I personally think that the wife and child ending is the best and happiest ending because of this: In this ending, it is revealed that he really did care about his family and that he had trouble showing it. And as such, after he lost them, he began to paint a portrait of his wife and child. However, he finally awoke from his insanity and saw what he had become and what he had done to his family. As such, he decided to make it right and to burn his paintings along with himself, finally being at rest with his wife and daughter. Edit: I'll just go ahead and analyze the other two endings. Wife ending- This one is probably the worst ending seeing how once he finished the painting, it just transformed into the monstrous demonic version of his wife, possibly the way she had at one point appeared to him as while she was still alive. I've begun to suspect that this part isn't just a fragment of his insanity but rather the spirit of his wife taunting him and torching him for neglecting her for so long. In the end, the husband tries his best to tie up loose ends, only to be undone by his wife. In this ending, the painter has truly lost himself completely and is doomed to repeat the process over and over again. Seeing how this ending is only possible if you've been "killed" by the wife, it could also imply that he's in purgatory as a sort of punishment. Painter- This is probably the second to worst ending. That's right, it's not the second best but rather the worst. Let's see what you need to do to get this ending. You need to avoid getting "killed" by your wife, you need to follow all of the rats when possible and you also have to collect your own momentos. Seeing how you can only get this ending without dying, it could imply that you've survived your guiltless decent into madness and have instead chosen to showcase your selfishness. With this ending, the painter wishes to be remembered for his masterpiece, his very own self, in stead of the people who had to die and get taken away from him in order for this painting to exist. Wife and child- I've already analyzed this ending but I figured that I'll give an updated view on it. Everything that I have mentioned before about it still stands, however, I do wish to add an extra detail. This ending is also only available if you get "killed" every time the wife appears. It is also worth mentioning that getting killed is also dubbed as "embracing" the wife. Since the wife ending is where you only embrace her a few times, the painter ending where you avoid her completely, and then this ending where you embrace her every time, it ties back into how the painter cared about his family, despite what may have happened. Perhaps the encounters of his wife may not be mere hallucinations, but rather actual encounters. This goes back into the whole purgatory thing. You're killed every time you embrace her. This could also mean that the wife is also trapped in purgatory as she wasn't that good of a parent herself, seeing how she was at times jealous of her daughter for being the center of attention from her husband. Since she committed suicide, she didn't die a natural death. That would mean that she'd still have unfinished business that needed to be done. When you head to the room to burn the paintings, you ultimately finish your wife's work, allowing her to leave purgatory and to enter into heaven. The painter then burns himself along with the portraits, therefore ending his life and raising him out from purgatory and into heaven with his wife. That's all I have to say about it. Thanks for reading this far.
You know I think your analysis is true. As I went through the game more and more I realized that the character is just estranged and I thought maybe taking the correct actions would fix it. So I tried to run away from the rats and tried to run towards the wife every time I saw her. I got the wife and child ending.
I actually think autoportrait is the best because, his daughter was taken away from him because of his state, his wife is already dead so... I believe when he finnaly finished his art his mind would be at peace, he would go back to normal, fix himself, then he would seek his daughter back. And he can fix things with her at least.. 🤷🏽♂️
I got the "wife and child" and there you can see that he really cares about his family, his work was important, but all the effort he made was to show them love and get back into being a great artist WITH them. But he cant do it, he lost his chance to love them while they were alive, perhaps he could love them in the afterlife, because he had done all that he had to do: make his best masterpiece, his family. I think thats the best because he kinda gets a redemption, on the other endings he just cares about making a good painting that will make him go back to being a great artist and even if he got to do it, he would be alone for the rest of his life.
I got Wife and Child on my first Playthrough. I assumed the game was entirely metaphorical since it was taking place inside the painters warped mind. I pieced that taking the obvious route of running away from the Wife was equivalent to running from the Painters problems and responsibilities as a father and a husband. While being caught was resemblant of facing the fear of the past, and addressing the painters problems. At every chance I had I threw myself at the wife, and was pleased when my assumptions were correct. Very good game.
I used to thought "wife and child" ending was the best but actualy, "wife" ending makes sense... The guy is trap in a never ending loop where he wants to finish its painting... Every clues in the game point toward the fact that he had some mind problems after the accident of his wife... then he ran away from his responsabilities and lost himself in alcoohol... He has nothing left, except the will to finish his painting one day...
Got Wife & Child Ending first time without a walkthrough, I didn't collect everything but I'm sure I collected more momentos than rat pics and stuff, time to get the other 2 endingd
For some reason I got an ending where he paints Gigachad and it slowly morphs into Peepee as he cries in anguish. I am then taken to a temple of frogs, where I saw horrors indescribable.
I've collected most things, didn't avoid the rats and collected their clues, I didn't run away from wife nor child's ghosts and I got the wife and child ending. it's all cool though wife ending clearly means you have not picked path to follow. The wife and child ending means painter doesn't let go of the past and it consumes him. Painter ending means he's able to move on. Path choices are nicely laid out here, you'll either run away from horrors, or embrace them, either seems to be possible to get on your first time.
