The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan has a mysterious story and many different endings. While things may seem obvious at first and the game leads you to believe it’s a story about a ghost ship, it is not so. It’s not the horror game it’s made out to be, in reality it is a mystery game about a secret military project. The more playthroughs you do, the more obvious this becomes, as there are many hints dropped by the curator and collectibles. For example, one mystery to many players will be some characters just disappear and are dead at the end of the game without it being clear what happened to them (you never saw them die). This post will explain all of it.
Also in a unique way, the game does most of its story-telling through collectibles (50 secrets) and the curator (a man between the main acts) will drop some hints. Finding and reviewing the collectibles is vital to understanding what’s really going on.
After 10 playthroughs and reviewing all collectibles here’s my understanding of Man of Medan’s events, the endings that I unlocked, and a synopsis of the story.
Man of Medan Synopsis
- The game starts at a Chinese market with two soldiers having a night out. A fortune teller tells them their future and they try out their fighting skills against a training dummy.
- The men go back to their ship, the “Ourang Medan”. They are drunk and their boss locks them into rooms to sober up.
- A cutscene shows some yellow-colored mist leaking out into the ship’s cargo hold.
- Suddenly all hell breaks loose. Our characters wake up in their rooms and will reunite. The ship sequence ends with our character seeing a hallucination of what looks like his son and gets killed by it no matter what we do. We also see cutscenes of other people dying seemingly in fear of something unknown. All of this is the prologue that plays in the year 1947.
- Now we are put back in present day and meet our main characters, consisting of Alex, Brad, Conrad, Fliss, Julia. They are meeting up on a boat, called “The Duke of Milan”. Fliss is the captain and was paid by the others for a diving trip. She doesn’t know any of them. Alex and Brad are brothers. Alex and Julia are lovers. Conrad is Julia’s brother, him and Alex meet for the first time on this trip. Brad was invited by Julia, he doesn’t know any of the others except for his brother Alex.
- After some initial banter, they embark on a boat trip with the purpose of diving for a plane wreck and search for an old ship that contains “Manchurian Gold”, what they believe to be a long-lost treasure.
- Brad gets seasick. He has no diving experience and apparently never went on a boat trip before. He will rest in his bed.
- Fliss will complain that it’s standard regulation to report new never before seen wrecks to the authorities, but the friends will dive regardless of Fliss’s complaints.
- Alex and Julia will put on their rebreathers and dive to an underwater plane wreck.
- Another boat with some “fishermen” arrives and gets damaged by the diving line that our friends put in the water. They complain that they got damages because of this, but Fliss (our captain) will tell them to get away. Conrad will throw money in the water to flaunt his wealth (he is a rich guy).
- Because of the fisher boat crashing into the diving line, it will rip off the cockpit of the underwater plane wreck. Alex and Julia see a shark and will swim back to the surface. Along the way, Alex might propose to Julia if Brad encouraged him earlier to “go with his gut”. Julia can accept or decline the proposal which will strain their relationship for the rest of the story.
- As they swim up, Julia spots an explosion on the boat. She is supposed to decompress first to prevent diver’s sickness (“the bends”). If she doesn’t decompress and drinks alcohol later, she will die from this sickness by the end of the game. If she decompresses, she will be fine.
- It turns out the explosion on the boat was just a mishap with the grill and nothing to worry about.
- The friends exchange some stories and sit down for a beer. Brad tells a ghost story.
- The same night, the “fishermen” come back to intrude the ship (Olson being their leader, Danny and Junior being his two henchmen). Turns out, they are pirates after all. They tie up our 5 characters and question them about how much money their parents have, in the attempt to extort some money.
- A fierce storm breaks out. Conrad can try to escape on a speedboat or fight the pirates. If he escapes he will be gone till the final ending cutscenes, but if he attacks the pirates will always overpower him. Julia can potentially get shot here by the pirate leader “Olson” if Alex is being aggressive towards the pirates.
- The pirates find a document that speaks of the “Manchurian Gold”, to be found on an old lost ship. Our friends were also searching for this. The pirates change their plans. Instead of extorting our friends’ parents for money, they now want to find this hidden “treasure”. They wrongfully think it is actual physical gold, but as we saw in the initial cutscenes it’s a chemical (the yellow mist that leaked out on the Ourang Medan ship).
