A fun one, this. You know how there are four endings to the first-person lost-in-space style exploration Event[0] [official site], right? Well, if you did know that then you know more than the developers themselves, apparently.

As Emmanuel Corno of developers Ocelot Society explains, the realisation started with a trip to Wikipedia…

Insane story: I was wandering around the Internet when I read the Wikipedia page of Event[0]: https://t.co/GTMVNYABSp — Manu (@Yakkafo) July 11, 2017

The page entirely describes the main plots, including all the four endings. Yes, four. — Manu (@Yakkafo) July 11, 2017

As one of the developers, game designers and writers, I know that the game features only three endings. I mean, I wrote them. — Manu (@Yakkafo) July 11, 2017

Even crazier, it doesn’t look like a mistake since the description of the fourth ending is well detailed, including how to trigger it. — Manu (@Yakkafo) July 11, 2017

After investigating, Ocelot Society concluded that the ‘fourth ending’ arose because of a bug that the team hadn’t caught.

So we made a game with an ending so secret we didn’t even know it ourselves. Emergent storytelling, I guess? — Manu (@Yakkafo) July 11, 2017

It appears to be down to the way the game’s AI, Kaizen, is programmed. Talking to Kaizen by typing into terminals is a core part of Event[0], and if you give certain answers you can trigger a sequence that the developers never intended.

It will happen if the player refuses to destroy the station’s singularity drive, refuses to upload their consciousness, and has treated Kaizen nicely throughout the game, making lots of small talk. After questioning if he should trust you, Kaizen can be convinced that you are true friends and that he should take you to Earth even though you didn’t destroy the drive as requested. You’ll then see a cutscene from another ending, of the spaceship moving towards Earth.

Corno reflects that even this ‘ending’ is “interesting”, “even if it contradicts the golden rules we wrote about Kaizen”. He says that it makes the AI “more human”.

If you haven’t played Event[0], then you might want to consider it. Here’s an excerpt from Wot Alec Thinks: