I’m sure that, while 17k may be mathematically and technically true, they’re going to be virtually indistinguishable. I’m pretty hyped for the game but I also don’t care for the obviously clickbait claim.
I agree and I suspect companions are carrying a lot of the weight for this calculation.
Hypothetically, if there’s 10 companions with 10 individual endings each you’d get 100 endings right there. Add in 10 main endings and you get 1000, add in 4 major side quests and 4 variations each and you’re at 16,000 ending variations.
I’m not entirely sure why, but I don’t think that adds up. 10 companions with 10 different endings is a total 100 endings, however there are apparently 1.7x1013 combinations if you were to pick any 10. I don’t entirely know if I did the math right there.
So you don’t have 1000 endings from the 100 total companion endings and 10 main endings, you have 110 total endings.
Either 17,000 is a figure from the various combinations (compare that to Fallout 3’s purptorted 300 endings) or there are 17000 total ending “slides.” The former is much more likely.
Unless I’m getting the math wrong myself, for any “pick 1” combination set like this we’re dealing with just multiplying the combination sets together. Technically we’re multiplying by the factorial of the sample size, but 1!=1.
We’re not picking any 10 from within the subset of 100; you cannot pick both ending 1 and ending 4 from companion A and then no ending at all for companion C. I’m assuming each individual sub-ending is mutually exclusive with the rest of its sample space. That difference of assumptions is what led to your 1.7x1013 combinations.
Devs saying stuff like this always makes me roll my eyes. I know games have come a long way, but you say a number that hilariously large and I know, it’s going to be silly stuff like the game tracking what people are wearing or some crap and they are counting that as a variation. It’s just pretty obviously bullshit.
It’s even worse than that because once you see that you just know that all they did was add the ability to mix and match ending tidbits like a damn sectional sofa and let math do all the work.
You can get to 16,000 different endings with something as small as 8 different unlockable characters that each have a unique ending.
I mean, it’s just variations of similar endings… I’d prefer what Nier Automata did with their 26 endings. Getting an ending because I backtracked, or because I fished, or because I exploded at a very inappropriate time and place… Yeah that’s my kind of multiple endings.
I’ve never been made to laugh till I had tears in my eyes by a game before
spoiler
(following the adventure line / the narrator losing it in the cupboard)
Not the longest, but hands down the weirdest game I’ve ever played, and well worth the money. Now, where did I leave my bucket?
But ultimately, they are just variations of game over screens or just transitions between acts. Actual endings are like 2 or 3.
This is a very dumb article. Like, I understand there’s a lot of hype for this game right now but jfc. If anyone is expecting to be able to play this game 17,000 times and expect to see something unique each ending, they’ve lost their damn mind
I think most people realize that this means the game is going to end up being like Fallout NV, where you have a slideshow ending showing you how your choices affected the roleplaying environment, and that there are a lot of slides you’ll end up sitting through. The number seems to imply that you have a lot potential variety of impact.
An ending that mentions a yes or no response to 14 things would have 16384 variations. Don’t get too excited by this big number. It could easily be just “one ending” where they mentioned the outcome of 14ish things you did.
