The Protagonist of "Visage" Was Actually the Villain!
Should we discuss them together?
Why do we have to do this?
Could it be that the last few are closely related?
The players thought about it for a moment, then gave up and continued watching.
The video then shifts to show the game content of the main character's chapter.
Those were pipes, countless large metal pipes crisscrossing and densely arranged, connecting one huge water tank after another.
As the demonstration unfolded, Brother Banana slowly began to speak.
In the Riversdale Town, there is a water treatment plant. Above that, there is a Pharmaceutical Factory. Both of these factories are actually under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Control.
[The protagonist, Dwayne, was a young man in the 1960s, working as a researcher for the Control Bureau at Pharmaceutical Factory conducting drug research.]
[Until one day, he successfully developed an organic compound called 'LSD.' This substance's characteristic is that it produces hallucinogenic effects.]
[But this effect is not simply a hallucination; its most significant aspect is that it can cloud consciousness, making it impossible to distinguish between reality and illusion. In other words, it can cause mental instability and loss of reason.]
[In the 1960s, the protagonist, Dwayne, developed a drug that led to his immediate promotion by the Control Bureau. They then prepared to test this new drug, choosing Riversdale Town where Dwayne lived, as their testing ground.]
They believed that since it was an experiment, individual results would vary. Group responses, on the other hand, allowed for direct comparison, facilitating data collection.
[However, since the protagonist, Dwayne, was born in the Riversdale Town, he naturally didn't want to do such a thing. So, after discussion, the scope was narrowed down from the entire town to a specific household.]
[The Control Bureau directly assigned the protagonist, Dwayne, to oversee this experiment, since he was the one who developed it and naturally knew the most about it. Thus, the 'Contract You Don't Care About' came about, meaning you didn't care about the town's residents at all.]
[The true content of the contract is definitely not this sentence, because the protagonist seems to care a lot about the townspeople. But why does the game replace the contract content with this sentence? What's the significance? Let's explore together the protagonist's change of mindset during the experiment.]
Upon hearing this, the players knew that they were about to get down to business.
After all that buildup, isn't this the explanation we're all waiting for?
Now, the real story behind "The Visage" begins.
As the video played, the narration began.
[During the experiment, with the help of the Control Bureau, Dwayne bought a mansion in town and renovated it, adding many dark rooms and observation rooms, turning it into a secret experimental facility that was difficult to detect.]
[His goal was simple: to attract people from outside town by renting out the house, then hide in a secret room in the mansion, drug the subjects' water, observe their mental state to see if they were easily brainwashed, and collect data to research ways to improve the drug.]
[Now you know why Lucy and Dolores were so prone to mental health issues, right? Yes, they were both given the 'LSD' compound by the protagonist Dwayne. The game explains this substance: it's easily soluble in water, colorless, odorless, and perfectly suited for water-based transmission.]
[Meanwhile, the comic reveals that the Control Bureau and the local Police Station cooperated to better conduct the experiments. Any problems occurring in a household were strictly controlled. This explains why, apart from the neighbors across the street, no one knew about Lucy's death. Similarly, no one knew about the deaths of the the Dolores family. The Police Station kept the news under wraps.]
[The Control Bureau itself owns a Pharmaceutical Factory in town, so the local hospital is also under their jurisdiction. Therefore, it can be said that, for the experiment to proceed smoothly, both the hospital and the Police Station were under FBC control.]
[This explains why the mental health issues of the people in the mansion worsened after they were sent to the hospital. Because the hospital knew what was being done in the mansion, they not only refused to treat the residents, but even assisted the protagonist, Dwayne, in conducting experiments.]
boom--
A thunderclap exploded in the players' minds.
No wonder.
No wonder people say hospitals are more complex than they appear on the surface.
So that's how it works in the game!
Aiding and abetting evil!?
No wonder the residents of the house did not only fail to improve when they sought medical treatment, but their condition worsened!
The root cause is that the hospital was cooperating with the Control Bureau to conduct this experiment with the protagonist!
Control Bureau
The protagonist Dwayne.
At this point, the players dared not think any further.
Their gaze returned to the video.
The sound continued as the play button was pressed.
[Lucy was a little girl, and given her young age, she didn't understand much, so Dwayne didn't give her a large dose. But the injection she received at the hospital later was a completely different dose, which was the main reason Lucy completely lost her mind, to the point that she tore off her own jaw.]
[When it came to Dolores, since she was an adult, Dwayne gave her a higher dosage. This caused her to become so mentally impaired that she wandered naked around the house, and ultimately, under the influence of the drug, killed her husband before collapsing and committing suicide.]