I just played this game (in 2024, and not knowing anything about the DLC and the sequels). I just wanted to give my analysis on the endings because while everybody thinks the Family ending is the best ending in the game (and I do too). I'd like to say that all 3 endings are all, in a way, not good endings for the Artist for one specific reason: In all 3 of the endings, the wife's final message is incomplete. In the loop ending, the letter is made to taunt the Artist that he will never finish the painting. In the self-portrait ending, the wife tells the Artist to finish the painting even only for himself. In the family ending, the wife tells the Artist to finish the painting for her and the daughter. The thing that ticks me off in that last statement was that the letter was still incomplete. In fact, if you piece together the whole letter you get something to the effect of "But even for you, there is still a way... A way to bring it all back. The one precious thing you ever truly desired...Still, if we are to make a sense of all this… If any of all this ever mattered to you, YOU WILL NEVER FINISH IT. For us. If only for yourself." The wife's final words actually just advises him to stop chasing perfection in everything, and to just love something even if it's imperfect and therefore NEVER FINISH IT. Also in the earlier part of the letter, the wife says this, "You see I finally understand. I know how you must feel. Lost. Alone. Hopeless. It took me a while, but I finally realized. Even with us, you have always been alone." In the letter, she actually tells him here that the one thing he truly desired was to not be lost, alone, and hopeless, and that his desire for perfection blinds him to what he actually desires - love, a sense of belonging, the ability to love someone for who they are. It makes sense because he was trying to "fix" her by painting a perfect version of her when all he needed to do (and all she ever wanted) was for him to love her despite her imperfections. Like how she still loved him even until the very end despite his imperfections with the first part of her letter, "I used to hate you. Not anymore. I think even now, in spite of everything, I might still love you." This recontextualizes all of the endings we have The loop ending is a bad ending because he still chases a perfection he can't have. The self-portrait ending is bad because he achieves his desire for perfection, but completely succumbs to it and will likely never figure out that that's not his true desire. (and would be due for a repeat of this toxic pattern, effectively a more drawn out version of the loop ending) And the family ending becomes a bad ending because... In all of the endings, he still deludes himself with warped versions of reality supported by the way he twists his wife's final message to fit his own narrative... to finish the painting. The family ending in this light becomes a sorta self-serving poetic end he grants himself, to give himself some sort of redemption that came too late. Think about it, his death in this ending with him dying poetically by fire, holding the finished painting of his wife and child, and finally realizing his shortcomings as a husband and dad would make this ending his "perfect" end. A narcissistic perfectionist's ideal ending when the wife's final words was to explicitly NEVER FINISH IT. If I could reference a similar game (and a line from a video essay by @redrisley), this note kind of acts as the Artist's mouthwash, something that "he uses to cover up everything he doesn't accept about himself". In this ending, the Artist does acknowledge his mistakes but refuses to take accountability for it and gives himself a poetic ending that in his eyes gives him redemption. He even uses select portions of her death note as permission to finish his painting and die his perfect death thinking he's doing it for his family when he really is just doing it for himself. Seriously, if he actually cared about his family at the end of it all, he would at least send a sorry letter to his daughter. At the very least, he would paint his wife not as the lady in white, but as the lady with burns on her face, just the way she is and not the way she was before the fire. Also, this is the kind of ending he'll get fast forward a few years in the self-portrait ending's timeline, just IMO. The best ending IMO, is one that the devs never made. He realizes his shortcomings as a husband and father, and reads the whole letter from his wife without anything blocked out. In the full letter, the wife tells him, "I know how you must feel. Lost. Alone. Hopeless." But in the family ending, "Hopeless." is blocked out. That may be because even in that ending, even if he acknowledges his feelings of being lost and alone he fails to acknowledge his feelings of hopelessness. That is why his "perfect" ending is redemption through an act of finality, and not a redemption through gradual improvement and accountability for his failings. His best ending (and only good one) was to put down the paintbrush and move on. Gradually. Painfully. With remorse. He needed to NEVER FINISH IT. For his family. If only for himself. He lives on knowing full well that he's not a perfect husband, father, or man, and that he is okay with it. He also needs to take accountability for being a bad father to his daughter, publishing disturbing paintings, disappointing his friends and colleagues, harassing pest exterminators and doctors, and causing the suicide of his wife. Only then can he achieve some kind of redemption. The wife did what he could not even if she ended herself. She loved the Artist despite him being a total deadbeat, shallow, obsessive, narcissistic, cruel POS to her and their kid. Furthermore, she had hope for him to realize this and improve. If not for her sake, but possibly for the next person that puts their faith in him. That's because she never wanted someone perfect, she just wanted him to be there. One last thing, on a meta level this ending I've outlined will never be an ending, and if this is what the devs intended I will be amazed because of how cool it is. On one hand, the Artist definitely does not deserve this ending. On the other, it would be the most appropriate thing for a game about accepting imperfection to not have a perfect ending. It's the devs version of NEVER FINISHING IT by never implementing some sort of best ending, which could explain why none of the endings feature the complete letter from the wife. In some ways, they also tell the player to be satisfied with the endings you can get, and not to try and find the secret 4th ending. That might be why I felt that even the family ending was sorta abrupt, and why the music ramps up in the endings only to be cut off when it starts rolling the credits instead of having the music play out alongside the credits like in movies. Overall, Layers of Fear is an incomplete game and the devs are lazy and the game is just as bad as Cyberpunk on release lmaoooooooooooooo. But seriously, I love the story of this game. And I think any opinions about which of the endings is most appropriate or good is totally valid. Tbh, the loop ending and the self-portrait ending can be seen as an optimistic ending since the Artist still has a chance of reliving and realizing his mistakes (which kinda makes the Family ending the worst ending because he dies. Oh God.) Also having recently watched a RUclipsr play Mouthwashing, things really clicked when seeing the endings of LoF. Jimmy is still leagues worst than the Artist though.
