Story endings
The game has seven endings plus one premature game over. Two choices late in the story determine which ending you see: whether to return to Earth or stay on Antares, and if you return, whether to take the orichalcum. See also Relationships and Romance for how crew bonds develop throughout the story.
How the branching works
Near the end of the game Amelia holds a crew meeting. After hearing everyone out she makes two decisions in sequence:
- Return to Earth or stay on Antares.
- If returning: take the orichalcum or leave it behind.
Staying on Antares leads to three possible endings depending on whether the crew built enough goodwill with the locals and whether Earth later discovers the ship's location. If the Ixion cannot fly at all, a fourth stay ending fires regardless of the choice.
The endings
Character Death
Game over
How to reach it: Any playable crew member has a state reach 100, triggering death: Fatigue (Exhaustion), Hunger (Starvation), Sickness (Terminal Illness), Injury (Mortal Wound), Stress (Break Down), or Dehydration.
The run is over. There is no partial crew continuation. Every character state is a 0 to 100 gauge. When any of Fatigue, Hunger, Sickness, Injury, Stress, or Water reaches 100, the character dies and the game ends with an ERROR popup showing the character name, DEAD status, and cause of death. The game warns you one day in advance: an alert appears stating that the character will die from the fatal state unless you intervene.
Crystal Doom
Game over
How to reach it: Marduk defeats the crew before the final decision is reached.
Marduk wins. His allies execute Amelia on a scaffold while the biocrystal barrier spreads across the planet. The crew's allies fall one after another. The crowd watching the execution goes quiet, they are scared. Marduk himself does not outlast the crystals.
Triumph
Return to Earth
How to reach it: The crew chooses to return to Earth and takes the orichalcum with them.
The Ixion-2 lifts off loaded with orichalcum. The crew returns as heroes, welcomed with medals and ceremonies. Earth is doing better. The promise of a bright future has quieted opposition to the Earth Omni Federation. Victor calls Amelia with a new proposal: a dozen ships bound for Antares, officially a scientific mission but aimed at colonization. She cuts the call.
Collapse
Return to Earth
How to reach it: The crew chooses to return to Earth without taking the orichalcum.
The Ixion-2 takes off without cargo. The return is brutal: the crew is arrested on arrival and interrogated for months. No one on Earth can understand why they came back empty-handed. Amelia spends more than six months in a high-security prison, restrained and violently debriefed. She says nothing. Gabriel eventually breaks her out. The ending carries the scent of revolution.
Abandon
Stay on Antares
How to reach it: The crew decides to stay on Antares, but the Ixion is permanently grounded. The ship cannot fly regardless of how much repair work was done.
The Ixion will never fly again. Liu is in tears. Omar stands apart from camp, weeping over passport photos of his family, the only printed photos he had when he left Earth. He and Amelia watch the twilight sky together, wondering which distant star is Earth.
Harmony
Stay on Antares
How to reach it: The crew chooses to stay on Antares. The ship can fly, but they stay anyway. Earth has no way to contact them and believes the crew dead.
The Ixion never left. Earth believes the crew is dead. Over time, each member finds their own way to accept Antares as home. A year later, Amelia goes for a morning run, gets lost in the woods near the Ixion, and finds Noemi singing among the trees. The ending is quiet and bittersweet.
Independence
Stay on Antares
How to reach it: The crew stays on Antares. Two years pass. Earth Federation ships arrive and are repelled by a united front of Atlanteans, Antarians, and the Ixion crew.
The Ixion never left. Two years later, two Earth Omni Federation ships appear in the Antarian sky. The Atlanteans, Antarians, and the crew unite and drive the invaders off. In exchange for a quantity of orichalcum, Dwayne, Omar, and Polina board the retreating ships and return to Earth. Amelia stays and warns Ishtar: more Earthlings will come, stronger and more numerous.
Oppression
Stay on Antares
How to reach it: The crew stays on Antares, but Earth learns their position. No friendship or trust has been built between the crew and the locals. The united front is absent.
The Ixion never left. Its location was no secret. Months after Ishtar's coronation, two Earth Omni Federation ships land and soldiers open fire without attempting to talk. No friendship, no trust, no united front. The EOF wins. Amelia, William, and Gabriel are captured; the rest escape to the highlands. The surviving crew plans guerrilla attacks on the newly built orichalcum mine.