[Both experiments yielded a wealth of data for the protagonist, Dwayne. The police's efforts to contain the incident were also excellent; apart from the neighbors across the street, no one knew about the deaths in the house. Even the neighbors across the street only learned of it through observation, and their knowledge was limited.]
[During the year of the experiment, the protagonist, Dwayne, gradually changed. He stopped caring about the townspeople; for the sake of research results and status, he set his sights on the water treatment plant. This was because it was the town's water source, and 'LSD' was easily soluble in water, colorless, and odorless.]
[Here, through connections, he landed a high-ranking job. His goal was to release LSD into the water supply, and he did just that.]
[Now, the phrase "you don't care at all" in that contract has become a reality. With a year of changes in the experiment, Dwayne's heart has grown cold. He doesn't care about the townspeople; he only cares about the status the experimental results will bring him.]
[The person responsible for releasing the toxic substances at the treatment plant was Luis, the third resident of the house and also an employee of the water treatment plant.]
He had no idea that his daily work was like this. By the time he found out, it was too late.
So he told the police about his discovery. But his version of the truth sounded weak and unconvincing to the officers, who were part of a gang. This also caught Dwayne's attention. Dwayne used some underhanded tactics to get Luis fired and lose his income.
[This is why Luis was described by his neighbors as 'not looking very happy,' because he lost his job. What kind of man lost his job in the 1960s?]
[But why isn't there a chapter about Luis in the game? Actually, Luis is dead. In the chapter about Lacan, we're not only chased by Lacan's ghost, but also by a humanoid creature completely Pitch Black. I'll post two pictures for comparison, and you'll see what this humanoid creature is like.]
Two screenshots were shown in the video.
One is an access card for the water treatment plant, with Luis's name written on it and his portrait next to it.
The other image shows a humanoid creature that is completely Pitch Black and constantly covered in slime.
Even so, its appearance is seven or eight parts similar to the image of Luis on the access card.
Players who see this don't even need to look closely to know that it's a person!
But why does Luis appear in Lacan's chapter?
And why does it look rotten Pitch Black, and oozing slime?
Brother Banana will answer the players' questions.
[Luis is dead, clearly killed by Lacan, and his body was hidden in the boiler room in the mansion's Basement. This is my personal interpretation, since in the Lacan chapter, this humanoid monster drags the protagonist into the Basement boiler. Therefore, in the game, Luis is depicted as completely Pitch Black, rotting, and oozing pus.]
[And the one who instructed Lacan to do this was clearly the protagonist, Dwayne; otherwise, it wouldn't explain why Luis appeared in Lacan's chapter and attacked the protagonist.]
[As for why there's no Luis chapter in the game, my personal guess is that the protagonist didn't kill Luis himself. Therefore, the game only has some scattered plot points related to Luis Luis. ]
[Lacan, a former retired rugby player, was placed in the mansion by the protagonist after murdering Luis. Due to the police's effective information blackout, he was unaware of the mansion's past. Here, he too became a target of the protagonist's attention.]
[Because of Lacan's sensitive nature, coupled with the large, empty house and the fact that he hid a corpse in the Basement, he often felt someone was watching him. However, he didn't realize the protagonist was monitoring him from the darkroom and always thought it was his imagination. Gradually, this developed into a psychological condition: starphobia.]
[Because of this symptom, he became extremely irritable, and the medication the protagonist gave him further fueled his paranoia.]
[Until one day, during a meal, the Radio suddenly malfunctioned. While inspecting Lacan, grumbling and cursing, he suddenly discovered a miniature listening device inside.]
[This is going to be serious.]
[Upon learning he was being monitored, Lacan flew into a rage, ransacking the house. His actions were noticed by a neighbor, who called the police. He eventually found a miniature surveillance camera hidden in a bookshelf. Under the combined influence of his phobia and LSD, he hallucinated, seeing the dead Luis. Overwhelmed with fear, he grabbed a handgun and fired wildly. He eventually lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital by the police.]
[Players who have played the Lacan chapter know that there's a maze chase scene in the hospital where players need to reach Room 323 to be safe. Lacan is depicted as someone using crutches and whose body is decaying. So how did he die?]
[As mentioned before, the hospital is under the Control Bureau, so people coming from the mansion naturally have to cooperate with the protagonist, Dwayne's, experiments. Lacan sensed something was wrong and tried everything to escape the hospital. But whether he dug a tunnel, assaulted medical staff, or even damaged the power distribution room, he was always caught and brought back to his ward.]