- The storm keeps going and crashes our boat into a much bigger ship, the “ghost ship” of which the full name is Ourang Medan. Here everyone goes on board. Olson (pirate leader) takes our boat’s distributor cap, the part that makes the engine work. Without it, the boat won’t start.
- The pirates lock our friends into a dark room. Here they discuss that they have to get back their boat’s distributor cap from Olson, the pirate leader. Without this important part, their boat’s engine cannot run and they couldn’t get away.
- The friends escape the room through a vent. They can either barricade the main door or distract the pirates, either way they will escape, but Fliss can be captured here.
- After some walking through the ship, the friends see Olson putting their boat’s distributor cap in the cargo hold. They try to sneak down and grab it, but no matter who you send down there will fail and get captured by the pirates.
- Alex and Julia will run away and go through a kitchen and a place with some caskets in it. Fliss, if she was captured by the pirates in the cargo hold, will be escorted by Danny. Brad, if he stayed undetected on the Duke of Milan will still be on the boat and now goes onboard the Ourang Medan to help Alex, Conrad, Fliss and Julia. However, if he was detected on the boat he’ll already be with the friends.
- Eventually, Fliss will reach a fancy-looking, red-colored ballroom. This is just a hallucination from the “Manchurian Gold” mist of course. She can pull a lever to go backstage and get some fresh air on the outer deck to clear her head from the Manchurian Gold’s hallucination effects. After a little while, a cutscene automatically triggers. She will either see a demon or she sees Brad. If she and Brad recognize each other they can proceed together. If Fliss sees a demon, she will run away. Likewise, if Brad sees a demon and not Fliss, he will run away.
- If Fliss and Brad recognized each other, they will go together, then a room gets flooded and they have to save each other from drowning. If Brad and Fliss didn’t meet up, we will get a chapter instead where Conrad runs away from a nurse. Conrad can die during the chase, or if he confronts the nurse at the end of the chase he will survive.
- Alex and Julia get attacked by Olson and fall into water (if they’re still alive). Then Alex can try to drown Olson. However, Olson won’t die and they keep running away from him.
- The group reuinites on the weather deck (outer deck) of the ship. Together they find a working radio to send a distress signal. But the power goes out after a few seconds.
- Two of the group must jump down to turn the power to the radio back on. The rest of the group stays behind.
- Whoever goes downstairs will encounter Olson and Junior. Olson will run around with a big hammer. Junior will be armed with a gun and has “gone mad” from the Manchurian Gold mist.
- Depending on your choices, you will get different final encounters with Olson where we either fight him for the distributor cap or he dies from external factors and we must retrieve the cap.
- END OF STORY – There are lots of different ending combinations, see below.
Man of Medan Story Explained
The game may look like it is supposed to be a horror game, but it is not. It’s a mystery game. The biggest hint comes from the curator if we ask him for help after Act 2. He will say that nothing is as it seems and that bigger power are at play, particularly politics and military. The rest we can piece together from collectable documents and playing the story in co-op.
- The Ourang Medan is NOT a ghost ship. It is a military cargo ship that carried the “Manchurian Gold”. It’s a secret chemical hallucinogen that the military wanted to weaponize in the 40’s to precisely target areas with dense enemy infantry, such as trenches and bunk houses (not in real life, just an imaginary weapon in the game). It causes affected humans to have strong brain responses that make them hallucinate and see other humans as scary demons. The intent of the military was to make the enemy infantry “go mad” and have them kill each other because they would see each other as demons. Effects can also include death from heart attacks, due to high levels of stress and fear. People literally die of fear from this chemical weapon. We can find proof of all this in the two collectibles Secret #17, Manchurian Gold Test Results, Chapter: Glamor Girl & Secret #33, Toxins Research, Chapter: Matters of the Heart.
- We saw the Manchurian Gold chemical leak out at the very start of the game in the cargo hold of the Ourang Medan military ship, in the year 1947 (we know the date from a Newspaper, Secret #44, Chapter: Trapped). This is the time when everyone on board went “crazy” because they were affected by this chemical weapon and started seeing their comrades as ghosts and scary demons.
- Consequently, we can say there are no ghosts whatsoever on this ship. It’s only the “Manchurian Gold” chemical affecting people’s brain so they can’t think clearly and see other humans as demons.
- The demons that we see are actually our friends! Any demon we kill is a friend of ours we kill! It’s therefore best not to pick up any weapons you find during the story. If we don’t have weapons, we can’t kill our friends (demons to us) by accident.
