the inevitable is not inevitable if you delay it forever

Beginning of game: "Ruin has come to our family" Oh so we're related and he wants me to restore our family name End of game: "The great family of man...ruin has come to our family" Oh

Anyone else think that that thing is just bullshitting us because it's super salty we won?

I'd be a bit more concerned, but considering that this titanic monster from beyond the stars was beaten by a naked old man with a whip, an old man with leprosy, an old man with a mace, and an old man with a dog, I'm not really that worried about it. Just keep doing this dance forever, I guess.

Love how the Ancestor specifically asks you to come fix his shit and then after you do he’s like “btw all of that was pointless lol”. Even in death he’s such a douchebag XD

How very Lovecraftian.

People said your protagonist killed himself in the ending because he's driven mad by the horrible truth of the world. But no, he killed himself because he's sick of fixing his grandpa's bullshits.

The ending it literally good job you "won" now you must burden the curse until the next family member comes to "reclaim their birthright"

It's funny, you can always hire new mercenaries through the stage coach, so you can't really lose, but at the same time, you can't really win either...

Well, that's even bleaker than I was expecting, not so much canceling the apocalypse as hitting the snooze button.

This sounds like quitter talk.

History repeats, over and over... But every time around, we can defeat it.

If the cycle repeats, are the sequels going to be Darkest City and Darkest Space ?

So...We get an invitation to Smash Bros??

This might be me trying to get something happy out of a unhappy ending. But even with the fact that the Heart is still destined to come back, the fact that the heroes beat it in the first place is proof that people can overcome any force, no matter how dark. That even in a world full of madness, hope can still sometimes prevail, albeit for a fleeting period.

Before losing Accept your fate! After losing Winning is pointless.... I see how it is.

Oh, so I get to kick that things ass ad infinitum? What an irrepressibly bleak fate for it.

Not today. This day we fight. This day we win.

thank god this was here... just beat the boss then accidentally pressed something while trying to turn the volume up and skipped out

Just realised that you aren’t the first person in the family to be deceived by the ancestors letter to defeating the darkest dungeon. At first I thought the ending was showing all the progress you made in the hamlet and dungeon in reverse but It’s possibly the opposite.

Jester: Sounds like some Salty Ducky mad he got one shoted!

If the real "monster" is the size of the planet, it's almost comical how small the heart (final boss) is. It's only a few meters tall by the looks of it. It's probably just one of BILLIONS of hearts, all keeping the egg alive, which is why you can keep going back to kill them, over and over.

Unfortunately for the giant Cthulu planet when it hatched, humankind had colonized the galaxy a thousand years prior and had developed singularity technology. Thus, we just made an artificial sun and fired it at the thing. Game over, sucks to be eldritch.

Just beat the game, and I love how goddamn HOPELESS this ending is. There's nothing that can be done. There's no victory, only delaying the inevitable. Your characters, your stats, the hamlet, literally everhthing is meaningless and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, because it will all happen again. We are worthless. Everything is worthless. Ruin is not something that can be stopped; it can only be delayed. On the plus side sometimes you find secret rooms with a lot of gold and that's a nice plus, so everything balances out, I guess.

Me seeing, that world will end eventually: "Well crap" Me realising I have to play it all over again to prevent This Thing from exploding: *SCREAMS IN TERROR*

at 0:39, in the center of the heart you can see "the scream" from edvard munch :)

That ghost spoke the truth... an endless cycle indeed

Well old man you can think like that with you want but the darkness have yet to win and I think that they will have to wait for a really long time before the line collapse

I mean shit, as long as the cycle never gets broken, it'll be destroyed by an expanding sun lol

I think the ending is left up to the individual! Some people will always be doom and gloom and always think everything is helpless and succumb to the darkness. But I for one am the opposite. I completed the full game and was obsessed with the story! I say the ending is you were successful in responding to your grandpas letter, and stopped whatever thing he succumbed to unleash. Lots of people died for the cause but thats a small price to pay for protecting the world. And the thing just has sounded like your grandpa towards the end to try to get you to succumb to it. To give up. To let it destroy everything. After all thats why it takes your grandpas form towards the end. You have taken your leave from the place, abandoning it, letting it rot to move on. While visiting it now and then to make sure the horror is gone. Maybe await its return some generations later. But for now.... Peace. You get in your stagecoach, honoring the fallen, knowing what you did here may never be remembered with all who fell. But your alive and will spread the word and message. And with that, Ditching the letter your grandpa sent on the road side. Thinking of the first words he wrote to you. "ruin has come to our family" and ride away.

The cycle repeats, no one but you knows of its repetition, people look at you crazily if you talk about it, its little wonder your uncle took his life, he too was cursed with this forbidden knowledge... will this time be the time YOU pick up the gun unable to forge forth yet again to face unspeakable horrors and stop the end of the world for it to repeat itself in a never ending loop. How strong is your fortitude, how determined your resolve? Is your hand shaking over the the pistol, how easy it would be to put an end to it all.

This is a fucking great ending. How did they fit 2 plot twists in one quest?

