10 Awesome Secret Endings In Recent Video Games

Housemarque's Returnal plays its narrative cards pretty close to the chest throughout its brutally challenging campaign, drip-feeding morsels of story and still leaving a lot up for debate when the end credits roll.

The main ending appears to imply that the events of the game are in Selene's mind while she is involved in a traumatic car accident which claims the life of her son. Nothing is concrete, though, with the exact nature of Selene's time on Atropos kept very much ambiguous.

An extended secret ending can be unlocked, however, by starting a new run and collecting the six Sunface Fragments scattered around the game world. You then need to return to the house and interact with a number of objects around it, as well as picking up the car keys.

Fight to the end of the game again, defeat the final boss Ophion, and then use the keys on the nearby car. This will trigger the secret ending, where Selene comes face to face with a pregnant humanoid creature, which attacks her.

After this, it's implied that Selene herself is the astronaut figure which she swerved her car to avoid during the fateful car accident. We then see Selene swimming to the surface of the water where the accident happened, and crying out "Helios" as the scene cuts to black.

There's a lot here to unpack, and anyone hoping the secret ending might clarify the story is sure to be left infuriated by it only further muddying things.