- Manchurian Gold works in a way that we see demons that relate to some image that character saw recently. The brain plays a trick on the person and makes them imagine other persons as that thing.
- The little kid we see in the prologue is actually our friend who was with us on the Chinese Market. We’ll notice him suddenly disappearing. Well, turns out the both kill each other. If you play the game in Shared Story co-op you can actually see each of them seeing a demon and getting killed by it. In reality they killed each other. We see the demon as a kid because there was a prompt to ask the fortune teller how our kids is doing, and also because there was a picture of our kid in the room we woke up in.
- We notice the Manchurian Gold’s effect getting stronger the longer we are on the ship. As Fliss and Brad in Chapter “Ritual” they can see each other as demons. If Fliss does not get backstage and outside to get fresh air, she will see Brad as a hooded demon and could attack him. If she picked up the knife from the Cargo Hold, she can kill him without realizing it’s Brad (we as the player only see a hooded demon and will wonder why Brad is dead at the end of the game). Likewise, if Brad didn’t find the Gas Mask in Chapter “Finding Friends”, he will see Fliss as a ghoulish demon and will attack her. If Fliss went backstage to get fresh air, we can actually see her breathing out the Manchurian Gold. Because it’s not cold enough outside to see the breath, what she breathes out is actually Manchurian Gold chemicals (it also has a faint yellowish taint). She breathes in fresh air, which reduces the effect of the chemical and clears her head. After she returns back inside, the ballroom is gone (because it was a hallucination) and we see the ship again as it is (an old dirty cargo hold in present time). When Brad comes, Fliss will see him as Brad because she went out to breathe fresh air and clear her head. We can see fresh air clearing up the Manchurian Gold’s effects later again when calming down Junior (more on this soon). We also see Olson breathing out the Manchurian Gold when he dies in the kitchen during Chapter “Matters of the Heart”. Because of this we have confirmation what it looks like when breathed out and that the effects clear up when breathing fresh air.
- If Fliss saw Brad as a hooded Demon, she will run away. Then we get a chapter with Conrad where he sees a pretty Nurse, then she turns into an old Nurse and chases after him. This is in reality Fliss! Because she went a different path now than had she recognized Brad. Conrad sees her as a “hot nurse” because he was flirting with Fliss on the boat and clearly likes her. Further, Conrad saw a poster of a nurse during a cutscene (after escaping from the room the pirates trapped our friends in, after arriving on Ourang Medan ship). This becomes very evident when playing the game in Co-Op with 2 players. One will play as Fliss and look at a scared Conrad who runs away from her. All that Conrad sees is a demonic nurse chasing after him.
- Julia will see Olson as either Alex or a ghoulish demon, after Olson attacks her and she falls into water. If her relationship status with Alex is very positive, then Olson will have Alex’s face in the hallucination. So in this case, a relationship status effects what Julia sees. Because she loves Alex and it scares her the most to see two Alexes trying to drown each other, that’s what Manchurian Gold makes her see. If she didn’t accept Alex’s proposal and doesn’t care a whole lot for him, she’ll just see a ghoulish character in the water because that’s more scary to her then. So people see different things, depending on what scares them more.
- When our friends find a radio that’s still working, beware that it is a military radio connected to a military station. Remember, we are on a secret military cargo ship, carrying a secret military project that we were never supposed to find. Telling them the name of the ship is a trap and results in the military arriving at the end of the game and killing the survivors, because we “saw too much”. We can only tell them to name of the ship if we found Secret #41, Medan Hat, Chapter: Danny & Secret #42, Ship’s Logbook, Chapter: Distress Signal. Even if we don’t tell them the name of the ship, they will come to rescue us but realize later what ship it is and put the survivors in prison so they can’t spill the secrets to the public. This is why we know the game is really about secret warfare projects and not about ghosts.
- After finding the radio we encounter Olson again, who has clearly gone completely mad by this point. He is seeing ghosts everywhere and smashes everything with his hammer, even stabbing his own friend “Danny”, one of his pirate crew members.
- When we encounter Junior, who is holding a gun to our head, we can calm him down if we picked up the rebreather on our way to him. If we succeed in calming down Junior, we can use the rebreather on him to give him fresh air, which reduces the Manchurian Gold’s effects and makes him clear in the head again.
