The Stanley Parable is a fantastic game that is well worth your time but it can be a little confusing as it seems like almost everything you do will set you on an entirely new path. There's a whopping 20 or so endings plus a few 'sort of' endings and these can be pretty hard to find as the paths are rarely made obvious.
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| Sometimes drastic measures are enforced to curb that exact problem. |
Beware: SPOILERS AHEAD
Guide to all Stanley Parable endings:
Freedom ending:
Follow the narration normally, doing everything the narrator tells you to. When you reach the device at the end, turn it off. This is basically the ‘vanilla’ ending.
Explosion ending:
Follow the narration normally, doing everything the narrator tells you to until you get to the end, this time you should turn the device off. Despite what some say, there is no way out of the explosion at the end and pressing the surrounding buttons and switches does nothing
Coward ending:
At the very start of the game don’t leave Stanley’s office and just stay inside, closing the door on yourself.
Whiteboard ending:
Whilst the whiteboard ending is not technically an ending since you can continue the game after encountering it, the developers seem to regard it as one anyway. After starting the game several times over you’ll sometimes find yourself starting in an entirely different office which is made up of blue walls. This is in itself an easter egg but if you go through door 426 you’ll be presented with a whiteboard with the words ‘welcome to the whiteboard ending!’ written across it.
Broom Closet Ending:
Everybody's favourite ending is achieved by entering the broom closet prior to heading up the stairs to the Boss's office. Once inside, listen to the narrator, he'll get progressively more irritated as you remain there. Once the 'second player' has taken over you should exit the cupboard, listen to the narration, then go back inside again. When the narrator is through talking to you you can either continue on your way or be alone with your closet forever. The way to do this is to go through the door to the blue stairs but, as the door begins to close, quickly back into the corridor again so you're locked in. Enter your broom closet, and enjoy it. The only way to get out of this is to manually restart the game.
Museum ending:
Follow the narrator all the way until the end but before you go into the facility follow the sign that says ‘escape’, ignore what the narrator says and follow the dark passageway until the very end. After some scenes, you’ll unlock the museum ending.
Escape pod ending:
Follow the narrator until you get to your boss's office but don't go inside just yet. Very quickly you should enter the office but then back out again, effectively trapping the narrator in the room but leaving you outside of it. Turn, and you'll notice that the doors to the way back are now open. Walk all the way back to Stanley's office and you'll see that a previously shut door beside the office is now standing open. Enter it, and climb the stairs to the escape pod.
Madness ending:
When you first come across a choice between the two doors pick the left door. Follow the corridors as normal until you reach the sets of blue stairs that lead up to your boss’s office. Instead of going up, go down the stairs into the garage.
Confusion ending:
When given a choice between the two doors pick the right door. Follow along and go through the door on the left, following what the narrator says. You’ll find yourself in a maintenance room with an elevator to the left side, use the elevator and follow everything from the narrator from that point onwards. This is the ending with the Adventure Line.
Apartment ending:
Go through the right door when given the choice, ignore the narrator entirely and keep going forward, ignoring the door on the left. Follow along and finally you’ll come to a room with a lift above a large storage facility. Ride the lift along to the other side and then, when presented with the telephone, answer it.
Cold feet ending:
Go through the right door when given the choice, ignore the narrator entirely and keep going forward, ignoring the door on the left. Follow along and finally you’ll come to a room with a lift above a large storage facility. Stand on the lift but very quickly get off the lift after it starts moving but before you’re taken with it. Listen to the narrator as the lift leaves without you then jump off to the ground below.
Powerful ending:
This ending is done exactly in the same way as the cold feet ending except, when in the warehouse, jump off of the lift after stepping out onto it.
Real Person 'Good' ending:
Go through the right door when given the choice and keep going forward. Keep advancing onwards and finally you’ll come to a room with a lift above a large storage facility. Ride the lift along to the other side and then, when presented with the telephone, pull the plug from the wall. Go along with the narrator and when faced with the choice of doors from the beginning pick the left door.
Real Person 'Bad' ending:
This is exactly the same as the real person 'good' ending except when faced with the choice of doors at the very end after unplugging the ringing phone you should pick the right door, not the left.
Window endings:
There are two endings here, described uncreatively as 'Song' and 'Voice Over' in the chart above. To begin with you need to leavE Stanley's Office into the main office, if you've loaded up the blue one you should reload as you need the default office. Locate the desk to employee 434 which is on the far left side of the office. Wiggle your way up onto the desk by getting onto the chair, crouching your way through the board where the numbers are. You'll clip right through onto the desk opposite and now be in a prime position to walk up to the white windowframe and then straight out of it. Below, you'll be faced with two options 'yes' and 'no' after some dialogue. Pick either, then return for the second one if you'd like.
Space ending:
Make your way to the storage facility room by picking the right door and continuing straight on, ignoring the narrator. When you get to the lift you should hop on it and wait until the lift is hovering over the walkway beneath you. By timing it right you can jump off and land on this catwalk, do so and follow it round and through the open door. Follow the path until you are presented with a red door and a blue door, pick the red door. Follow the instruction of the narrator to be treated to a rather spectacular display that I won't spoil by putting in a screenshot. When you've had enough, backtrack into the room and climb to the very top of the stairs. Once at the top, throw yourself off, rinse and repeat this until you restart the game.
Art ending:
Similar to the space ending, make your way to the catwalk in the storage facility and jump down onto it. This time, pick the blue door. The narrator will try and encourage you to pick the red door but keep on picking the blue until, finally, the game progresses. When the narrator presents you with a third door, go through it, and follow his instructions. Eventually you'll be presented with a game where the objective is to not let the baby die. This will take four hours of non-stop continuos pressing of the button, there is no getting around this and forwarding your clock will not help. Since it's extremely unlikely you'll actually do this, here's a video on what happens when you press a button for 4 solid hours. Don't worry. It's not four hours long.
Games ending:
Navigate over to the 'baby game' section and this time, fail the game to be presented with an alternative ending that provides a nice bit of nostalgia for gamers.
Heaven ending:
In order to obtain this ending you must play through the game several times and find computer screens with 'Awaiting Input' written on it and a purple rectangle. You'll only ever find one screen per playthrough and, after you've inputted onto it, the rectangles will increase to show how many times you've inputted. The screen locations are at desks: 419, 423, the Boss's assistant's desk and finally Stanley's desk.
Easter Eggs:
Randomly changing office:
Sometimes when restarting the game the floor of the office will be absolutely smothered in paper. This occurs randomly. You may also restart the game to find that a phone is ringing on another employee's desk, by answering the phone you'll exchange words with a woman from 'Future Happiness Industries' who will also give you a four digit code concerning how many boxes are being delivered to the building. Type this code into the key-pad in the Boss's Office upstairs and restart the game to find the office now cluttered with many, many cardboard boxes. I guess the delivery guys were pretty prompt.
By not answering the phone you'll instead receive a voice message that's from somebody entirely different who talks about the dangers of voice messages.
Mystery employee:
Another employee can sometimes be spotted lurking through a window, this uses the same model as Stanley does. Unfortunantly he doesn't do anything.
Barking click:
Upon receving the Whiteboard ending you can input the command 'bark' into the console (see about the cheats below) which changes the sound of the left mouse click to one of a barking dog.
Socially awkward elevator ride:
Opposite the boss's office, through the double doors, there is a chance to experience an endless elevator ride that goes nowhere. By standing in there music will play and you can sometimes near the narrator coughing awkwardly as though standing next to you.
Friend betrayal:
In the Games ending you can throw the companion cube through the test door which will result in some narration and you'll have to restart the game again.
Not you too:
By playing about in the broom closet too often you'll find that, upon restarting the game, the closet will be completely boarded up to keep you and the closet apart.
Faster progress:
After several playthroughs the narrator will become bored of the general storyline and, upon reaching the boss's office, he'll just open it up for you without you needing to input the password.
Sometimes you'll restart the game and, rather than the usual office, there will just be a very short corridor leading to the first choice between doors. This is very useful for when attempting the speed run of the game to unlock the achievement.
Facepunch Easter Egg:
Type in 'facepunch' at any point in the game to unlock a new texture pack. This is a reference to the forum run by Gary from the game Gary's Mod.
Serious ending (cheat enabling):
There is one final 'ending' that I classed as an Easter Egg for the chart simply because it requires you to do a little fiddling about with the game's settings. To access the serious ending you need to do the following: outside of the game, right-click the Stanley Parable shortcut and select properties. Type in "-dev -console" under Set Launch Options then close that and start a new game. Press "~" to open up the console window then type in "sv_cheats 1" at any point during gameplay. This will unlock the serious ending.
Secret Disco:
Go into the Mind Control Facility, where all the screens are but before the elevator up to the room with the power button. Head over to the elevator and press the button, after a while the gate behind you will open and you'll be able to go back across the walkways to the first switch. Go back and press the lightbulb button to unlock this surprise Easter Egg.
