Death's Door Ending Explained: Immortality, Thy Name Is Indie Game

After getting a lot of attention with 2015’s

Titan Souls

, Acid Nerve has once again partnered with Devolver Digital to release another indie hit:

Death’s Door

has a friendlier approach to its narrative than Acid Nerve’s previous game, with long dialogues and cutscenes that help us understand its complicated plot. Even so, not everything is so evident by the end of

Death’s Door

, and some players might wonder why they just killed all those ferocious bosses while exploring a dying world. Well, do not fear, my feathered friend! We are here to explain what that crow business was all about.

Spoilers Ahead

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The Lords of Doors Undone

Image via Acid Nerve

Right at the beginning of

Death’s Door

, we get introduced to the offices of the Reaping Commission, where time does not affect mortals and where crows can live forever. These crows, however, need to make excursions into the real world from time to time to collect souls for the big boss: the Lord of Doors. In the real world, crows age normally and can potentially die; so, the best course of action is finishing your job and getting back to the offices as quickly as you can.

During one of these excursions, you, the Foretold Crow, get encharged with collecting a Giant Soul held by a monstrous creature. Before you come back to the offices, though, a Grey Crow steals your Giant Soul and departs through a fissure in time-space. Without the soul, you lose the right to stay in the offices and need to explore the world in search of your ticket back home. After all, you don’t want to get old and die.

During

Death’s Door

, the Foretold Crow uncoverd a big door in the sky, where the Gray Crow sent the Giant Soul in hopes it would open and reveal its secrets. The Foretold Crow, then, has to slay more powerful souls to open the door and recover his assigned soul. It’s a pretty straightforward mission that serves as the perfect excuse for the player to explore new biomes and slay powerful bosses.

While exploring the world, however, the Foretold Crow realizes the decaying world is not how it is supposed to be. For starters, the Foretold Crow cannot really die, coming back to life for mysterious reasons. The world is also filled with monsters, originated because souls that get expired on Earth are not being collected by Death and taken to the Aether.

Image via Acid Nerve

It turns out the boss of the Reaping Commission is just the latest in a long lineage of Lords of Doors, powerful creatures that made a deal with Death themself. By using the Door technology to cross space in a blink of an eye, the Reaping Commission would help Death to collect the souls of the dead and lead them to the Aether, where soul energy is recycled to create new life. As a result, Death could take a break from their depressing work and stop worrying about the pain and suffering that the cycle of life causes to the living. In exchange, the Lord of Doors would get their lifespan significantly increased.

By the end of their life, each Lord of Doors would create their successor, teach them about the pact with Death and depart in peace. The Last Lord of Doors, however, was not satisfied with a prolonged lifespan. They wanted immortality. That’s why the Last Lord of Doors tricked Death and trapped them inside the Door leading to the Aether, cutting the world off from the afterlife entirely in the process.

Instead of collecting souls to renew the cycle of life as the natural order demands, the Last Lord of Doors decided to let the world rot in exchange for his immortality. Now, expired souls assume demonic forms that crows need to take down. As for the souls gathered by the Reaping Commission, they energize its massive structure in the middle of spacetime instead of being sent to the Aether to being recycled.

Once the Foretold Crow opens Death’s Door, Death is once again free to roam the world of the living. However, for Death to recover their powers and take back their place as the only Reaper in the world, the Last Lord of Doors must also be taken down. In the final combat of

Death’s Door

, the player destroys the Last Lost of Doors, and with them, the Reaping Commission. The pact between Death and the Lords is unmade, and the world will once again have mortality to ensure life keeps going on in an eternal cycle. Your job is done, but there are still secrets to uncover.

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Truth Is Well Hidden

Image via Acid Nerve

After watching the credits, the player can choose to continue exploring the world of

Death’s Door

, with the added option of wandering each biome at night. During their nocturnal explorations, the Foretold Crow can find seven Ancient Tablets of Knowledge. Taking these tablets to the Camp of the Free Crows allows the player to open a passage to some ruins, where

Death’s Door

’s secret ending is revealed.

As soon as the Foretold Crow steps into the ruins, a giant eye opens up before them, revealing a secret lost in time. Many centuries ago, a human opened the First Door seeking the power of the Gods. Inside the Door, the human faced an ancient being named Truth. The human fused themselves with Truth, gaining absolute knowledge about the past, the present, and the future. In the process, however, the human lost their soul.

It turns out that the human of legend is

Titan Souls

’ protagonist, and Truth is the final boss of Acid Nerve’s previous game. Thus, fusing with Truth and gaining knowledge is also the true ending of

Titan Souls

, which means both games are deeply connected, even if the player is not aware of it at the start.

Image via Acid Nerve

After uniting with Truth, the human leaves the First Door, causing the tower which held the gateway to Aether to shatter. Truth, now merged with the human, is bound to the ruins of the First Door and remains forever hidden in the mountains. Word of a human who was given the power of the Gods travels the world, and the First Lord of Doors decides to search for the ancient ruins. By using the technology of the First Door, the Lord develops a gateway to Aether that would allow them to make a deal with Death. The gateway would also be the Door that the Last Lord would use to trap Death and reach immortality.

In order to release the world from the stagnation caused by Death’s prison, Truth would whisper to the Free Crows at the ruins of the First Door, guiding them into helping the Foretold Crow fulfill his destiny. The Free Crows are the ones who tampered with the Commission’s work and assigned the Giant Soul to the player, knowing this would lead them to the journey towards Truth. The Foretold Crow, then, would collect the Ancient Tablets, find Truth’s resting place, fuse with the Being, and carry its power out in the world.

While

Death’s Door

is a standalone game that can be played without any previous knowledge of

Titan Souls

, the game’s secret ending reveals Acid Never is building a shared universe. The events of

Titan Souls

lead directly to

Death’s Door

’s crumbling world, and both games end with Truth trying to get out of its prison. We can’t wait to see what Acid Nerve does with their next game.

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