So there you have it – the game is totally about solving a mystery and not about being a scary ghost story. It wasn’t until doing a co-op run with 2 screens side by side that I realized what was really happening and which “demons” represented which friends. I love the writing of this game, I still kept finding new details after 5+ playthroughs and it’s much more complex than what it seems after the first playthrough.
Man of Medan Endings Explained
Below are some of the core endings in The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan. There are a lot more variations depending on how many people survive, but they come down to a few different outcomes. This is what I found after 10+ playthroughs:
- Rescue Helicopter Arrives, the military shoots the survivors: (worst ending) This happens if you told the military the name of the ship you’re on over the radio (only if you found the collectibles for it – Secret #41 & Secret #42). In my case, Brad was the only survivor but the Military shot him on sight. This is because we’ve seen too much – the Ourang Medan is a long-lost military cargo ship, carrying the secret military chemical weapon “Manchurian Gold”. We’ve simply seen too much and the military can’t risk us spilling their secrets, so they shoot the survivors.
- Rescue Helicopter Arrives, the survivors get imprisoned: This happens if you gave the military your coordinates over the radio, but did not tell them the name of the ship (didn’t find the required collectibles). They will rescue you, but realize what ship and secrets you have found. To make sure you can’t tell anyone about it, they put the survivors in prison. So in conclusion, the radio call is a trap and you shouldn’t tell them anything.
- Distributor Cap gets destroyed, didn’t give info over radio: The survivors will be stranded on the Ourang Medan ship. They failed to get the distributor cap from Olson in one piece. That leaves them no way to escape. They will wander around the ship and succumb to their imaginary fears through Manchurian Gold. They will die from fear and lack of food/water.
- Fliss dies trying to paddle back to land: If the Distributor Cap got destroyed and Fliss is alive at the end, she will take her chances on her boat and try to paddle in back to land. Without the Distributor cap, the engine won’t turn on. Fliss will burn to death from the sun and dehydrate.
- Distributor Cap is recovered in one piece, Survivors escape by boat, didn’t give info over radio (best ending): This is the best ending (assuming everyone is alive at the end). You can put the Distributor cap back in your boat and drive back the way you came as if none o this ever happened. Because you didn’t tell the military over the radio that you’re on their ship, they won’t know and won’t come to catch you. So you won’t end up getting shot or being imprisoned.
- Conrad escaped on Speedboat, comes back with a bigger boat: Conrad comes to the Ourang Medan to help his friends, but wanders inside the chemical-filled ship and goes mad from the Manchurian Gold. I got this after the other 4 survivors escaped by boat (found distributor cap). There may be more variations on this if they don’t get the cap.
- Olson and Danny are revived from the dead, Olson turns into a superhuman with red glowing eyes: I got this while going for the “everybody survives” ending. Danny, who was stabbed by Olson, is alive again for no apparent reason and finds the dead Olson in the kitchen. Olson suddenly gets red glowing eyes and superhuman strength. He grabs Danny by the throat and lifts him up with one hand and kills him. In this ending Olson has transformed into a sort of superhuman, maybe a side effect of Manchurian Gold? What happens to him afterward is left unexplained.
Given the complexity of the game there are sure to be more twists and variations of endings, so feel free to share your own endings in the comment section below.
Hey. I got a different ending to the ones listed here. I didn’t give information over the radio, and I got the distributor cap destroyed so they were stranded. Fliss was alive so she tried to paddle off as you said, so you have already said those and they are explained. However, when Alex and Julia (who didn’t go down with Fliss) jump down the hole after a while or waiting, Julia didn’t jump over the next hole and had to go around so Alex left her to find her way. After destroying the distributor cap, Alex comes across a two-headed ‘thing’ and stabs it to death. Then he find Julia just dead around the corner. I’ve tried looking for this ending to explain what caused it but I can’t find it anywhere.
When you stab the “two-headed thing”, you’re actually stabbing Julia. Thats how she died there
It’s a vartion of the “Distributor Cap gets destroyed, didn’t give info over radio” ending. Most of the endings listed will have some variation to them based on who is alive in the final cutscenes.
In this case, Alex saw Julia as a demon, because of the Manchurian Gold mist that was in the kitchen and messed up his head. He will see her as a two headed monster if you opened the casket with the two headed skeleton in Chapter “Caskets”. An alternative is that Alex could stab the “rat” that eats through his chest, thereby killing himself (because there is not rat, he’s just hallucinating) or he can stab Fliss if her and Alex went together and not Julia.
