It's been a few months since I've played Cryostasis. I thought it was a fantastic game with an interesting story. Dave and Vinny seem to be a bit confused about the story and ending, so this is a discussion thread about just that.
This is how I interpreted the story.
The Flaming Heart of Danko
First off the Danko story. This is told via pieces of paper you find throughout the game. It's based off of a short story by Maxim Gorky.
In the story Danko is leading a group of people deeper into the forest in an attempt to escape an attack. As they go further into the forest, further into the darkness, the people began to lose trust in Danko and his ability to bring them to safety. His desire to save them is so strong though that it fills his heart with fire. He rips his heart out of his chest and holds it high into the air, illuminating the way out of the darkness. As they exit the forest, the people are filled with joy. Danko only sees a brief glimpse of the free land before he falls over and dies. Only one person notices and they stomp on his burning heart to extinguish the flame.
An animated adaptation of this story:
The Captain
The Danko story is basically the story of the captain, who has trust in his ability to navigate safely through the ocean, yet his crew is losing faith in him. Thus, there's not much more to say about the captain's story.
The Transient
The game starts off with you lying on the ground just inside the ship next to the first paper of the Danko story. Just a little bit further in to the ship you have a flashback of a man being pulled by a dogsled. The ice breaks and he falls into a pit. This is you. You were a meteorologist on your way to the ship to figure out why it crashed.
As you continue further into the ghost ship you go around correcting all of the mistakes that took the lives of the crew. How you can do this, who knows. Eventually you get to a point where you're actually damaging the fabric of time, represented as red cracks appearing all over the walls.
Eventually, you've altered time enough that you engage Chronos - the god of time - in battle. You kick his ass and end up saving everyone on the ship.
After which, you return to your body moments before you fell into the pit and the captain of the ship rescues you. You've corrected everything, so no one died and thus you've saved yourself from dying.
Now how the hell, if you're dead, are you able to save everyone on the ship? I'm not sure. Then again, how the hell are you able to jump into someone's minds and correct their past? Dunno, but I'm guessing those two things are intrinsically linked. Perhaps Chronos saved your life at the start of the game, which somehow imbued you with the power of time manipulation. Perhaps you're dead the entire game and just have this uncanny ability of leaping into people's brains.
Anyways, that's what I gathered from the story. I've only covered the two main story threads. There are all the smaller stories going on about certain crew members, the captain and whatnot, but those don't actually add to the main story.
If you've completed Cryostasis: Discuss.
If not: Go play it!
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