Tacoma: Story and Ending Explained

AMY’S ARRIVAL

TACOMA – STORY AND ENDING EXPLAINED

Taking place more than half a century from now, Tacoma’s tale is certainly more of a futuristic one than the personal one that focused on a relationship between two people in Fullbright’s first game, Gone Home. That being said, the narrative of both games explore how humans treat each other and how relationships of all kinds develop when under pressure.

In Tacoma, you play as Amy Ferrier, a subcontractor who has arrived at the titular space station to work out what happened to the six members of the crew and to retrieve the AI system that played a huge part in the running and maintenance of the station.

While there are some smaller sub-stories in Tacoma, they don’t play a huge part in the overarching story. As such, we’re just focusing on the main events that transpire in Tacoma for this story and ending explanation.

Once she steps out of her transport ship and enters Tacoma, she is prompted to set up a personal AR device that allows her to receive messages and see recordings of the crew’s conversations throughout the space station. You then begin exploring, with the aim of viewing any messages left in tact to find out what happened aboard just a matter of hours before.

THE PROBLEMS BEGIN

TACOMA – STORY AND ENDING EXPLAINED

As you enter the first area of Tacoma, its Personnel Module, you’re prompted to view an AR reconstruction. The first conversation, involving E.V St. James (the station’s Administrator/Captain), sees a couple of the crew talk about how the working conditions are far from ideal, yet they don’t really want to leave due to how unique of an experience they are having. They want to make the most of their time away from Earth.

Amy then makes her way down to the crew’s quarters where E.V is talking to O.D.I.N (Tacoma’s on board AI) about plans for the upcoming party. Suddenly, mid conversation, she is called out to speak with the rest of the crew. You find out that the space station’s oxygen tanks have ruptured, the communications system has been critically damaged, and that the crew is no longer allowed to communicate with Tacoma’s AI. With six people on board, there is only enough oxygen for 50 more hours, which isn’t enough time for them to be rescued by their employer (Venturis).

Natali, the crew’s resident Network Specialist, wants to try and access O.D.I.N but isn’t allowed to because it is technically Venturis’ property. We also find out here that E.V and Clive’s relationship is more than a solely professional one.

BIOMEDICAL MODULE

TACOMA – STORY AND ENDING EXPLAINED

The next area you head to is the Biomedical Module of the space station. Inside, you learn that the crew has a plan and that they are going to attempt to convert the recon drone into a passenger vehicle that will take all six of the people on board to safety. Roberta, the crew’s Mechanical Engineer is using parts from Tacoma, such as life support and control panels, to allow them to pilot the drone successfully and stay alive when on board.

Venturis isn’t sending any help, which is worrying the crew, E.V in particular, so they decide that any non-vital crew members should go into Cryogenic Sleep so that the depleting oxygen supply is saved for those that are working on getting them off the space station. E.V and Clive are the first to go into deep freeze, leaving the other four to get on with setting up the escape. However, the plan may not work due to the fact that people don’t always wake up from Cryo Sleep and they do not know if they can modify the drone in the 50 hours that remain.

Also, we learn a few things about the characters themselves in this section of the game. We begin to learn that Roberta and Natali are a couple, and a computer message suggests that Sareh, the Medical Specialist, is hiding something from Natali.

ENGINEERING MODULE

TACOMA – STORY AND ENDING EXPLAINED

Once you learn that E.V and Clive are in Cryo Sleep, you are prompted to head to the Engineering Module aboard Tacoma. You learn a little more about Amy’s mission, which is to secure and return the AI’s physical processing medium. In another AR sequence, we learn what Sareh was hiding from Natali. She knows from Natali’s scan that she is unlikely to survive in Cryo Sleep, but she feels that it is more humane to have her die peacefully that way than it is for her to asphyxiate when the oxygen runs out. If they can’t escape, Sareh knows that Natali will die, how she does so is seemingly up to her.

Suddenly, you hear a loud explosion and Sareh rushes to where the escape drone is being worked on. The force of the explosion – the exact source of which remains somewhat unknown – hurts Nat and knocks out Roberta, with the latter thinking that the fall has caused her brain damage – her back is hurting and she cannot smell the smoke around her. The resulting fire completely destroys the drone and the crew’s only plan for escape is now in tatters.