I had a different ending.
The brother comes in, rescues the other via coast guard. Then after the credits two soldiers land and get killed by Danny.
Thanks for sharing. In this case the distributor cap had been destroyed?
Yeah. No radio, no cap. Conrad has to take the speedboat. Then he will see his friends there as they hadn’t left already
You keep calling it Mansurian Gold but it’s Manchurian Gold, with a CH. Manchuria refers to what is now Northeast China.
I got a different ending. I saved everyone (Junior shot himself but nothing really bad came of that) and Alex dropped the Distributor cap. I also turned on the power switch and he contacted the military. We were stranded on the boat at first but Conrad came to rescue us. The 5 main characters left with the coast guard boat Conrad brought, and later the military arrived to an almost empty ship since we weren’t there anymore. Danny came back to life and killed the officers when they searched the ship. I got the “everyone survived” trophy. So you can tell the military your location as long as Conrad escaped on the boat in the beginning.
You’re right, it’s Manchurian Gold not Mansurian. It was correct in the collectible name but I misspelled it in other places. Well spotted on your end, and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment about it – you helped to make the article better 🙂
In my ending, everyone got onto the Medan but Brad unknowingly kills Fliss with the wrench he picked up (he was affected by the Gold). Also, Conrad died fighting Olson when the chain holding a metal rolling door snapped (failed QTE) and split them both in half because they were laying under the door. Brad, Julia and Alex escape the Medan on Fliss’s boat because the distributor cap was still intact, and the story ends with a cutscene showing Danny killing two soldiers who came to answer the radio call by helicopter.
I gave coordinates and the name of the ship but managed to make the two brothers survive as the distributor cap was still intact.
Cutscene shows a heli with two soldiers who see the room with the coffins and are like WTH is this then crazy Danny comes in with the sledgehammer and attacks them
This is very interesting. I’ve also seen Danny alive in some endings, even though Olson stabs him in chapter “Depths”.
Perhaps the distributor cap still being intact affects it as the friends still have a 2nd way of escape (via boat) and don’t have to “wait to get shot” by the military.
This is also the ending I had.
I had this with Julia alive. Conrad got shot escaping the Duke.
So why was the ship bringing along a two headed corps?
And who was the man in the long coat who apeares in the background unnoticed
That’s the curator you see in the background
It’s the curator who keeps appearing in the background of cut scenes.
The man in the long coat is the curator. He appears briefly in all scenes where some may die
The coffins are carrying dead prisoners of war who were experimented on and died. they’re top secret, and they’re supposed to have a proper burial
If it was the manchurian gold’s fault for the hallucinations, then why is there a two headed corpse along with 3 other unknown corpses in caskets?
The two headed corpse was real and not just a hallucination (however, Alex can see Julia as a two headed demon at end of game and that definitely is hallucinated).
We know this is a military cargo ship and they loaded caskets into it at the start of the game at Chinese Harbor, seen during one of the first cutscenes (these are the 4 caskets we can also find in the game). Because we saw the caskets before the Manchurian Gold leaked, the caskets are real.
Since it’s a military cargo ship the corpses have to be important, they wouldn’t drive them around just for fun. It’s likely connected to the Manchurian Gold project, maybe test subjects from 2nd world war (it’s 1947 when the caskets get loaded onboard). The game doesn’t give enough clues to give a definite answer, but we know Manchurian Gold messes with people’s heads so the military may have tested it on conjoined twins (twins born with two heads but sharing one body) to study the effects, to check if they still see each other as demons when sharing the same body. The other caskets are chained and probably also contain test subjects.
The two-headed corpse is real. The secrets that you pick up indicate that it was one of the members of Jones’ military team that was taken captive at the “water purification plant” (an enemy military installation). They were held as POWs and experimented on, and they died there. Their bodies were retrieved and put on the ship for transport back. The caskets were locked so that none of the ship’s crew would get nosy and find out.
Ourang Medan is a real ship which nobody know its whereabout till now, Ourang means Man or human and Medan is one of big city in indonesia, so it translates as man from medan.
In our version, Conrad tries to escape on the speed boat but gets shot by Olson (too late on pressing triangle -_-) The friends see the gunshots but can’t see that Conrad was shot and is dead.