ok this is probably going to sound farfetched and Im 4 years late on this but hear me out on this theory: only one of the endings is the *true* ending, the Painter ending. The reason why the Loop Ending (or the Wife Ending) isn’t an ending at all is because it’s just well, a loop. It doesn’t really end the game. It just hits the retry button basically and you’re back to the beginning of the game. So I feel it isn’t an ending, rather a failed attempt. You messed up somewhere and you have to try again. Now let’s go into why the Wife and Child ending isn’t real. As shown in the video what happens is the Painter realizes his major mistake. He realizes he can’t bring back what he once had, that its all gone and its too late. With that he burns down the house and the paintings and himself. It leaves like a bitter sweet taste in your mouth. Everything seems fine here, why isn’t it real? Well let me repeat that last part again. He burns down the house and the paintings and himself. If this was the case then the LoF storyline would not be able to continue. Now you’re probably thinking, “continue? wdym continue? the game’s over, thats it.” No, my friend, thats not it. As we all should know, Layers of Fear has four members of the family that lived in the house. The Painter, the Wife, the Daughter and their dog Popiel. The Wife killed herself, Popiel died somehow (I am pretty sure the Painter killed him but I don’t have any solid evidence of that), the Daughter got taken away by child protection services and (if we are agreeing the Wife and Child Ending isn’t real) we don’t really know what happened to the Painter. Based on what I could find while playing the game it seems the Daughter was put into an orphanage for a small amount of time but then got adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Kirkstein (I don’t 100% know if that’s spelled correct) and then when the Daughter was an adult, she came back to the house where the Painter lived and was determined to end the cycle of insanity that runs in her family. If you did not know this, then I can guarantee you were not aware of the game Layers of Fear Inheritance. It seems I got quite off track, not really. It seems like what I was giving you was useless information but its actually very important. You see, if the Painter burned down the house in the Wife and Child Ending, the Daughter would have never been able to return to the house. If the Wife and Child Ending *really* happened, the Daughter would’ve came back to nothing but ashes. You cannot argue that the house was rebuilt because the house had the same look and furniture as it did in the first game, not to mention that it was a wreck with broken floor boards, torn up furniture, peeling wallpaper and paint all over. It’s safe to say the house remained untouched after the first game ended. I believe as long as Inheritance is cannon and did indeed happen, the Wife and Child ending is not real. Well then what was it? If it was in the game and it wasn’t real, what’s it’s purpose? I would say it was a hallucination considering the fact that the Painter has schizophrenia and can imagine the most unthinkable things, I doubt that. If it was something as fatal as fire, there’s no way that was just in his head. I could go into a whole argument on it but that’s a bit of a waste of time. Let’s just agree it isn’t. I think what it really was.... was just a thought. Not a hallucination, no. It wasn’t in his imagination. I think it was just something he thought about, but was never able to accept. Thats not exactly how I wanted it to sound but... I really don’t know how else to explain it. There are multiple things in Layers of Fear, and even more in Inheritance that point to the fact that the Painter never stopped loving his wife, he just didn’t know how to show that. In Inheritance, the Daughter herself says “I believe that somewhere deep in his heart, he truly loved her. His way of expressing it, however, was something totally different.” So maybe the Wife and Child Ending was something he subconsciously knew about but never brought himself to do. He could never out loud say that he still loved her, he dug himself a hole that he couldn’t get out of. At the VERY beginning of this EXTREMELY long comment I said that “only one of the endings is the *true* ending”. Well, we knocked two of them off the list, that only leaves us with one. The Painter Ending. I could just say that since it’s the only one left its the one thats what truly happened but, thats no fun! We need evidence and proof and reasoning why its real! Basically this is just the part where everything ties together and the knot is pulled to a close. As we know the Painter ending is where he finishes his Magnum Opus and instead of painting his wife he paints himself and succeeds in finishing it. He has his last work hung in a museum (or maybe an art gallery idk-) and then he just disappears. I won’t make any assumptions on what happened to him afterward because I don’t really have enough evidence to back up what I believed happened so we’ll leave it as he disappeared. Saying that makes it sound suspicious that this ending isn’t real either but just hang in a biiiit longer I have my reasons. Going back to Layers of Fear Inheritance, the Daughter tells us in the first few minutes of the game that the reason why she returned to her familys house is that she was once told that insanity runs in her family and that she wants to end it. Alright fine thats all nice and whatever but like... I have a deep, deep feeling that isn’t it. She claims she grew up in the Kirstein’s house and yet still heard her father’s screaming from when she lived with him and its likely she told someone about this and they said that she’s crazy too because insanity runs in the family. That does *not* sound like a big enough motive to make someone go back to the house from their childhood that was filled with trauma and misery. So... what if she happened to go to that museum where the Painter’s magnum opus was? What if she went there and... there was something inside her that kept gnawing at her. Like a fire was ignited, a fire that grew into more and more of an inferno the more she ignored it. Yeah, again Im getting a bit stretchy with this again but there is very little information provided on this matter and you have to do what you have to do. Im not going to rewrite this entire thing just to say “It all ties together” so... yeah thats how Im going to end it. The puzzle pieces aren’t an exact fit but they are pretty close. There was a whole other section I could’ve talked about involving the Painter abusing the Daughter and when she saw the Magnum Opus that was part of it however this comment is long enough, idk if there is a limit to how much you can put so I’ll leave it as that :) If I missed anything or messed up on a part feel free to let me know and Im so sorry this comment is so long its a complicated game and there’s a lot of explaining that has to be said for it to make sense.... Thanks for staying the entire time if you did and yeah. Have a good day/night depending on where you are. :>
I got wife ending omg.... And i just following the rats and he gets me all the time except i run from her one time to the door snd after that hearing her to cry i try to catch me and pop up the sound lock it omg...