[Until one day, he completely lost his mind after being injected with a large amount of LSD at the hospital and chose to jump off a building. But Dwayne never expected that Lacan wouldn't die; he only broke his leg and would have to use crutches to get around from then on.]
[Since suicide failed, and to avoid unnecessary financial loss, Dwayne had the hospital anesthetize Lacan, then took him back to the mansion and locked him in the Basement. He was left to rot there, like Luis, without food or water.]
[And Lacan, on his deathbed, discovered that the mastermind behind everything was none other than the protagonist, Dwayne!]
As he spoke, the video showed a chase scene from the hospital in the Lacan chapter.
Among them, the monster Lacan, who is chasing the player, is constantly howling and roaring.
"It's so itchy! White maggots are crawling inside my flesh. It's so itchy!"
"I'm so hungry, but I can't find anything to eat in the Basement. I'm so hungry."
I hate it when you close the door and lock it from the inside. I hate it so much!
'It was all your doing! It was all your doing! Why did you choose me? Why me?!'
Upon seeing this, the players immediately understood the meaning of these four sentences.
It turned out to be Lacan's death wails!
It is recounting its own painful experiences!
turn out to be
That's what I mean!
The players suddenly realized something.
There's also a sense of satisfaction from knowing the truth.
When I was playing, I was only focused on escaping and didn't think about the meaning of those four sentences at all.
Now, after the explanation, it becomes clear that this tells the player that Lacan's death is related to the protagonist!
But then, Brother Banana's voice rang out again.
[From the Lucy family in 1961 to Lacan's death in 1970, this psychological experiment lasted a full nine years.]
[The experimental results were not ideal. The drugs could indeed brainwash the subjects and suggest they obey commands, even to the point of death. However, the subjects themselves would also become mentally unstable, exhibiting severe uncontrollability and causing many accidental injuries and deaths.]
[After that, no more experiments were conducted. There was no follow-up on the results, but we learn in the protagonist's chapters that a large number of people in the the Town died due to the hallucinogenic drugs in the water, to the point that the Police Station couldn't keep quiet and the experiment was exposed. The experiment can be considered a failure. In short, after the experiment ended, the protagonist got married, had children, and lived a happy life.]
[The protagonist, Dwayne, now with a family, begins to realize and regret the mistakes he made. Nearly half the population of his the Town died because of him. Therefore, to suppress these emotions, he starts regularly taking Anti-Stress Pill —essentially the kind of medicine that restores sanity in games. Only in this way can he avoid being crushed by the pressure.]
[But it wasn't until 1985, 15 years later, that the protagonist, the Dwayne family of four, were placed in this experimental house by the Control Bureau.]
Upon seeing this, the players were taken aback once again.
Are you kidding me?
The protagonist actually went in by himself?
Wasn't he a researcher back then?
Why? Was it to silence them?
Is the Control Bureau really that ruthless?
When others are young and single, they are not arranged to move into a house.
Now that other people are getting married and having children, living happily ever after, why are you suddenly going to use this whole family for an experiment?
That's so vicious!
However, players didn't feel much sympathy, since the protagonist himself destroyed half of the the Town.
They were simply surprised: why would the Control Bureau choose this moment to target the protagonist in order to silence him?
With these questions in mind, the players continued playing the video.
[What goes around comes around!]
[The former head of the research team is now the subject of that research. Knowing he's no match for the behemoth that is the Control Bureau, he did everything in his power to seal off all the secret rooms and passageways he knew of in the house. He also warned his family not to drink tap water, only bottled water.]
[But to his utter surprise, the Control Bureau had switched his medication! They replaced his original Anti-Stress Pill from the Pharmaceutical Factory with their own research product, a modified version of 'LSD'!]
[Thus, the guilt and remorse he had suppressed for 15 years erupted instantly with the aid of drugs. He couldn't control it at all, and in a moment, he suffered a mental breakdown and became insane.]
[Then, the scene at the beginning of the game unfolded. He tied his wife and daughters to chairs in the Basement, shot them one by one, and finally committed suicide.]
The video footage returns to the real-time rendering shown at the beginning of the game.
Players witnessed the protagonist shooting and killing someone once again.
Only now do they understand the true plot of "The Visage".
This is absolutely stunning!
Players would never have thought of these things.
The residents' stories are profound enough, but I never expected that they could be connected into a main storyline!