The ancestor “you can’t beat the heart of darkness!” *Beats it* “Fuck you, it doesn’t matter anyway! So really we won in the end” Also, I like to imagine the player doesn’t kill themself and just goes “shut the fuck up grandpa”

It’s meaningless to prevent the inevitable. But with mods it can be never ending. With new mod characters coming every six months, having to grind more in a new dungeon mod and PVP. Madness is never ending. Ruin. Has come to my sleepless nights.

Straight outta Lovecraft. Try, try, try. In the end, it is all futile and meaningless. Your life is nothing, your efforts in vain. There is no valiance. No purpose. No hope. Only inevitability.

Took me really long to finish the game but when I first got to the ending it hit me really hard and made me tear a little. Showing how useless the existence of us is. And showing how pathetic I am

Victory...a hollow and ridiculous notion. We are born of this thing, made from it. And we will be returned to it, in time. The great family of man -- a profusion of errant flesh. Multiplying. Swarming. Living. Dying. Until the stars align in their inexorable formation, and what sleeps is roused once more, to hatch from this fragile shell of earth and rock, and bring our inescapable end... So seek solace in the manner befitting your lineage, and take up your nugatory vigil. Haunted forever by that sickening prose, echoing through the infinite blackness of space and time: Ruin has come to our family...

Had to watch it here because taking a screenshot skipped the cutscene :P

all of life is but a manifestation of the heart. but life is not all there is, is it? through our intelligence, we have come to possess a power utterly separate from the heart. weapons of metal, burning powders, the fire and the light... and this power only grows. when this heart does come again, it will find a race that is so far beyond it we will seem like gods. not through sorcery, but chemistry.

I have to mention it because I couldn't find any theory about it in the comments, but did no one else think that the ruin that has come at the end is not the letter nor the monster, but the adventurers ? Driven mad from watching the thing slumber thoughout vain attempts at stopping it, the heir commits suicide, and destroys as much knowledge as possible in the hope of letting the secret go undisturbed, even abandoning the hamlet in that futile hope... But then another petty noble comes in pursuit of glory and gold, another batch of adventurers spill their blood in the corrupted lands, waking more of the unending evil that taints the region, merely offering the thing another chance to arise... Where do all the monsters come from ? How are there even bandits, madmen and villagers alive in this region ? The monsters are not trying to overtake the world or spread destruction and chaos : The demons possessing the swinefolk are mindless, the cove's inhabitants seemingly pursue other goals and even trade with terrestrians, the undead are untiring workers and the cultists are deluded by their god ! If human morals had any truth to them, the monsters would be victims. It is not good versus evil, and the heir eventually comes to that realization. Other monsters and the corrupted nature itself are under direct control of the thing : they do not leave their homes. Their numbers never thin. The most powerful ones are also the deepest, and only face the bravest of adventurers. The thing is not trying to fight for its survival of power. It is lazily luring humanity to itself, in a disdainful mockery of free will. When the heir comes to this realization, when he understands that coming here was a fundamental mistake, he tries to go back, and truly the ending is as good as it possibly could : everything is reversed to its most desirable state for mankind, when few people were aware, and fewer were interested. You were just playing in the wrong direction, and the game offered you a chance not to commit that mistake again.

So I beat him after getting just about every good trinket I could, and killing all the bosses. I’m proud to say I absolutely annihilated him and the last thing only had 1 move that wasn’t come unto your maker. So, I think he’s just salty his god got absolutely annihilated by a sellsword, an occultist, a runaway, and a guy with a dog

I don't think the cycle has to repeat itself. There seems to be no reason why you can't just not send for someone else to repeat the cycle. You could just, I don't know, cover the entrance to the dungeon?

Our inescapable end boi the heart of darkness was killed by 4 people

I made the mistake of trying to steam screencap while this happened so I missed out on this.

Awww, he’s salty he gets denied by himself

Do not fight that vocabulary you will lose.

Just a little snooze before doom. Welp that went down pretty well.

Man does not have to accept this fate. The ancestors was consumed by his fear, hopeless in the face of this eldritch horror. Maybe there is a way to stop. One must just dig even deeper

This game took me forever to beat, I finally finished it yesterday after like 2-3 years. What a frustrating but insanely good game

This feels like the intro to a spooky show.

This can't be true at least not forever, they are making a part 2, so what do you think will happen? I think what will happen is that the heir didn't kill themself and has been trying to find a way to end the cycle, found a potential option and hires the adventurers again to help, that, or the heir does kill themself, the adventurers find out about everything, can't live with this fact as it makes all of their personal goal pointless, and seek to stop the cycle. After all in the teaser it shows a snowy mountain, clearly not where the darkest dungeon is, but somewhere new. perhaps an end to this vicious cycle?

That is not dead which can eternal lie and with strange eons even death may die

1:01 **That Violin**

Just playing it on loop with the beginning

“We are one with this thing. Made from, and eventually returned to it” That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo.