I got Wife and Child Ending. Every time the wife showed up I went there and "hugged" her, and he ended up dying, lol. While playing I thought this was going to give the bad ending, but oddly enough, for me it's the best of all. ✨💕
just finished this game.. not sure what ending is "good" but i suppose he somewhat reforms at the end.. such a heartbreaking story for the wife and child..
If you get caught by the wife at all (once) you'll get the Wife ending, if you never get caught, you'll get the Painter ending, if you get caught at every possible avenue by her you will get the Wife and Daughter ending. I'm pretty sure that's how it works
@@Petiteroch Just read some more, if you always follow the Rats and get personal affects it contributes to the Painter ending, but if you ignore the rats and get your family's affects, it contributes to the Wife and Child ending
@@Petiteroch it's not just getting caught it's also getting stuff that belongs to your wife and child, embracing them excepting your wife's flaws while still loving her, you should also run towards her whenever you get the chance embrace her
Everyone thinks the wife and child ending is the best but I think that is the 2nd worst, he just ends up dying in the end. In the painter at least something gets done with it and he finishes a painting.
Im so confused. i just got a different ending than all of these. i finished wife and child walkthru. But my ending just stopped with him staring at the wife and childs portraits on a pile. No burning no nothing..fading out to credits.
Maybe, but he wasn't showing any signs of leaving the room and the flames were too big to not to catch on fire immediatlely. But even if he could get out i don't think he wanted to, because he regretted what he did and he don't wants to live like this anymore.
i don't understand. was the wife horribly disfigured, like the ghost, or she just had few scars like she has the in multitude of paintings in the room of failures and the ghost is just how the artist saw her, exaggerating the wounds?
I got Self-Portrait ending, I think it's accurate. Artists are by nature "tortured souls" and the more they suffer, the bigger the importance of their art. So, It's fitting and felt it perfect!
This game sounds like a real life story for some creepy family either some small creepy town in TX or Seattle.. may the one and only creator helps all of us. Amen.
Hey, how you did get the omniscient achievement in this game? Did you need to get all endings in one save lot or different slot? Please reply because I'm serious that I didn't get that achievement!
I believe you have to get the achievement in one save slot. Does not matter the order of the endings. Read this trend for more info: www.trueachievements.com/a212727/omniscient-achievement
@@tombevil Also, how do I unlock the prologue basement? You know, the ouija board room. Like did you have to play on Halloween? Like, October 30 or 31? Please reply.
I got the "wife and child" and there you can see that he really cares about his family, his work was important, but all the effort he made was to show them love and get back into being a great artist WITH them. But he cant do it, he lost his chance to love them while they were alive, perhaps he could love them in the afterlife, because he had done all that he had to do: make his best masterpiece, his family. I think thats the best because he kinda gets a redemption, on the other endings he just cares about making a good painting that will make him go back to being a great artist and even if he got to do it, he would be alone for the rest of his life.
![THE TRUE STORY OF Layers of Fear 2 EXPLAINED | [Theory Part. 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ychLBQWY3nY/mqdefault.jpg)
![THE TRUE STORY OF Layers of Fear 2 EXPLAINED | [Theory Part. 1]](/img/tr.png)
I personally think that the wife and child ending is the best and happiest ending because of this: In this ending, it is revealed that he really did care about his family and that he had trouble showing it. And as such, after he lost them, he began to paint a portrait of his wife and child. However, he finally awoke from his insanity and saw what he had become and what he had done to his family. As such, he decided to make it right and to burn his paintings along with himself, finally being at rest with his wife and daughter.
Edit: I'll just go ahead and analyze the other two endings.
Wife ending- This one is probably the worst ending seeing how once he finished the painting, it just transformed into the monstrous demonic version of his wife, possibly the way she had at one point appeared to him as while she was still alive. I've begun to suspect that this part isn't just a fragment of his insanity but rather the spirit of his wife taunting him and torching him for neglecting her for so long. In the end, the husband tries his best to tie up loose ends, only to be undone by his wife. In this ending, the painter has truly lost himself completely and is doomed to repeat the process over and over again. Seeing how this ending is only possible if you've been "killed" by the wife, it could also imply that he's in purgatory as a sort of punishment.
