#sotc fans im so sorry i pulled up like this i have actual theories for the game that dont relate to the aaa shooter spin off

[afarcryfrommymain]

Having far cry new dawn feelings but Ethan Seeds Soul boss look very... Team Ico, if you know what I'm saying. In both Shadow of the Colossus and Ico (wonderful games you should play if you haven't already), there are these shadow beings that are vaguely implied to be souls. I'm gonna spoil both of these games and tangentially relate it to New Dawn's final boss and theory crafting so you've been warned. Just know that the design similarities are fascinating to me, and I think there was an Ico fan on the design team.

If you haven't seen the boss and decided to move forward anyway or have seen it and need a side-by-side, here he is.

Yeah it's uncanny and startled the fuck outta me. I am now going to ramble about Team Ico games lore like a normal person.

SotC is a prequel to Ico. The reason Ico happens is because you, a horned boy, are being sacrificed because the horns make you inherently evil. The reason for this is because the big scary voice that guides you to kill the 17 colossai, Dormin, tricks your character into releasing him in exchange for reviving his girlfriend. The protagonist, Wander, starts very normal. But when you kill a colossus, these black, semi-opaque ribbons come from where you killed it, shoot into his chest, and he passes out. When the camera fades and the game loads up th cutscene for killing the monster, before Wander wakes up the image above, I showed of the people surrounding him happen. There's a new one for every colossus you kill.

This seems to slowly corrupt your character over time. Small black spider-webs crack from his eyes and he looks more sickly as you go on. Eventually at the end of the game when you've beaten the final boss and the preists (monks? Sages?) have come to try and stop you it's too late.

The eyes are deeply reminiscent if the Collosai and your skin has changed entirely, early PS2 graphics aside this is genuinely freaky to see. Especially the horns that have grown finally. You transform, fully corrupted by Dormin, into

Look familiar?

So where am I going with this?

Ethans soul was most certainly inspired by, if not the ico creatures with their distorted wings and fucked up anatomy, then Sotc true final Colossus had to have contributed. And I really want to be right because these games hold a special place in my heart.

Both characters are corrupted by want- and in the end die. (Well- wander sort of is revived????? It's complicated, but it's why the boy in Ico has horns) Wander wanted to cheat death and was used as a vessel for and uncaring God, Ethan wants to prove he's better than his father and in turn destroys himself on a fundamental level and dies.

It's so fucked

Ethan didn't do everything right but he was doing it because life kept giving him shit- he ate a forbidden fruit and warped and Wander went to do the most heroic thing he could do despite being warned the ritual was forbidden and was warped.

I don't entirely know how to express the emotion it makes me feel but something is so insane to me that the two are related in such a close way at all that I can't not point it out.

Final thought is also: Ethan Seed lives with weird corrupted Wander like features. Grey skin and orangey-red eyes. Hair goes straight black rather than the brown that matches his father's.