Even more unexpectedly, everything that happened in "The Visage" was actually orchestrated by the protagonist!
The entire the Town was under his control and had become a tool!
Hospitals, Police Station, water treatment plants, Pharmaceutical Factory, luxury homes.
Everyone was providing assistance and convenience for this mental experiment!
The plot seems fragmented, but it tells the tragic stories of each resident from back then.
But when strung together, they form a complete story.
Players were truly surprised to find that the main villain was actually the protagonist!
This is something they, who are used to playing righteous heroes, find hard to accept.
He was lost in thought in front of the screen for a time.
Even more outrageous is that this protagonist is merely a researcher at the Federal Bureau of Control.
Even a single researcher could single-handedly create the mental experiment event of "The Visage" and destroy half of the the Town.
What skills do the other researchers, or those above them, possess?
Control Bureau
That's terrifying!
At this moment, a flood of emotional comments appeared on the screen.
"I really didn't expect this! I thought the protagonist was a victim, harassed by the evil spirits of Past Residents, driving him to suicide. But it turned out to be the opposite!"
"+1, speechless. The protagonist is actually the villain. At first, he was thinking about the the Town, but later, for the sake of experimental results and status, he directly attacked the the Town."
"The production team is really skilled at storytelling. They managed to break up a perfectly good story into a jigsaw puzzle."
"Lucy is so pitiful. Dolores is so pitiful. Lacan also quite pitiful. He killed for the boss, but was abandoned by him and became a test subject."
"Lacan probably starved to death. He failed to commit suicide by jumping off a building and was locked in the Basement of the house. His leg was broken, and he had no food. He just rotted to death inside. He must have been more desperate than anyone else."
"No one got a good ending. Lucy tore off her chin, Dolores hanged herself, Lacan starved to death, the protagonist got his head blown off, and half the the Town died. Awesome."
"The game has such a great storyline, but they made it Horror Games. I hate it! It's so scary, there's no way to properly study and explore the plot! We're too busy dodging ghosts to even have time to explore every corner!"
"Besides the popcorn-style story of 21 Points, The Only Game currently features Dark Forest, Visage, Skyhill, all of which are quite mysterious and fantastical, and very worth exploring! Hopefully, the development team's next game can reach the level of these three!"
"That's right, the storylines of current FPS games aren't as profound as those of Horror Games! Damn it, I'm hoping that Ji You's ' Bloody Scientist ' can give me a different experience."
"Me too, I hope ' Bloody Scientist ' doesn't fall apart! At least the plot doesn't fall apart!"
As the players discussed the video, Brother Banana gave his final summary.
The entire narrative of * The Visage * can be understood as a kind of 'revolving lantern' effect. After the protagonist dies, he revisits the events surrounding the residents he once harmed and destroyed. He experiences their past pain and despair, reflecting on his own mistakes in the process.
[Having personally witnessed the experiences of Lucy, Dolores, and Lacan, they re-examined themselves, delved into their inner world, recognized their mistakes, and achieved self-redemption.]
[Through a captivating story and a terrifying gameplay experience, the development team portrays a protagonist's journey from kindness to indifference, from guilt to collapse, and finally to self-discovery.]
[This amplifies the mystique and power of the Federal Bureau of Control, and also illustrates the insignificance and pathetic state of ordinary people in their eyes.]
[I don't know exactly what kind of organization this Control Bureau is, but through the intentional or unintentional hints in these four games, everyone has more or less come to know how terrifying they are, as well as how powerful and ruthless they are.]
[Additionally, the protagonist moved into the mansion in 1985 and died there. Two years later, in 1987, the "Dark Forest" incident occurred somewhere. So the Federal Bureau of Control still has a lot to deal with.]
[Furthermore, through the perspective of D-5671, the protagonist of * Skyhill *, we can clearly see that a crisis seems to be occurring within the Federal Bureau of Control.]
[Whatever the crisis may be, it should teach them a lesson, right? There's too little specific information to verify.]
So let's all look forward to the next game!
[This is assuming the production team is willing to do it.]
Today, because of a company trip to the beach, I stayed up all night to finish this chapter, and it's finally over! Actually, I knew quite a lot about this chapter, but I couldn't help it. Because I had to cover three parts simultaneously: the hidden ending of Skyhill, the concept of containment objects, and the Visage storyline, it felt like there were many chapters. But thankfully, it's finally finished!
Thank you 'Book Friend 0825' for the 5000 reward! Thank you 'Book Friend 6444' for the 400 reward! Please vote for me! Please vote for me! Please vote for me!