Painter- This is probably the second to worst ending. That's right, it's not the second best but rather the worst. Let's see what you need to do to get this ending. You need to avoid getting "killed" by your wife, you need to follow all of the rats when possible and you also have to collect your own momentos. Seeing how you can only get this ending without dying, it could imply that you've survived your guiltless decent into madness and have instead chosen to showcase your selfishness. With this ending, the painter wishes to be remembered for his masterpiece, his very own self, in stead of the people who had to die and get taken away from him in order for this painting to exist.
Wife and child- I've already analyzed this ending but I figured that I'll give an updated view on it. Everything that I have mentioned before about it still stands, however, I do wish to add an extra detail. This ending is also only available if you get "killed" every time the wife appears. It is also worth mentioning that getting killed is also dubbed as "embracing" the wife. Since the wife ending is where you only embrace her a few times, the painter ending where you avoid her completely, and then this ending where you embrace her every time, it ties back into how the painter cared about his family, despite what may have happened. Perhaps the encounters of his wife may not be mere hallucinations, but rather actual encounters. This goes back into the whole purgatory thing. You're killed every time you embrace her. This could also mean that the wife is also trapped in purgatory as she wasn't that good of a parent herself, seeing how she was at times jealous of her daughter for being the center of attention from her husband. Since she committed suicide, she didn't die a natural death. That would mean that she'd still have unfinished business that needed to be done. When you head to the room to burn the paintings, you ultimately finish your wife's work, allowing her to leave purgatory and to enter into heaven. The painter then burns himself along with the portraits, therefore ending his life and raising him out from purgatory and into heaven with his wife.
That's all I have to say about it. Thanks for reading this far.
I like big comments
You know I think your analysis is true. As I went through the game more and more I realized that the character is just estranged and I thought maybe taking the correct actions would fix it. So I tried to run away from the rats and tried to run towards the wife every time I saw her. I got the wife and child ending.
I watched all of these and I think I still prefer the wife ending really
I think they didn't go to heaven haha
I actually think autoportrait is the best because, his daughter was taken away from him because of his state, his wife is already dead so... I believe when he finnaly finished his art his mind would be at peace, he would go back to normal, fix himself, then he would seek his daughter back. And he can fix things with her at least.. 🤷🏽♂️
I got chills on the wife ending.
Goosebumps on the mother and child ending.
I got the "wife and child" and there you can see that he really cares about his family, his work was important, but all the effort he made was to show them love and get back into being a great artist WITH them. But he cant do it, he lost his chance to love them while they were alive, perhaps he could love them in the afterlife, because he had done all that he had to do: make his best masterpiece, his family.
I think thats the best because he kinda gets a redemption, on the other endings he just cares about making a good painting that will make him go back to being a great artist and even if he got to do it, he would be alone for the rest of his life.
I got Wife and Child on my first Playthrough. I assumed the game was entirely metaphorical since it was taking place inside the painters warped mind.
I pieced that taking the obvious route of running away from the Wife was equivalent to running from the Painters problems and responsibilities as a father and a husband. While being caught was resemblant of facing the fear of the past, and addressing the painters problems. At every chance I had I threw myself at the wife, and was pleased when my assumptions were correct. Very good game.
she killed me 4 times and all by accident
That isn't enough to earn the good ending, but yes, it is one of the factors.
did the same, did have just the wife ending, it s more complex than just that
I used to thought "wife and child" ending was the best but actualy, "wife" ending makes sense... The guy is trap in a never ending loop where he wants to finish its painting... Every clues in the game point toward the fact that he had some mind problems after the accident of his wife... then he ran away from his responsabilities and lost himself in alcoohol... He has nothing left, except the will to finish his painting one day...
Got Wife & Child Ending first time without a walkthrough, I didn't collect everything but I'm sure I collected more momentos than rat pics and stuff, time to get the other 2 endingd
i got wife ending
Same
It's the easiest one to get
Same but I tried getting the wife and child ending :(
me too
It’s cannon
OMGGGG I DIDNT KNOW THAT THERE WERE MULTIPLE ENDINGS!!!!! I VE ONLY SEEN THE FIRST ENDING BEFORE :OOOOOOO
For some reason I got an ending where he paints Gigachad and it slowly morphs into Peepee as he cries in anguish. I am then taken to a temple of frogs, where I saw horrors indescribable.
wth 😂😂😂
Incredible stuff. Good job.
No matter what fucking game I play I always get the worst ending.
This game was a masterpiece tho.
Feel you bro, me too.
which ending did you get
I've collected most things, didn't avoid the rats and collected their clues, I didn't run away from wife nor child's ghosts and I got the wife and child ending.
it's all cool though wife ending clearly means you have not picked path to follow. The wife and child ending means painter doesn't let go of the past and it consumes him.
Painter ending means he's able to move on. Path choices are nicely laid out here, you'll either run away from horrors, or embrace them, either seems to be possible to get on your first time.
I just played this game (in 2024, and not knowing anything about the DLC and the sequels). I just wanted to give my analysis on the endings because while everybody thinks the Family ending is the best ending in the game (and I do too). I'd like to say that all 3 endings are all, in a way, not good endings for the Artist for one specific reason: In all 3 of the endings, the wife's final message is incomplete.
In the loop ending, the letter is made to taunt the Artist that he will never finish the painting.
In the self-portrait ending, the wife tells the Artist to finish the painting even only for himself.
In the family ending, the wife tells the Artist to finish the painting for her and the daughter.