Then even tho they all pick up some weapons along the way they never killed each other.
Fliss had a knife but cleared her head before encountering Brad. He didn’t have a mask, so he was hallucinating but she calmed him down and he snapped out of it.
We gave coordinates but not name over the radio. Got the cap in the drowning scene from Olson, Brad survived the falling door (on a 2nd try :D ).
All 4 got out on their boat wondering what happened to Conrad. Cut scene to his corpse being eaten by a seagull in the middle of nowhere.
After they are gone heli arrives, 2 soldiers wondering what happened and get killed by Danny.
Honestly we had only one single-player gameplay and it seemed way too easy (trying to make all the “smart” decisions) and since nobody died or it seemed easy to survive we were quite disappointed until stmbling over this article and seeing how many crazy possibilities there were!! Next time it might be better for us to take some risks 🙂
In the scene where Julia and Alex fall into the water and Julia sees more than one Alex, what she’s actually seeing is Alex (the real one who starts drowning someone) Danny (the one being drowned) and Olson (the one that appears last and chases them).
If you tell Alex to stop drowning him, Danny doesn’t die there, he lives until the Junior chapter. You could argue that he doesn’t actually die from being stabbed by Olson and that’s why he’s able to kill the soldiers in the ending.
Of course, if you drown Danny then Olson ends up screaming at and stabbing an already dead Danny, so how he ends up attacking anyone is strange. I’d theorise that the soldiers are being affected by the Manchurian Gold, and had seen Danny’s corpse prior to having a Danny based hallucination.
Okay so this is bugging me a bit with the way the whole Danny being stabbed part and a bunch of comments that are stating that Danny “came back to life” after being stabbed. You are aware that just because you’re stabbed doesn’t mean you’re dead right? In my opinion, Danny doesn’t “come back to life”. He just never died. He was stabbed in the stomach, which you can survive. I have two theories as to why this isn’t immediately obvious after he’s stabbed. #1 He’s in shock from being stabbed in the stomach (especially after all of the hallucinations he’s been having) so he might not be reactive to anything in that moment and I’m sure there is blood loss involved that make his responses slower. #2 He’s trying to make it seem as if he’s dead to avoid further stabbing by anyone.
P.S. This is only regarding Danny being stabbed. I’ve read other comments saying that Danny is also involved in the water scene and can potentially be drowned in that scene, but I haven’t seen it for myself nor found any playthroughs of that on YouTube – not saying it isn’t a thing, but I just haven’t seen it.
Slight variation. Just completed a shared story run. Conrad died everyone else lived. Danny was ‘drowned’ by Alex but in the scene where Olson is yelling at his body, I didn’t see him stab the body. He picked it up like normal and then freaked out before running out of the room.
At the end of the game after the four escaped, Danny woke up and was killed by red-eyed super human Olson in the kitchen. Not really sure how that falls into the category of hallucination for Danny lol
My husband and I played on dont play alone the movie night option. Julia, Alex and Fliss survived with the distributor cap intact and escaped via Fliss’ boat. Brad died during some failed QTEs, Junior shot himself, and Conrad got cut in half again via failed QTEs. At the end Danny was still alive and two military guys came and got killed by Danny. We both gave the name of the ship and location via the military radio during our gameplay but I guess we missed the collectables, so that was our ending. I love all the variations!
For the Fliss trying to paddle away ending, does Fliss have to be the only one alive?
I’m also trying to figure out the logic behind the variations of the Danny endings. In all my playthroughs where the military has been given coordinates, Danny has come back and attacked the soldiers (although a lot of my playthroughs were partial and just from the Depths chapter onwards because I was trying to complete all the keep calms. In which case, the thing that caused the Danny ending probably happened before the Depths chapter because all my partial playthroughs had the Danny ending). In my most recent playthrough, Danny was already dead when Olson would have stabbed him, which I think is because he was the “Alex” that Alex was drowning, and in that playthrough I encouraged him – so Alex drowned Danny. In that playthrough I didn’t get the Danny and the soldiers ending presumably because he was properly dead and was never actually dead from the stabbing.
Having figured all that out, I still have no idea how to get the Danny/supernatural Olson ending. I’m guessing Danny needs to have not been drowned, and Olson needs to have died in the kitchen. But I had both of these things happen in a playthrough and I don’t remember getting that ending. Or could it be that they both need to be legit dead, so Danny drowned and Olson died in the kitchen? I did also do that playthrough and didn’t have that ending, although that was when my PS4 bugged out and made me quit the game so it could just be that I missed it.
