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Hollowbody is asurvival horrorgame made as an homage to the classics of the genre,like the early Silent Hill games. The inventory management, otherworldly enemies, and confusing story all add up to the feeling of horror and dread.
Of course, like many games from that time, Hollowbody presents different endings depending on how your playthrough goes. All endings can be a bit confusing, so if you’re struggling to understand how it all adds up in the end, read on; while not everything is outright explained in the game, the many references it makes to other games help paint a clearer picture.
The Story Of Hollowbody
The story of Hollowbody starts60 years before the game starts, with a bioterrorist attack rendering several cities in the British Isles unlivable.
Those cities were walled off, withthe surviving residents doomed to diefrom limited supplies and, eventually, orbital strikes approved by the government.
The social elite was saved before all this, taken tothe artificial isle of Aeonis. Most survivors of the bioterrorist attack tried tomake their lives from scratch there, with everything being managed by the Sherwood company.
The Sherwood Coverup
Fans of the Resident Evil series will notice a few parallels betweenthe Umbrella Corporation and the Sherwood State Management, making us assume that the companies work similarly.
The Sherwood company was looking intonanotechnology capable of limiting agingto a near stop, but instead, they created a deadly virus thatspread like bad roots.
The infected havetheir bodies taken over, and after 60 years they look like empty shells,or ‘hollow bodies,‘being animated only by the will of the root. This makes the virus bothbiological and technological, and with it running out of control, the Sherwood company didn’t want anyone finding this out.
This is whythey walled off the cities so quickly, and why they cut off the water supply from the survivors;they weren’t meant to survive at all. There are, however, several people trying to uncover what Sherwood did, and this is where the game starts.
Sasha And Mica
Sasha’s mother wasa survivor of the bioterrorist attack, seemingly saved by the Sherwood corporation due to her being only a child. Two months after her mother’s passing,Sasha feels like it’s time to know what really happened60 years before, and who really was responsible.
She travels toground zero of the incidentwith other environmental activists, all of themfully dressed in hazmat suits.As she’s trying to find a missing colleague,she’s attacked from behind, and this is the last we know of her,the game advancing to 12 days later.
This is where we controlMica, the real protagonist of the game, wanting to go to these walled-off cities in order to find Sasha. It seems that both these women wereromantically involved, but the full extent of their relationship is never fully explained.
Gater House
Mica sneaks into these restricted sections thanks toher friend Tax, but once she makes it into the city with her hover (a flying type of car), it malfunctions, andshe crash lands into the streets.
Without any form of air filtration, this might be the point wherethe virus infects her, hence why this entity is able to follow her and communicate with her through the phones.
As Mica tries to get to high ground to communicate with Tax,she meets a wounded strangerabout to jump offthe roof of Gater House. Being able to save him is key tothe ending you get, but he says something important here to Mica:Mother cut off your wings.
This is the first mention of Mother, and it is the namethe entity behind the virus gives itself.Mica interpretsthese wings as her hover, so it can be assumed from this thatMother made her crash-land on purpose, leading her deeper into the root of it all.
Mother, The Red Tree
Regardless of whether you save the stranger, you’ll know thatyour next goal is deep underground.Getting to the subway station, you’ll end up in somecaves covered in roots, and at the center of these caves isa large glowing treewith, somehow, Sasha trapped in the roots.
At several moments there is a flashing red glow, as if not everything is as it seems here
Mica tries to reassure Sasha that they’ll make it out, butshe has no plan to do so.Then, a phone rings, andMother tells Mica she can guide them out, that she just needs totell Tax to follow the lights, and then Mother creates a link between that phone and Tax’s hover.
Tax is able to make it to Mica, but he starts acting strange:he drops his flashlightjust a few steps after entering the cave system, and thenfalls to his kneeswhen seeing Mica.
Mica is surrounded by roots, her face covered in red, and Mother claims that she will keep her warm.
The camera then zooms out to show the outside of the cave overrun by roots,Tax’s hover included.
Tax was clearly infected by Mother justas he entered the cave, and it is likely that Sasha was never there to begin with;she might even be the corpse seen at the entrance of the cave.
The Endings
So far, the game tells you thatMother wanted Mica to reach her core, but it’s not clear why exactly.Mother never wanted Mica to leave, and likely told her to show Tax the way just toconsume him as well, but there are no explanations for what is so special about these two victims.
The endings depend entirely onwhether you saved the wounded stranger or not, but oddly enough,they don’t contradict each other.
There is also a joke secret ending, which you can achieve bybeating the game in the Punished difficultywhile only using three or fewer repair sprays.
Riven Ending
Saving the stranger adds two new cutscenes after the end of the game, one of which seesthe stranger giving Mica CPR; she doesn’t seem to react, and her face is covered in what seems to be blood.
There is also a man rocking back and forth, clearly distressed:this is likely Tax, still affected by the virus.
It isn’t clear whythe virus didn’t affect the strangerlike it did Mica and Tax, but it affected him in some way, sincehe was already aware of Mother.
Of particular note is the fact thathe didn’t get Sasha out; either he couldn’t or Sasha was never there.
Then, two days later,Mica is questioned in an undisclosed location.These are, of course,agents of Sherwoodwanting to do some damage control, as well as needing to figure outwhat Mica knows about Mother.
Reunion Ending
The Reunion ending is unlocked byletting the stranger fall to his death.After Mica isclaimed by Motherand Tax enters the cave, there’s a time skip,moving forward 24 years, a lonely ship floating in an undisclosed sea, an island on the horizon.
Looking carefully at the horizon,a creature rises, but its shape is hard to discern. All things considered, this can only beMother uprooting herself, ready to spread her virus to the rest of the world, the collective consciousness of all its victims still ringing inside of it.
Since this happens 24 years after the game,this event might still come to pass even if you get the Riven ending.After all, we don’t know if Mica, Sasha or Tax were crucial for the entity to absorb for it to rise from the land.
Secret Ending
The secret endingtakes a lot of skill and game knowledge to unlock,needing to play on the hardest difficultyand almost never healing. Doing so removes the red tree,a dog house appearing in its placewith a talking dog following close behind.
This is in clearreference to Silent Hill 2, where the secret ending hada dog being the one behind all the horrors.
Hollowbody takes things on a happier tone, havingthe dog be the one that saves Micaand leading her to a boat, where Sasha is waiting for her.