The thing that ticks me off in that last statement was that the letter was still incomplete. In fact, if you piece together the whole letter you get something to the effect of "But even for you, there is still a way... A way to bring it all back. The one precious thing you ever truly desired...Still, if we are to make a sense of all this… If any of all this ever mattered to you, YOU WILL NEVER FINISH IT. For us. If only for yourself." The wife's final words actually just advises him to stop chasing perfection in everything, and to just love something even if it's imperfect and therefore NEVER FINISH IT. Also in the earlier part of the letter, the wife says this, "You see I finally understand. I know how you must feel. Lost. Alone. Hopeless. It took me a while, but I finally realized. Even with us, you have always been alone." In the letter, she actually tells him here that the one thing he truly desired was to not be lost, alone, and hopeless, and that his desire for perfection blinds him to what he actually desires - love, a sense of belonging, the ability to love someone for who they are. It makes sense because he was trying to "fix" her by painting a perfect version of her when all he needed to do (and all she ever wanted) was for him to love her despite her imperfections. Like how she still loved him even until the very end despite his imperfections with the first part of her letter, "I used to hate you. Not anymore. I think even now, in spite of everything, I might still love you."
This recontextualizes all of the endings we have
The loop ending is a bad ending because he still chases a perfection he can't have.
The self-portrait ending is bad because he achieves his desire for perfection, but completely succumbs to it and will likely never figure out that that's not his true desire. (and would be due for a repeat of this toxic pattern, effectively a more drawn out version of the loop ending)
And the family ending becomes a bad ending because...
In all of the endings, he still deludes himself with warped versions of reality supported by the way he twists his wife's final message to fit his own narrative... to finish the painting. The family ending in this light becomes a sorta self-serving poetic end he grants himself, to give himself some sort of redemption that came too late. Think about it, his death in this ending with him dying poetically by fire, holding the finished painting of his wife and child, and finally realizing his shortcomings as a husband and dad would make this ending his "perfect" end. A narcissistic perfectionist's ideal ending when the wife's final words was to explicitly NEVER FINISH IT.
If I could reference a similar game (and a line from a video essay by @redrisley), this note kind of acts as the Artist's mouthwash, something that "he uses to cover up everything he doesn't accept about himself". In this ending, the Artist does acknowledge his mistakes but refuses to take accountability for it and gives himself a poetic ending that in his eyes gives him redemption. He even uses select portions of her death note as permission to finish his painting and die his perfect death thinking he's doing it for his family when he really is just doing it for himself. Seriously, if he actually cared about his family at the end of it all, he would at least send a sorry letter to his daughter. At the very least, he would paint his wife not as the lady in white, but as the lady with burns on her face, just the way she is and not the way she was before the fire.
Also, this is the kind of ending he'll get fast forward a few years in the self-portrait ending's timeline, just IMO.
The best ending IMO, is one that the devs never made. He realizes his shortcomings as a husband and father, and reads the whole letter from his wife without anything blocked out. In the full letter, the wife tells him, "I know how you must feel. Lost. Alone. Hopeless." But in the family ending, "Hopeless." is blocked out. That may be because even in that ending, even if he acknowledges his feelings of being lost and alone he fails to acknowledge his feelings of hopelessness. That is why his "perfect" ending is redemption through an act of finality, and not a redemption through gradual improvement and accountability for his failings. His best ending (and only good one) was to put down the paintbrush and move on. Gradually. Painfully. With remorse. He needed to NEVER FINISH IT. For his family. If only for himself. He lives on knowing full well that he's not a perfect husband, father, or man, and that he is okay with it. He also needs to take accountability for being a bad father to his daughter, publishing disturbing paintings, disappointing his friends and colleagues, harassing pest exterminators and doctors, and causing the suicide of his wife. Only then can he achieve some kind of redemption.
The wife did what he could not even if she ended herself. She loved the Artist despite him being a total deadbeat, shallow, obsessive, narcissistic, cruel POS to her and their kid. Furthermore, she had hope for him to realize this and improve. If not for her sake, but possibly for the next person that puts their faith in him. That's because she never wanted someone perfect, she just wanted him to be there.
One last thing, on a meta level this ending I've outlined will never be an ending, and if this is what the devs intended I will be amazed because of how cool it is. On one hand, the Artist definitely does not deserve this ending. On the other, it would be the most appropriate thing for a game about accepting imperfection to not have a perfect ending. It's the devs version of NEVER FINISHING IT by never implementing some sort of best ending, which could explain why none of the endings feature the complete letter from the wife. In some ways, they also tell the player to be satisfied with the endings you can get, and not to try and find the secret 4th ending. That might be why I felt that even the family ending was sorta abrupt, and why the music ramps up in the endings only to be cut off when it starts rolling the credits instead of having the music play out alongside the credits like in movies.
Overall, Layers of Fear is an incomplete game and the devs are lazy and the game is just as bad as Cyberpunk on release lmaoooooooooooooo.
But seriously, I love the story of this game. And I think any opinions about which of the endings is most appropriate or good is totally valid. Tbh, the loop ending and the self-portrait ending can be seen as an optimistic ending since the Artist still has a chance of reliving and realizing his mistakes (which kinda makes the Family ending the worst ending because he dies. Oh God.)