Anyway sorry for all the word vomit, but thanks for this article! It’s helped me puzzle out how the game works and which choices lead to which outcomes, which I’m still trying to wrap my head around after a gazillion playthroughs. Crazy amount of detail in this game.
ourang medan is an urban legend of a ghost ship and i love how the creators of this game are very creative and made it more fascinating
I got an ending where only brad died because as fliss i stabbed the shit out of the hooded bitch and as you said i was wondering how brad died i had him jump down a place and suddenly the dipshit is dead xD ..with the radio i only have the coordinates retrieved the boat’s cap all left via the boat the helicopter military dropped two men on the ship and once they were inside danny beat the shit out of both of them he tackled one by surprise and beaten the other one joker vs jason todd style …i feel sorry for brad tho ..i love the writing the whole plot twist super unexpected
my ending was four survived, we told the location over the radio and we found the cap and got away in the boat, then a helicopter came with two military guys they entered the medan and the chinese pirate guy killed them with a sledgehammer. then it just ended.
I got the following ending; Conrad was killed early while trying to escape on the speedboat, I told the military my coordinates by radio but not the name of the ship. Alex engineers it so that Junior shot himself in the head, Olsen went mad and attacked Brad with the hammer but was killed when Julia dropped a cargo door onto him (brutal!) Brad managed to hang onto the distributor cap, so Brad, Alex, Julia and Fliss escaped on the Duke of Milan. The helicopter arrived after we’d gone and the two Marines got murdered by a reanimated Danny. Got a scene where you see Conrad’s dead body with a gull pecking his eyes out.
My very first blind playthrough everyone died except Alex as he escaped on the boat with the distributor cap. Julia actually got off the ghost ship with Alex but died from decompression sickness after the end credits. Conrad escaped the pirates early in the story and he arrives alone at the ghost ship and the scene shows him entering. On the ghost ship Alex stabbed Fliss to death believing she was the two-headed demon. Brad was shot in the head by Junior’s pistol when I failed to calm him down. Danny was stabbed by Olson, Olson was eaten by a group of rats as Alex recovered the distributor cap.
In case not everyone picked up on this, Manchurian Gold (MG) is a codename for Mustard Gas (MG)
We were playing co-op and on our first playthrough, Danny was passed out while Olson was yelling at him, but he still put Danny up on the counter top and freaked out. At the end, the military came and Danny attacked them. Sounds like some slight laziness with everyone seeing him get stabbed, then come back to life (having 2 separate scenes merge together into one). The second playthrough, he was awake and got stabbed. Friend’s game crashed in the credits so we weren’t able to see the ending, but I believe we told the military we were on the Medan so they might come kill us if we are able to continue from the credits. Haven’t tried yet.
Didn’t see if this was mentioned, but there’s also an ending where if Conrad escapes on the speedboat, but you retrieve the distributor cap, he comes back with the Coast Guard to an empty ship and dies to the Manchurian Gold.
It seems like in order to get the military/conrad ending, you need to have at least 4 people survive until the final section (when you find the radio). 2 people go down and run into Junior*, and 2 people stay up at the radio. When the two by the radio hear the gunshots, they can decide to not go down the hole, which I believe leads them into the kitchen and Olson being eaten by rats. As far as I know, this is the only way to lose the distributor cap.
*another note on the laziness of the game:
If you fail to bring the rebreather to Junior and give it to him, but manage to talk him into killing himself (one shot), two shots are heard by the radio. If you DO bring the rebreather, and manage to save him, two shots are still heard. If you save him, he comes with you to the water hole area where someone has to dive under, but completely disappears after that. Its possible he goes back on his own, but I doubt it after he finds out the rebreather will keep him safe from “the mist”. Also, if both people survive being shot by him, only one ends up coming through the door?
What happened was: Brad and Alex jumped down to reset the power, and both survived Junior. Julia was the only survivor waiting at the radio, so nobody was there to argue staying and waiting, so she jumped down and ended up in the room with the Manchurian Gold. This was also the room Fliss dies in if you wait too long and fail QTEs to have Brad (hood demon) kill her. So now Julia has to fight Olson, Olson breaks open the hinge on the door and floods the room, and only Brad spills out. Brad drops the dock door (there’s a ghost behind Olson while he’s fighting Julia under the door, twice if you pay attention).
