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The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man Of Medan from Supermassive Games is a narrative survival-horror game that requires players to make split-second decisions in order to save the lives of the game's main characters, as well as unravel the mysteries of the South Pacific and the ghost ship that lurks there. Taking cues from the campy, college-aged horror films of the '80s and '90s, Man Of Medan follows a group of college students on a treasure hunt at sea and the dangers they face there, both man-made and supernatural.
Typically, a successful run through the campaign would see all the main characters surviving to see the end credits. However, Supermassive games won't hold their players back. There are also endings where none of these characters survive, and they are just as appropriate as the "good" ending. In fact, achieving an ending where everyone dies requires just as much careful decision-making as keeping everyone alive. Here are all the ways to ensure these college students don't make it back.
Find The Hat And Logbook, Then Call In The Army (Military Execution Ending)
Players need to be cautious with this one because it's just as easy to arrive at this ending while trying to keep everyone alive. In short, the military is trying to keep what happened on the ghost ship a secret, and if the protagonists find out too much, they'll need to be silenced.
Players will need to fulfill two tasks to get this ending. First, they'll need to go collectible hunting. Not every collectible is essential, but players will need to have found all the information about the events that took place on the ghost ship. This includes discovering the ship's name. The two essential collectibles are the Hat, found on a corpse by Fliss in "Chapter: Danny," and the Ship's Logbook, found just next to the radio in "Chapter: Distress Signal." Make sure to read both pages of the logbook or Alex won't learn the name of the ship. When Alex calls for help on the radio, have him tell the military the ship's coordinates. Then choose someone to send below decks (typically Julia or Brad). While they're down there, have them flip the power switch to the ship's radio, and Alex will reveal to the military that he knows the ship's name: the "Ourang Medan."
In "Chapter: Matters Of The Heart," after Olson dies, Alex will go looking for a distributor cap for their smaller boat to help them escape. Failing the QTE where he tries to extract it from Olson's body will make Alex drop the distributor cap down an elevator shaft. After that, it doesn't matter how many characters survived until the end. With no other escape available when the military shows up, anyone left alive will be executed to keep the Manchurian Gold experiment a secret.
Make Everyone Go Insane (No Hope Ending)
This is a much scarier version of the "bad" ending, one which still results in everyone's deaths, but it happens much more slowly. To reach this ending, play the game as if the goal is to keep everyone alive, except don't let Conrad steal the pirates' speedboat in "Chapter: Intrusion." Then, in "Chapter: Matters Of The Heart," make Alex drop the distributor cap down the elevator shaft.
After killing Olson and reuniting everyone, the group will realize they're trapped on the "Ourang Medan" with no way to power their own ship, the "Duke Of Milan." Instead, Fliss and Brad will try and catch a current in the "Duke Of Milan," but will eventually starve to death. The remaining survivors on the ghost ship will slowly go insane from the effects of Manchurian Gold.
Kill Some Characters Early By Picking Up Weapons (Alternate Ending Scenes)
Hallucinations choke the air on the "Ourang Medan" ghost ship, and players will frequently encounter monsters only to discover that they are a hallucination. That hallucination is often, in reality, one of their friends, and therefore if these characters were to attack the monsters, they'll just be attacking each other.
For players looking to kill off every character, this can work to their benefit. There are three separate opportunities for players to give the characters a weapon. Alex can pick up a kitchen knife in the ship's kitchen in "Chapter: Caskets," Fliss can find a knife in the cargo hold in "Chapter: Danny," and Brad can find a large iron wrench next to a corpse after passing through the locker room in "Chapter: Finding Friends" (or the first chapter where players control Brad on the ghost ship). After picking up the weapons, whenever players see a demon, have the character they're controlling attack it. It will result in them killing one of their friends instead.
Quickest Path To Killing All Characters
While calling in the military and learning the ghost ship's name is a foolproof way to ensure that every character dies, some players may not want to wait that long. Maybe they find these characters too insufferable and need a few of them to die as quickly as possible. If that's the case, here is the quickest death available for each main character:
- Conrad: In "Chapter: Intrusion," after Conrad escapes from where he and his friends are being held captive by pirates, he should choose to escape. He'll try and steal the pirates' speedboat, and players will need to execute a four-prompt QTE. Failing the fourth prompt will result in a pirate shooting Conrad, killing him.
- Fliss: First, in "Chapter: Finding Friends," ignore the prompts to search the lockers in the locker room, and have Brad pick up the large wrench found next to a corpse in the upper cargo hold later on. Then, when Fliss reaches the ballroom in "Chapter: Ritual," have her avoid going backstage and instead keep wandering the ballroom until the invisible timer runs out and a cutscene plays. Brad will come crashing into the room and will hallucinate that Fliss is a demon. Fail the subsequent QTE while playing as Fliss, and Brad will kill her with the wrench.
- Julia: Send Julia down the hole to look for the radio in "Chapter: Junior" and if she left the rebreather behind in the previous chapter, Junior will shoot her. Otherwise, earlier in the game during "Chapter: Uninvited Guests" have Julia return from her dive without decompressing first, and then drink alcohol during the ghost story later that night. She will die of the bends in the game's final cutscene.
- Alex: Instead of Julia, send Alex and Brad down the hole in "Chapter: Distress Call." Talk Junior out of shooting them, then in "Chapter: Olson," which directly follows, Alex will be chased by the pirate Olson. When he and Olson eventually fight, have Alex tell Brad to lower the gate at the first opportunity, and then fail the QTE that follows. The gate will fall and crush Alex. If Julia is the one that goes down the hole, then later on in "Chapter: Matters Of The Heart," after Alex drops the distributor cap down the elevator shaft, he'll begin hallucinating. First, he'll see a demon, then he'll see a rat bursting out of his chest. Players will then have the option to stab the demon or the rat. Choose the rat and Alex will stab himself to death.
- Brad: The first option is to have Brad go with Alex down the hole in "Chapter: Distress Call," argue with Junior, and get himself shot. Players can also reverse the roles in the Ballroom scene in "Chapter: Ritual," have Fliss pick up the knife at the end of "Chapter: Danny" and make Brad ignore the wrench in "Chapter: Finding Friends," and Fliss will end up killing Brad instead.
Getting Conrad shot, having Brad kill Fliss, giving Julia the bends, sending Brad to talk to Junior, and having Alex stab the rat in his chest will ensure every character dies by the final cutscene. If one of these options fails, the only way to be absolutely sure that none of the characters survive is to find the Hat and Logbook collectibles and call in the military.
Man Of Medan was released on August 30th, 2019, and is available on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.