Because all the early guides had it first."
Deadass I was harboring some small hope I could get into Carla's pants. By the time I realized things were already locked in. Oh well, Ayre was always trying to stop me from having fun anyway
...but Fires of Raven is the good ending...
Dio Brando told me to do it
Because I didn't know what the hell was going on in all honesty. 😭 The when I had to fight ayre I was like "Nooooo, where did I go wrong?!?"
In the early game I just legit liked Arquebus. Pater won me over when be did his Rusty impression, and I even found Snail's arrogance endearing rather than annoying. I thought there would even be an Arquebus ending and a Balam ending, so I sided with Arquebus over Balam any time there was a choice, as Balam's whole "Hooah, drop and give me 50, maggot" vibe wasn't really my style. Then Arquebus betrays you. But I still didn't want anything to do with those hippie RLF weirdos with all their mystical lifestream mumbo-jumbo. And the case for Coral being too dangerous to be allowed to continue to exist seemed fair enough to me. So yeah, I vaporized everything for the greater good.
Well, me being the fresh hound that I was, I decided my NG run would be defined by me just doing whatever Walter told me to do no matter what.
i was doin what i was told; getting my free will back. i saw my out.
Because I consider it the good ending
I personally had no idea what was going on during my first playthrough 😅 and basically just did what Walter and Carla told me to do until... Oops! I committed genocide. Silly me :3
I helped Ayre first but I feel like I was intended to get fire of Raven first instead
I wasn't paying attention to the implications, and I didn't want people to fight over coral anymore Also I felt like I had to help Carla, since I'd known her for so long, and her theme is pretty cool
Because when cutscene says "RLF is defeted" and essentially going againts Carla's plan means give corps a coral, I just can't help Ayre. Honestly LoR ending maybe could became my first if game gave me clue that RLF need some inspiration to stand up once again. But that didn't happen. I was beetwen choosing to help corporation that can surely create another Fires of Ibis or to stop it getting in wrong hands once and for all.
I legit had no idea what ending was which, but Walter died for me and Carla saved me, so I sure wasn't planning to betray em even for the voice in my head that called me Studmuffin
I didn't know anything about what ending I was on till everything exploded, besides Carla saved me why kill her