It then cuts to Alex walking through the SAME room, alone, and finding Fliss dead. Brad and Julia then walk onto the deck with the distributor cap and find Alex sitting there waiting for them as if he was sitting with the radio. No sign of Junior.
The second and beginning of my third playthrough, I loved how detailed this game was, with so many different events occuring each time. But now I feel like the more I play, the more holes I find :x
I had a really weird ending. Alex was killed while running with Julia from his Evil Counterparts. One of them slits his throat. Conrad was killed at the end, because I messed up the QTE.
Right before I took Control of Conrad for the final Scene, I controlled Fliss and Brad. That Scene ended abrubtly, when they came to a hole in the Ground, which was flooded with water.
In the final Scene with Conrad, the room got flooded with water and Fliss was in it, but Brad wasn’t.
So at the End Brad, Fliss and Julia were alive. (technically)
But after Conrad died, the end-sequence was triggered and there were Julia and Fliss Meeting on deck of the ship. They were entering Fliss’ boat and escaped.
BUT Brad didn’t go with them. They technically just left him at the Ship.
I also haven’t received the Achievement for “Only the Girls survive”, so he HAD to be still alive.
But he didn’t go with Julia and Fliss and they never talked About him anymore.
Anyone else experienced that?
Also, I told the Military the Name of the ship, the Rescue helicopter came, after we left.
2 soldiers searched the ship, Danny came and killed both of them.
I’ve replayed this a few times and received a variety of endings. One thing no one seems to have mentioned (that I’ve noticed) is the ending(s) I received:
– everyone (or most) survive – I received this ending on the Curator’s Cut when everyone survived and Shared story when only Conrad died
– distributor cap was destroyed
– Alex revealed the location of the ship but not the name
– the military arrived but did not shoot the survivors
– the characters give a statement (like the credits roll of Until Dawn) and it’s revealed they are all in jail.
So I gave the coordinates of the ship but no name and never saw the military not even to put us in jail. Distributor cap was intact and everyone survived except the 3 pirates (no cut scene where they come back to life) and Fliss (She was chasing after Conrad who saw her as the demon nurse, I missed a QTE and she fell off a ladder to her death).
Sounds like there are a crazy amount of unique endings. I would love after awhile if the game creators release an article outlining every possible ending and how you get it.
What I got was:
1. Brad is dead (Fliss stabbed him)
2. Fliss is dead (she fought olson, then I messed the QTE. They both died after the door feel down on them. Sorry Fliss!)
3. Alex and Julia escaped by Duke of Milan (the cap was intact).
4. Conrad (who escaped by speed boat), came to the Ourang Medan. Got up the ship by himself (I think) and entered the ship alone.
5. Alex and Julia wondered what had happened to Conrad (we should never split up, Julia said).
6. After credits, Conrad was seen to be afraid of something, then some lady ghost (nurse?) Jumped him and the end.
That was my first run.
Oh, on the radio Alex told them the ship’s name and the coordinate. And after power is back, the radio said help was on the way.
But I didn’t see any chopter at the end.
And if Conrad came with coast guards, why didn’t they go up with him?
There’s still one plot-hole that I can’t seem to figure out. When they find the caskets early on in the game, Alex wasn’t the only one to see the two headed skeleton, so that couldn’t have been a hallucination. Was that a part of the military’s secret project? It could also lead to a n answer as to what happens in the end with Olsen and his red eyes and superhuman strength, but it doesn’t explain how his body wound up in the kitchen after being crushed by the door.
So maybe I’m confused I don’t know. In my first playthrough which I just finished. We radioed the military gave them the coordinates and I’m pretty sure gave them the name of the ship. Got the distributor cap and left all 5 people survived. Than after the credits the military showed up and got killed by danny. but we didnt get imprisoned or anything like that.
I know I’m late here but I had a different ending that you didn’t mentioned.
In the first ending I get, even if the ship’s name was said in militar radio while pleading for help, some characters could escape in the Fliss’ boat without being killed by the militars. Only 2 rescuers appears in the end and both were killed by Danny.
I told the military the location and Alex told the name I couldn’t avoid. I killed Julia and Conrad fell to his death, bit the other 3 survived and escaped on the boat. Military came after the credits and got killed by Danny.