... then Darkest Dungeon 2 came along with a much more positive ending

Hyped for DD 2

So seek solace in a manner befitting your lineage...

came here because I am too salty to finish the game. Glad even the ending agrees that all the grinding would be pointless

Dude this was a great game, I have like 500 hours in the game and I finally beat it today. The ending was fucking sick

So we are the next ancestor? Huh.

I want a vid of someone saying victory with the voice of the ancestor but the tone of the tf2 announcer when she says it

Some guys with swords:kills flesh thingy so it can heal America seeing it coming back to life: *Its in a cave we got a rocket,and barrel of explosives let’s fuck it up*

Gee, grandpa. Maybe if you didn't fuck around with forces beyond your ken, our family wouldn't be in this situation -_-

"... and take up your nugatory vigil. Haunted forever by that sickening prose echoing through the infinite blackness of space and time!" Yeeeeeesh... Ancestor really really needed to unplug/a plug

I come from the future to explain to those who didnt understand. The ending basically says the game will repeat itself over and over. Even of the threat is quelled, it will call another to awaken in

Local man ruins all of time.

Oooooh, victory isn't that _triffling_ anymore, eh? Stay salty.

Yeah everyone would just commit suicide after saving the world from a cosmic god...

i see whatcha did their

Someday the sun will collapse ending all life in our planet or the earth will be revealed to be the egg shell if a celestial horror. Either way, we all day in the future

AH rıght thıs game had a endıng... -a man wıth 50+ hours gameplap

I don't know about you guys but I'd prefer if the Hamlet went back to normal and the ghost merely warned you that it is an endless cycle of the folly of man and eventually another will have to stand up and repeat what you did in a meaningless struggle that will eventually be lost. I mean that's basically what they do already but they didn't have to show it being repeated instantly

I don't understand: if at the end of the game you kill the heart in the egg, then why it keeps coming back?

So... you beat the heart of everything or creation itself... but you can't REALLY kill it or escape it so eventually the stars align and it wakes up anyway and blows up the planet despite your best efforts and then the great THING awakens and recreates all of existence. Okay that makes enough sense. But then the game implies that it is YOU the relative to the original ancestor that perpetuates the cycle... but you died when the world was remade... so that can't be you. If they're implying that the world is made in the exact same way, then it's still the Ancestor who is causing all the problems in the Hamlet just another incarnation of him. And you would still be a relative of the Ancestor undoing his mistakes. And if you become like your ancestor after you "slay" the Thing that doesn't make much sense. Because the Ancestor told you all his mistakes and you spent so much time correcting his mistakes and learning from his failures. How could you forget what happened and do the EXACT same thing? Like Do you also hire the brigand 12 pounder? Do you sacrifice another waif to the sea? Hire another crew of pirates to scour the land for relics? I just really don't understand the implication that you repeat your Ancestors mistakes, if someone understands this can you please explain it to me? I'm confused.

Is this ending now considered false as there is a sequel? Did we miss the shot and survived?

considering the ancestor is basically the hearts mouthpiece, the final boss, immediately after losing, tells you to kill yourself. it might be a god, but i think its pretty low tier...

Chads after beating the game with 0 deaths: 🤨🤔😂

There's likely multiple hearts that rouse "the thing" when they start beating and bring about the apocalypse. Killing that single heart was about as useful as throwing a tiny pebble into the infinite ocean. You didn't make a wave against the darkness, just a pathetic ripple

That thing got it's ass Dormamued. It's not that threatening.

I'm very glad I bailed on this game. It was a fuck you from beginning to end.

0:57 "and take up your arm JHUQATORE AN VIGIL" Someone please translate

i dont think people understand how poetic what the ending is seek solace in a matter befitting your lineage. He is saying that now you know you are not human after witnissing the heart of darkness but of something greater cuthulu give cuthulu your life literally and be reborn to bring everyone to the only truth

"Victory. A hollow and ridiculous notion. We are born of this thing, made from it." Me: Ever heard of cancer m8? Besides, if this eldritch god wants to keep getting their shit kicked in by an old man with leprosy, I'm happy to oblige - no kinkshaming here. Edit: borked up a word in the Ancestor's speech

while the artwork reminded me of Blood Brothers the game itself reminded me of a Diablo ripoff even the ending felt similar

It's a great game with a fun story but try not to wax too poetic, comment section.

the results of the 2020 US election

I feel the ancestor might be wrong about the end of the world 🌍 as the Thing needs the blood and misery and triumphs of its children to *grow* . Or *he is right* , and just lied 🤥 to get more food 🥘 *for* God 💃🤖.

Maybe all game takes place in the "limbo", and all the characters are dead, prisoners of the darkest dungeon :S

This was pretty stupid, it was a cop out to make it eternal, dragon's dogma did it right (sorta), but killing the heart of darkness and having it not matter really felt like a diss. I won't even play a second campaign because wow

And this breaks rule #7 in my personal "Things Enjoyable Games Do" list: "Your efforts must amount to something." Say what you will about the journey and destination, I feel the stress this games puts on you, the player, should have some payoff.

XD Damn this game is way too edgy for me

this is bullshit ending we would not do such a thing.

lame