How to Unlock Inside's Secret Ending

[thepleb]

Here's my theory: The boy you play as is being controlled by that big blob near the end of the game. The reason for this is because, when you unhook three of mind helmet things from the blob, you get absorbed into it. then you play as the blob. If you remember the part where the boy was controlling someone and got them to control someone else, it's the same thing with the blob. The secret ending is like the good ending because the boy frees himself from the blob's control. That's why he curls up in a ball kind of like the people that weren't being controlled when they weren't needed. To me, it's like the blob is the bad end because the objective of the whole game is to free the blob. You just don't know it until the end. That's why the game is called Inside. It's because that blob is inside your head the whole time (unless you get the secret end and disconnect the blob from your mind). This is just my opinion. I could be wrong.

[pseudonymous]

Everyone is saying that The Blob is controlling the boy, but in all actuality, its controlling YOU the player. By giving you the simple task of constantly moving forward and solving any problem you come across. It lures you into a false sense of progression. The Boy is controlled by you, doing anything you command by the press of a button. While The Blob controls you, the player, by making you think that the boy is deciding to solve the problems himself. Ultimately leading to you being absorbed by the blob, and forced to help it break free. The Boy has no descicion or control over what he does, since you are the one already occupying that role. The Boy is being used as a placeholder so the blob can get a hold of you and the way you think. You never understood why you kept moving onward, but you kept doing it. When you inevitably got absorbed I to the blob, you just kept storming through the facility with no question. Brainlessly partaking and completing tasks without even trying to understand why your doing them is a prime example of the games main focus. Control, and brainwashing. Right from the start of the game the blob already has control over you. And overtime you get brainwashed into a habit of solving problems and constantly moving right. Completing the "Normal Ending" means that you are no different than the Grey Zombie-Like figures marching through out the game. Living with no purpose, only existing to complete another entities orders. When you control the boy to unplug the heavily wired console. He kneels down like one of the Gray folk when they aren't being controlled. That's because without the player. He is nothing. He isn't a character of his own. He doesn't make decisions. He doesn't even live. He only exists to serve as the players protagonist. And obey every command given to him. So when you make him unplug the console. He disconnects from the player permanently. And without any player to control him, he's just and empty shell, a husk. Left to rot. And without a player to control The Boy. The Blob is forced to suffer inside the facility.

Edit: In other words. The Boy isn't anyone, in fact. YOU, are The Boy. The descicions you make can either lead to you being used as a slave. Or defying your oppressor by forfeiting your own freedom.

[Leticiapais_]

The theory that he disconected the player is the best theory so far.

[Kickglass]

It must be that the main character is being controlled too..god this game is so mysterious

[The_Windows_]

I believe that it's a 4th wall break that has the player use the boy to "disconnect" him from the player's control, and in the process, "disconnecting" us from the game. In a way, I guess you're "freeing" the boy from control just like he was "freeing" everyone else from the control of the blob in the normal ending.

[icaptureditforyou]

Brandin Tyrell's theory, an editor at IGN, was sophisticatedly thorough, in my opinion, and I agreed with it the most:

“First off, I want to preface there are a number of elements of Inside that I can’t explain and don’t fit inside (no pun intended) my understanding of what that game is about. But, on the surface, the first theme that immediately jumped out at me was that of social constructs and control -- how ruling class preys upon the other with institutional control.

There’s evidence for this all throughout Inside. For starters, there’s a really clear distinction between the antagonistic class (the guys that will choke you, set their dogs on you, shoot you, etc.) and the mind-controllable, blue-collar worker types that you use as labor to complete puzzles. And this is reflected in the level design, too. The starting areas are woodland, rural, and industrial areas - areas that revolve around more natural, and labor-focused ways of life. As you move deeper into the game, the levels give way to sophisticated, factory-like complexes, where the ruling class works and conducts their experiments - which is a much more unnatural and unsustainable way of life.

To me, Inside is portraying a society where the majority is forced to live and work and die under an oppressive minority. At first I thought it was just an evil organization, but there are a few clues in the game that make me think this isn’t the case. The most obvious was a specific scene, where you’re walking through a hangar, and a forklift drives in and hoists a cage filled with slave-laborers. The whole scene is being directed by one of the oppressors, but while he looks on he’s holding the hand of a child, who's watching, and learning. To me, that indicates that this isn’t just an organization, it’s a whole society and way of life that people are born into, brought up in, and taught to believe is correct. This is institutional classicism to the most extreme, enslaved dystopian-nightmare.

As far as the massive blob at the end - I can only imagine it’s the ever-evolving fruit of humankind’s natural curiosity about the afterlife, about self improvement, and about making ourselves more than what we are through any means necessary. In this case, the scientific search for what’s next has corrupted the morals of this ruling class and allowing these experiments and creations that can only be sustained by the work, lives, and organic matter of the people they treat like cattle.

