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The Endings Explained

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2021-11-21 14:21:18

Introduction

SPOILERS AHEAD YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

As you find out after you finish the last chamber, you have two paths you can choose. You can either place a few portals and leave the facility, or you can go back into stasis. Below are my interpretations of what each ending means. Feel free to leave comments if you know more specifics than I do.

The Stasis Ending

In this ending, you follow instructions and you go back into stasis, with the expectation that you will be woken up in time to prevent the fatal incident that will destroy the Aperture Science facility, which occurs between the present and future timelines. This incident could be one of several known events, such as Chell's destruction of GLaDOS in Portal, but if it is a known event, then the most likely option is when Wheatley takes over the facility in Portal 2 and almost destroys it, so you would be trying to stop Chell in that case. There is also a small chance that the incident is not something previously covered in the lore.

The fact that you are never woken up from stasis in Portal: Reloaded is sort of a conundrum. It is cannon that you can be brought back to life by your atoms being rearranged should you die, which means that any failure of the stasis system or even your own death would not be sufficient cause to prevent you from being woken up, and the fact that you are regenerated in future test chambers means that this regeneration system did not fail before the indcident. Some possible explanations for your slumber include something glitching in the AI responsible for waking you up, the date of the incident being incorrectly recorded as later than it was, or that the AI woke up the wrong test subject (as there are thousands to keep track of). There is also the simple possibility that the developers intend for you to be woken up properly but never made that portion playable.

However, if you were woken up in time to stop the incident, it would only raise more questions than answers, because it means your character likely should have appeared in one of the other games. The fact you aren't woken up makes it easier to fit the story of Portal: Reloaded into the existing lore, and I respect the developers for trying to make it feel canon.

The Escape Ending

In this ending, you divert the funnel, travel to the future, the AI in your head fails from lack of power, and you make it out of Aperture Science. The triple portal device stops working once you are out of the facility, and several standard zombies (humans taken over by standard headcrabs) are on their way to get you.

For those who don't know Half Life, Headcrabs are omnivorous, parasitic alien organisms that latch onto and control human hosts using their claws, mouth, and beak. While the human host can sometimes be saved if the headcrab is removed quickly enough, such a takeover usually results in death of consciousness. The resulting creature is hostile towards other humans.

Obviously, you never get to stop the incident as you were supposed to, but it doesn't really matter because it doesn't get stopped in either ending. Similar to the Half Life franchise, you have the potential to get away from the zombies or kill them, but since you find yourself in a forest setting with a defective portal device and likely no other weapon, I'm not sure how well you'll fare. Furthermore, based on Portal 2's ending, it is unlikely you can re-enter Aperture Science after getting outside. A full-blown headcrab zombie apocalypse is not likely what is implied; it's far more likely that this is an abandoned patch of civilization at least several miles from any humans that haven't been infected by headcrabs. While I would say the protagonist likely dies, it's anyone's guess; feel free to use your imagination.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2479090108

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