Also having recently watched a RUclipsr play Mouthwashing, things really clicked when seeing the endings of LoF. Jimmy is still leagues worst than the Artist though.
Absolutely this game is awesome.
ok this is probably going to sound farfetched and Im 4 years late on this but hear me out on this theory:
only one of the endings is the *true* ending, the Painter ending.
The reason why the Loop Ending (or the Wife Ending) isn’t an ending at all is because it’s just well, a loop. It doesn’t really end the game. It just hits the retry button basically and you’re back to the beginning of the game. So I feel it isn’t an ending, rather a failed attempt. You messed up somewhere and you have to try again.
Now let’s go into why the Wife and Child ending isn’t real. As shown in the video what happens is the Painter realizes his major mistake. He realizes he can’t bring back what he once had, that its all gone and its too late. With that he burns down the house and the paintings and himself. It leaves like a bitter sweet taste in your mouth. Everything seems fine here, why isn’t it real? Well let me repeat that last part again. He burns down the house and the paintings and himself. If this was the case then the LoF storyline would not be able to continue. Now you’re probably thinking, “continue? wdym continue? the game’s over, thats it.” No, my friend, thats not it.
As we all should know, Layers of Fear has four members of the family that lived in the house. The Painter, the Wife, the Daughter and their dog Popiel. The Wife killed herself, Popiel died somehow (I am pretty sure the Painter killed him but I don’t have any solid evidence of that), the Daughter got taken away by child protection services and (if we are agreeing the Wife and Child Ending isn’t real) we don’t really know what happened to the Painter.
Based on what I could find while playing the game it seems the Daughter was put into an orphanage for a small amount of time but then got adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Kirkstein (I don’t 100% know if that’s spelled correct) and then when the Daughter was an adult, she came back to the house where the Painter lived and was determined to end the cycle of insanity that runs in her family. If you did not know this, then I can guarantee you were not aware of the game Layers of Fear Inheritance.
It seems I got quite off track, not really. It seems like what I was giving you was useless information but its actually very important. You see, if the Painter burned down the house in the Wife and Child Ending, the Daughter would have never been able to return to the house. If the Wife and Child Ending *really* happened, the Daughter would’ve came back to nothing but ashes. You cannot argue that the house was rebuilt because the house had the same look and furniture as it did in the first game, not to mention that it was a wreck with broken floor boards, torn up furniture, peeling wallpaper and paint all over. It’s safe to say the house remained untouched after the first game ended.
I believe as long as Inheritance is cannon and did indeed happen, the Wife and Child ending is not real.
Well then what was it? If it was in the game and it wasn’t real, what’s it’s purpose?
I would say it was a hallucination considering the fact that the Painter has schizophrenia and can imagine the most unthinkable things, I doubt that. If it was something as fatal as fire, there’s no way that was just in his head. I could go into a whole argument on it but that’s a bit of a waste of time. Let’s just agree it isn’t. I think what it really was.... was just a thought. Not a hallucination, no. It wasn’t in his imagination. I think it was just something he thought about, but was never able to accept. Thats not exactly how I wanted it to sound but... I really don’t know how else to explain it. There are multiple things in Layers of Fear, and even more in Inheritance that point to the fact that the Painter never stopped loving his wife, he just didn’t know how to show that. In Inheritance, the Daughter herself says “I believe that somewhere deep in his heart, he truly loved her. His way of expressing it, however, was something totally different.”
So maybe the Wife and Child Ending was something he subconsciously knew about but never brought himself to do. He could never out loud say that he still loved her, he dug himself a hole that he couldn’t get out of.
At the VERY beginning of this EXTREMELY long comment I said that “only one of the endings is the *true* ending”. Well, we knocked two of them off the list, that only leaves us with one.
The Painter Ending.
I could just say that since it’s the only one left its the one thats what truly happened but, thats no fun! We need evidence and proof and reasoning why its real!
Basically this is just the part where everything ties together and the knot is pulled to a close.
As we know the Painter ending is where he finishes his Magnum Opus and instead of painting his wife he paints himself and succeeds in finishing it. He has his last work hung in a museum (or maybe an art gallery idk-) and then he just disappears. I won’t make any assumptions on what happened to him afterward because I don’t really have enough evidence to back up what I believed happened so we’ll leave it as he disappeared. Saying that makes it sound suspicious that this ending isn’t real either but just hang in a biiiit longer I have my reasons.
Going back to Layers of Fear Inheritance, the Daughter tells us in the first few minutes of the game that the reason why she returned to her familys house is that she was once told that insanity runs in her family and that she wants to end it.
Alright fine thats all nice and whatever but like... I have a deep, deep feeling that isn’t it. She claims she grew up in the Kirstein’s house and yet still heard her father’s screaming from when she lived with him and its likely she told someone about this and they said that she’s crazy too because insanity runs in the family. That does *not* sound like a big enough motive to make someone go back to the house from their childhood that was filled with trauma and misery.
So... what if she happened to go to that museum where the Painter’s magnum opus was? What if she went there and... there was something inside her that kept gnawing at her. Like a fire was ignited, a fire that grew into more and more of an inferno the more she ignored it.
Yeah, again Im getting a bit stretchy with this again but there is very little information provided on this matter and you have to do what you have to do.