The boy’s ingestion by the blob, and eventual escape from the complex represents literally and figuratively breaking free of these confines. And, to me, it’s ironic that the blob’s only means of escaping the complex is by mind controlling the boy using the same devices the ruling body used to create it, to eventually reach the tank and start the chain of events that led to its escape.

As for the secret ending, I think it’s a deeper commentary on self-awareness. That, by pulling the plug in the farm bunker, we realize that it was us -- the player -- controlling the boy all along. He was just an avatar for our own actions, as evident by the way he squats down after the plug is pulled -- similar to the way the slave-laborers do after being controlled. Additionally, the game progress is reset afterwards. Despite everything else you do in the game -- loading, dying, pausing, resetting -- it isn’t until you pull that plug on the game that you give up control and the experience is complete. This secret ending is a way of breaking the fourth wall and making us see what we’re capable of, and in some ways, take responsibility for our actions, whether we realized them or not.”
- Brandin Tyrell, IGN Editor

[MrRay]

Going through that musical door reminds me of entering a large head through the ear....the boy then passes through the long ear canal to the control center, the brain, and disconnects it all.

[JC-fkkc]

Fun fact, If you look in the background at the yellow cable mass connection thing, it actually moves when jump or move left and right.

[wilbertsieghart]

I think the boy disconnected from you/me/us, the player. As soon as he unplugged the cord, he just lost all his energy and slouched over. 

If you noticed, the main computer in the background had those yellow wires (the little hints that there was an orb near by) attached to one of those devices that strap to your head and able to control other people. I believe all 13 orbs were connected to this one console. That console belonged to us. We were controlling everything until that boy disconnected our power, thus ending the game.

[djderpdog]

He sacrificed him self and shut down the whole mind control system

[cherripxt._]

Y’all, i have a question. I pause and load back to the area, but nothing happens with the light. It’s not turned on or anything. Am I doing something wrong? 1:07

[mumuspeaks]

I think i have an idea, on this ending the blob leads you to where you unplug a switch to where everyone *INCLUDING YOUR CHARACTER THATS BEING CONTROLLED* , thats why the computer in the background where you unplug the switch not only shuts down but has a mind control helmet attached to it, its like another safe place to have control of the blob. But in the what i call the "bad" ending or or "good" depending on how you look at it, the blob leads your character to the blob and the merge and they escape and your character/the blob kill themselves setting everyone on mind control free. No more mind control *THEORY*

[paul_aranas]

I think this ending shows that we are disobeying the blob or the meatball because the other ending shows that we are being controlled by the blob by setting it free into the open. However this ending shows that the kid disobeys the blob by unpluging the wires from the computer and the blob does not want that. It also shows that the kid or us knows what is happening and we have full control of the character not the blob.

[thenolanteam]

I hope somebody steps out and find the real truth to this game. There are some many theories and I don't know which one to believe.

[Waluanaka]

My theory of the secret ending is that he unplugs the thing in the backround which makes every single hat controller thingy shut off and hes being controlled by someone or something so that's why he falls on the ground and it ends.

[SinisterStatus]

First Ending: They (The many people that have been tormented - no doubt - into forming this perversion of a blob) are just trying to feel the warmth of the rays of the Sun, one last time... No better way to die, given their circumstances, I suppose..

[kaloyaxeus]

To me, the most logical theory I've seen so far is the fact that the boy you are controlling is unplugging the power to the screens and the mind control helmet in the background and so, you are not controlling him anymore. He freed himself by unplugging the power to the mind control set and so, you can't "play" him anymore.

[richhomierevan]

I'm sure it's that it's us controlling the boy it's a 4th wall break the same apparatus that is used to control the dummy people is hooked up to a computer that when disconnected the boy is no longer controlled and assumes the same "SLEEP MODE" like stance that the dummies assume when not being controlled I think the title is called inside because we in a sense are "INSIDE" the game and once were disconnected we are "OUTSIDE" and assume our normal lives that's why neither ending gives any explanation cuz we're inside and we got out an we jus move on lol it's an excellent an beautiful concept kudos to the writers oh and also the people who are cheering at the end we're happy because they designed everything so that they could accomplish the goal of getting us outside that's y in the regular ending you see after you fall through the floor a scale model of the blob ending going down the hill and stopping it's the 1st reference to being outside but in the secret ending you exit the game

[JBL]

I like everyone's theories, but i have one question in mind if this controls that or whatever, why is everyone trying to kill the kid ?
Side questions are: why people are zombified and controlled by those killers ? And why it feels like it's post-apocalyptic world the real question is what happened? What caused all this? There's too many mysterious, you can't just theorize what the writer wrote cuz you would never know what's he's thinking all and all i love the energy the game gave me to talk about it and listen to other people's theories it's interesting

[erniecheng]

well the person in the back of the room is probably us with the mind controlling device as were controlling the boy, but as we make him unplug that thing it probably remove the power causing the control device not to work. you later then see the lights go off and the boy slumping over showing that he is dead because you are dead... inside