The World of Infamous: Second Son; What Is Infamous 2’s Canon Ending?
GameInformer recently revealed their newest cover, Infamous: Second Son. Not long after they’ve shown a developer video about designing the game itself. While the video itself is interesting and offers great hope for the game, it’s the story information that is most intriguing. Wondering how they were going to resolve the ending of Infamous 2? Look no further. Spoiler’s for Infamous 2’s ending behind the cut.
At the beginning of the first Infamous when the Ray Sphere was set off it also unknowingly set off a plague that has begun to consume humanity and conduits alike. The main enemy of the game, The Beast, shows Cole this truth and tells him that his rampage across the US was actually seeking to save Conduits. Conduits are Infamous’ super hero enabled individuals, and The Beast is activating them essentially, granting them their powers sooner than they may have normally come by them. This saves the Conduit’s life, but often at the expense of hundreds of human lives. Justification is simple, by saving these chosen few, he saves the human race, as he believes the rest of them are doomed anyway.
Throughout the game Cole has gathered powerful blast cores that he puts into a device called the RFI. Essentially this should weaken The Beast long enough for Cole to defeat him and save the world. However, he discovers that not only will setting this off weaken The Beast indeed it will end the plague, and as a by product, kill all the Conduits in the world. Here Cole has a choice: sacrifice himself and hundreds others to save millions, or join The Beast on his quest and seek to activate the Conduits of the world and destroy humanity.
The good ending and bad ending are both viable and well-done endings, and so there was a question there of what was going to happen now. Especially at the end of the “good” ending, Cole is sent off by his best friend, Zeke, in a private ceremony. Sending the man who sacrificed himself to save everyone else off on a boat alone into the ocean, as he reaches the horizon a mighty lightning bolt strikes the boat leaving us to question whether our hero is really gone or not.
So what happened next? Which will be used as the real ending? It appears that it was actually the “good ending” and gamers actually made the choice. Sucker Punch scoured game data regarding trophies of all the gamers who had completed Infamous 2 and chose only one ending or the other, and 78 percent of gamers chose to sacrifice Cole to save millions. As such, the world that Deslin Rowe inhabits is a world in which humanity was saved and Conduits the world over dropped dead, as well as our previous protagonist.
This, of course, raises new questions: If the RFI killed all the Conduits, did it just wipe out the ones at the time or the entire line? Could new ones be born over time with powers deep inside waiting to be activated? It’s been confirmed that Deslin is indeed a Conduit, though his power may not be what we originally suspect. His origin comes from dragging a man, who he is unaware is a Conduit, to safety from a burning bus. He inherits the man’s power to control smoke, though the developers hint in the video it won’t be the last power Deslin consumes. So, is it safe to say that Deslin is a Conduit who can steal others powers? How did Deslin survive in the first place? The game takes place seven years after the conclusion of Infamous 2, so Deslin was obviously alive when the RFI went off. Did it not cause the destruction that Cole and company thought?
This all leads me to believe as well that Cole isn’t dead. Not only did they not number this Infamous 3, which leads me to suspect our hero is being reserved for his next go, but if the RFI truly wipes all Conduits out, then how were any more created? Was it an artificial experiment? Something sinister from an outside source? Are we going to run into our former intrepid hero in the course of Infamous: Second Son?
I guess we will just have to wait ’til the next chapter in the Infamous saga in order to know the answers. In the meanwhile keep your eyes glued to theparanoidgamer.com in order to get the latest and the greatest regarding the series.
Hit us up in the comments below to let us know what you think about the official ending, the questions it raises, or anything else Infamous related.