Im not going to rewrite this entire thing just to say “It all ties together” so... yeah thats how Im going to end it. The puzzle pieces aren’t an exact fit but they are pretty close. There was a whole other section I could’ve talked about involving the Painter abusing the Daughter and when she saw the Magnum Opus that was part of it however this comment is long enough, idk if there is a limit to how much you can put so I’ll leave it as that :)
If I missed anything or messed up on a part feel free to let me know and Im so sorry this comment is so long its a complicated game and there’s a lot of explaining that has to be said for it to make sense....
Thanks for staying the entire time if you did and yeah.
Have a good day/night depending on where you are. :>
Nice. You could argue no ending is real too.
Incredible comment.
yea true
Damn. I loved reading it, even tho idk it's true or not (as you mentioned. It's fun!
I got wife ending omg.... And i just following the rats and he gets me all the time except i run from her one time to the door snd after that hearing her to cry i try to catch me and pop up the sound lock it omg...
I got Wife and Child Ending. Every time the wife showed up I went there and "hugged" her, and he ended up dying, lol. While playing I thought this was going to give the bad ending, but oddly enough, for me it's the best of all. ✨💕
Just started and finished and got the family ending. After seeing the other 2 in video, i think it was the best outcome of the story.
Wait, is this game supposed to symbolize the artist's psyche? I feel like many of these are very symbolic of some of the struggles many artists face.
just finished this game.. not sure what ending is "good" but i suppose he somewhat reforms at the end.. such a heartbreaking story for the wife and child..
Ah ok. I finished this game yesterday and got the wife ending. Can somebody explain the main things that effect your endings?
If you get caught by the wife at all (once) you'll get the Wife ending, if you never get caught, you'll get the Painter ending, if you get caught at every possible avenue by her you will get the Wife and Daughter ending.
I'm pretty sure that's how it works
@@dusty2080 oh i thought the getting caught was just set and u had to each time. Iol
@@Petiteroch Just read some more, if you always follow the Rats and get personal affects it contributes to the Painter ending, but if you ignore the rats and get your family's affects, it contributes to the Wife and Child ending
@@Petiteroch it's not just getting caught it's also getting stuff that belongs to your wife and child, embracing them excepting your wife's flaws while still loving her, you should also run towards her whenever you get the chance embrace her
@@dusty2080 I completely avoided getting caught by the wife the 2nd time I played and still got the same wife ending
So whose body parts did he use for the paintings? His own ?
Everyone thinks the wife and child ending is the best but I think that is the 2nd worst, he just ends up dying in the end. In the painter at least something gets done with it and he finishes a painting.
I just watched Jacksepticeye’s playthrough and he got the wife ending but the writing on the note was different, does it change anything?
Just finished it and got the wife and child ending, not sure if i want to go for the others...
Im so confused.
i just got a different ending than all of these.
i finished wife and child walkthru. But my ending just stopped with him staring at the wife and childs portraits on a pile. No burning no nothing..fading out to credits.
Ha, ha you unlocked the secret ending ,💯
i got the rat ending
Guys do you think in the wife and child ending the painter actually dies? I always thought he just burns his hands so he can‘t paint anymore
Maybe, but he wasn't showing any signs of leaving the room and the flames were too big to not to catch on fire immediatlely. But even if he could get out i don't think he wanted to, because he regretted what he did and he don't wants to live like this anymore.
i don't understand. was the wife horribly disfigured, like the ghost, or she just had few scars like she has the in multitude of paintings in the room of failures and the ghost is just how the artist saw her, exaggerating the wounds?
I think she had the scars under her eye like she did at 0:58
@@mevrouwroos She almost died in a fire so it makes sense
She was still gorgeous I think he was delusional and a perfectionist so he saw the scars she did have as horrible and worse than they really were.
I got wife and child on my first playthrough
I got Self-Portrait ending, I think it's accurate. Artists are by nature "tortured souls" and the more they suffer, the bigger the importance of their art. So, It's fitting and felt it perfect!
Jacksepticeye got the wife's ending
Pooh got my seed scared :< is was super scary
wtf
Lmao
Zack 魂 😂😂wait what
Bruh moment
I got the wife and child..
This game sounds like a real life story for some creepy family either some small creepy town in TX or Seattle.. may the one and only creator helps all of us. Amen.
Hey, how you did get the omniscient achievement in this game? Did you need to get all endings in one save lot or different slot? Please reply because I'm serious that I didn't get that achievement!
I believe you have to get the achievement in one save slot. Does not matter the order of the endings. Read this trend for more info: www.trueachievements.com/a212727/omniscient-achievement
@@tombevil Also, how do I unlock the prologue basement? You know, the ouija board room. Like did you have to play on Halloween? Like, October 30 or 31? Please reply.
Got all mementos two times and got the painter ending wtf guys
And yes I did follow a 100% walkthrough
I got wife and child ending
dlc pleece
Eat your cereal
I got the "wife and child" and there you can see that he really cares about his family, his work was important, but all the effort he made was to show them love and get back into being a great artist WITH them. But he cant do it, he lost his chance to love them while they were alive, perhaps he could love them in the afterlife, because he had done all that he had to do: make his best masterpiece, his family.
I think thats the best because he kinda gets a redemption, on the other endings he just cares about making a good painting that will make him go back to being a great artist and even if he got to do it, he would be alone for the rest of his life.