*****SPOILERS***** 
 
 
Okay, so I was wondering about Metro 2033's so called "good" ending, the one where you destroy the guidance system and let the Dark Ones live. This may be explained in the book (I haven't read it yet), but to someone that has only played the game how can this be considered the "good" ending? Throughout the game, you are attacked by mutants non-stop and early on in the game when you allow one of the Dark Ones to touch you (in a dream), you die. Nobody that you meet has anything good to say about the Dark Ones either. They are represented as nothing but evil. So why in the world would you take your only opportunity to eradicate them in the end, and after all that hard work, to save them instead? They say that they "just wish to understand us" and "just want peace"; but they have psychic powers, for all you know they're just playing mind tricks to help their survival. The game ends as if by your action of taking a pacifist stance you are creating an opportunity for peace between the Dark Ones and humans, but I simply see no incentive for the mutants to stop doing what they're doing at all. By kicking the guidance system off the tower I felt that Artyom basically doomed humanity, so I have trouble seeing how that is the "good" ending.    
 
Thoughts? 

i think he did the right thing the dark ones can only communicate using brainwaves or something... it usually just fucks with people heads like severe headaches etc etc so people thought they are under attack. artyom was the only one that could really get their messages. i think it was the right ending and i look forward for 2034 and the film adaptation of 2033.

the thing is, the dark ones aren't the same as the mutants you're fighting. They're trying to get in contact with you through dreams, since that's the only way they can communicate. Of course, as far as I know, the book takes the bad ending so...
 
and the good ending is left undecided anyway, since I think the good ending is him taking the advice Khan gives you to heart (war breeds more war, never assume anything at first glance, etc.)

" @Laketown: But they look exactly like the mutants :/  "

" @Geno said:

" @Laketown: But they look exactly like the mutants :/  "

they are mutants who are smart enough to try and reach out to him, however. "

I don't really know. I thought it was a great game, but I didn't really "get" the ending.

" @Laketown said:

" @Geno said:

" @Laketown: But they look exactly like the mutants :/  "

they are mutants who are smart enough to try and reach out to him, however. "

I guess, I just felt that it was a distinct possibility that the mutants could simply be lying when they say "we want peace". I mean, if someone pointed a gun to your head (or in this case a warhead at your home) wouldn't you be willing to say pretty much anything?   I also felt that the game didn't make it clear even up till the end that they were remotely worth saving. In that psychic puzzle dream thing they had red auras and chased you, and one part forced you to shoot one.  "

Not to get all philosophical on you, but a person who can forgive those who would harm them is inherently good. That being said, in reality some of those who are so quick to forgive are often taken advantage of. Nevertheless, it is worth that risk to maintain a sense of morality in the light of what you may become. For somebody who is morally opposed to killing unnecessarily, doing so, even to save his own people, would be far more torturous than death itself.  
 
Wait, this post is over six months old?  
 
Moral of the story: Doing what's Good is not always doing what should be done. 

To tell you the truth, I thought I got the good ending, but as it turns out it was actually the bad one. So, what actually dictates what ending you get? I tried not shooting the Dark One at the end (If it's hostile, you kill it part), but that just resulted in my death...

THe "Good" ending is considered non-canon. In the books you kill them and the story follows on with Artyom's remorse. The dark ones are supposed to be the next evolution of humanity and are not really the enemy. The game doesn't do a great job of explaining this. The dark ones communicate with each other via telepathy, but if they do it to a normal human they destroy their mind. You see this at the very beginning of the game in the hospital or ward. Artyom for some reason can handle the visions, but can't really understand them.

THe "Good" ending is considered non-canon. In the books you kill them and the story follows on with Artyom's remorse. The dark ones are supposed to be the next evolution of humanity and are not really the enemy. The game doesn't do a great job of explaining this. The dark ones communicate with each other via telepathy, but if they do it to a normal human they destroy their mind. You see this at the very beginning of the game in the hospital or ward. Artyom for some reason can handle the visions, but can't really understand them.

Also, one of the themes of the book is that humanity doesn't deserve to survive: Earth is now post-human, and humanity is a dismal remainder living beneath the surface, clinging onto survival in the metro stations. The Dark Ones are an evolved form of humanity adapted to survival on the surface. As has been pointed out, the Dark Ones are not inherently evil, they are trying to communicate with the humans because they recognise kinship of some kind. One could argue that it is humanity that is evil - at least in the book. After destroying the world through nuclear warfare we haven't learnt the lesson of how to deal with conflict in a civilised fashion. Commies, Nazis, and capitalists (as well as many other small sects such as Satanists) murder each other despite being on the verge of extinction. To wipe out the Dark Ones, and thus end the prospect of humanity living on in a new form, is myopic because humanity has no future.

@Geno said:

*****SPOILERS***** Okay, so I was wondering about Metro 2033's so called "good" ending, the one where you destroy the guidance system and let the Dark Ones live. This may be explained in the book (I haven't read it yet), but to someone that has only played the game how can this be considered the "good" ending? Throughout the game, you are attacked by mutants non-stop and early on in the game when you allow one of the Dark Ones to touch you (in a dream), you die. Nobody that you meet has anything good to say about the Dark Ones either. They are represented as nothing but evil. So why in the world would you take your only opportunity to eradicate them in the end, and after all that hard work, to save them instead? They say that they "just wish to understand us" and "just want peace"; but they have psychic powers, for all you know they're just playing mind tricks to help their survival. The game ends as if by your action of taking a pacifist stance you are creating an opportunity for peace between the Dark Ones and humans, but I simply see no incentive for the mutants to stop doing what they're doing at all. By kicking the guidance system off the tower I felt that Artyom basically doomed humanity, so I have trouble seeing how that is the "good" ending. Thoughts?

Yeah, this thread is a year old, but I just finished this game after getting from the THQ/Facebook promo and I need to post my thoughts SOMEWHERE. Basically, I totally agree with you. I have no idea what happens in the books, but strictly based on the game, the idea is F'n terrible. There's absolutely nothing to suggest the dark ones want peace. When every psychic encounter ends with you dying, or crawling on the floor, why the hell would anyone think to make peace?

Again, I have no idea if the book communicates this better, the game just has poor story telling, or the story is just terrible; but I didn't see any reason to stop pulling that revolver trigger in the last psychic sequence.