As Sareh attempts to process what has happened, she speaks with O.D.I.N about her options. O.D.I.N tells her about a door in the Network Technology Module that is usually off limits to crew. He doesn’t tell her what is there and insists that he isn’t showing them how to escape, to ensure that he isn’t going against protocol, but he says that she, “could investigate that door.”

This whole section is an exploration of how we, as humans, react when faced with the prospect of death. Nat and Bert comfort each other, while Sareh tries to work out what her options are. This, and the following part are some of the most fascinating scenes in the game.

O.D.I.N SERVER ROOM

TACOMA – STORY AND ENDING EXPLAINED

Sareh makes her way to the door that O.D.I.N recommended she looked for. The door is already open so she steps inside. The room is what seems like the AI’s server room, containing the O.D.I.N core file and records of the messages between it and the Venturis members back home. This is also where we see the exact date for the first time. A message reads, “February 28, 2088,” which means the events you see in the most of the AR playbacks are within a couple of days of then. The announcement message would have to have been released after the communications were disabled, which we know was no longer than 50 hours before the AR playbacks were recorded, so that the crew did not find out about it.

Sareh finds a recording of a Venturis disaster announcement. The audio is of a man seemingly telling the world that the six members of the Tacoma crew have passed away tragically. He blames the oxygen malfunction and comms failure on the crew and suggests that the deaths were down to their own human error.

Sareh is puzzled but she soon finds out why Venturis is distributing such a transmission. From other messages, Sareh and Amy learn that Venturis has been fighting to introduce fully automated crews into the space race but their attempts have been repeatedly blocked by congress. They needed the proposition to be passed so that they could complete the Venturis Belt construction, a high-tech residential area in space that could make them a lot of money. Without automated crews, the project would never be completed in time.

Therefore, to help persuade Congress to pass the proposal, Venturis fabricated faults with the space station and attributed them to human error to introduce the idea that humans are a liability and a barrier to progress. Venturis ordered O.D.I.N to disable the comms network, create a fault with the oxygen supply, and get them all into Cryo Sleep. O.D.I.N questioned the order but Venturis ensured him that it wouldn’t harm them. Essentially, they were lying to everyone so that they could kill Tacoma’s crew and go ahead with the automated crew initiative. Venturis worked out that, with the deaths of the Tacoma crew, there was a 94 per cent chance that the powers would change their mind about automated crews. The message of the game is one that tells the player about the power and influence of corporations that can control our lives and manipulate us for their own economic gain.

O.D.I.N then tells Sareh that she can turn the communications system back on, which would allow her to send a message telling people that they’re still alive. She contacts home to spread the message via news networks and asks someone close enough to them to come and save them before the oxygen runs out. Before leaving, Amy removes the core O.D.I.N AI file so that she can take it away from Tacoma.

THE ENDING

TACOMA – STORY AND ENDING EXPLAINED

The crew reconvenes at the top of Tacoma. They wake E.V and Clive from Cryo Sleep and tell them about the corrupt business that they work for. All six of them are escaping to Jupiter. The journey will take eight months but it takes them safely away from Venturis. The crew then leaves and it is the last we see of them.

Amy is then told to return to her own transport module where she can use O.D.I.N and leave with him. While it is understandable for you to think that Amy is simply taking O.D.I.N to destroy any evidence of Venturis’ wrongdoing, there is another, more likely reason for her mission playing out as it does.

Once she has booted O.D.I.N up on board her ship, Amy speaks to the AI system about the Tangiers Salvation Orbital Platform, yet reads a message to O.D.I.N from a screen on the dashboard in front of her that has clearly been written by Venturis. The suggestion is that Amy was sent by Venturis to retrieve O.D.I.N, but she used her position and the mission to get the AI for the other organization she speaks about, rather than taking it back to her employers. This will allow the crew of Tacoma to prove to the world what they say happened to them and explain to everyone how evil Venturis is. The game ends as Amy departs from Tacoma.

What did you think of Tacoma’s story? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to read our review of Fullbright’s game to find out more about it.