Complete listed story — includes the ending
Night in the Woods
Margaret "Mae" Borowski is a 20-year-old college dropout, who relocates back to her Rust Belt-inspired hometown of Possum Springs, where the closure of local coal mines years before the start of the game has led to visible economic stagnation. She meets up with her old friends, including gloomy but intelligent Beatrice "Bea" Santello, hyperactive delinquent Greggory "Gregg" Lee, and his quiet, sensible boyfriend Angus Delaney. Mae also learns that another one of her old friends, Casey Hartley, has mysteriously disappeared.
Mae spends about two weeks, between late October to early November exploring Possum Springs and hanging out with her friends, but she also begins to have strange and vivid dreams. At the town's autumn "Harfest" (Halloween) festival, she witnesses a teenager being kidnapped by a mysterious figure, who Mae believes is a ghost; her friends are skeptical. The four (and Germ, another friend of Mae) hesitantly work together to figure out the goings-on, as Mae's mental health slowly deteriorates with each dream. After intensive investigation, the friends come across a mysterious group of cloaked figures in the woods, who give chase; Mae falls down a cliff and lapses into a coma, while her friends manage to escape.
Mae is rescued by churchgoers, then eventually wakes up and returns to her friends, where she reveals that she dropped out due to her increasing dissociation from people and the world, seeing everything as shapes. Mae's journal, in which she draws pictures for various in-game events, was given to her by the town doctor to write down her emotions after she bludgeoned a student with a softball bat during a dissociative episode six years prior to the game's events. This incident caused the townsfolk to become wary of Mae and imposed a financial and emotional strain on her family. Mae's dissociation worsened at college, so she chose to return home, hoping that being in a familiar place would help her return to normal.
Still wounded, Mae ventures out into the woods to find the hooded group, only for Gregg, Bea, and Angus to arrive, refusing to let her go alone. The group enters the old mines and confronts the mysterious cult that has been kidnapping people deemed unlikely to be missed, including their missing friend Casey, to sacrifice them to a god-like chthonic entity called the Black Goat in the hope that it will revitalize the economy of Possum Springs. The cult's leader allows the group to leave, threatening them never to tell anyone about the cult, but as the group exits the mine elevator, a cultist ambushes them and attacks Mae. The others manage to save her and the elevator falls, collapsing the mine and presumably trapping the cult underground.
The next day, depending on whom the player interacted with the most throughout the course of the game, Mae sits down with either Bea or Gregg and discusses the events of the previous night, and all the happenings in Possum Springs. The others join them shortly after, and Mae learns that although they will all be forced to grow and adapt to life, for better or for worse, they can still enjoy their time together now. The game ends with the four deciding to forget about their problems for the time being and have band practice.
Firewatch
In the spring of 1989, after his wife Julia (Larissa Gallagher) develops early-onset dementia, Henry (Rich Sommer) takes a job as a fire lookout in Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. On his first day, Delilah (Cissy Jones), a lookout in another watchtower, contacts him via walkie-talkie and asks him to investigate illegal fireworks by the lake. Henry discovers a pair of teenage girls, who accuse him of leering. On his way back to his tower, he comes across a locked cave and spots a shadowy figure watching him. He returns to his watchtower to find it ransacked. The next day, Delilah asks Henry to investigate a downed communication line, which he finds cut. Henry and Delilah plot to scare the teenage girls off, but Henry finds their campsite ransacked and abandoned. The teens are reported missing; fearing an inquiry, Delilah falsely reports neither she nor Henry encountered the girls.
While out hiking, Henry finds an old backpack and a disposable camera belonging to a boy named Brian Goodwin, who was the son of former lookout Ned (Mac Brandt). Ned was an outdoorsman who drank heavily due to traumatic experiences in the Vietnam War, while Brian enjoyed fantasy novels and role-playing games. Though it is against the rules for employees to bring their children to the towers, Delilah was fond of Brian and lied about his presence. He and Ned apparently left abruptly and never returned.
A few months later, a small wildfire breaks out south of Henry's tower. Henry discovers a radio and a clipboard while fishing, with notes including transcripts of his conversations with Delilah. He is knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant and wakes up to find the clipboard and radio gone. In a nearby meadow, Henry finds a fenced-off government research area. He breaks in and discovers surveillance equipment and typewritten reports detailing his and Delilah's conversations and private lives. He also discovers a tracking device and takes it with him. Disturbed by this discovery, Henry and Delilah discuss destroying the government camp but decide against it. However, as Henry hikes home, someone sets fire to the camp.
The next day, Henry uses the tracking device to find a backpack with a key to the locked cave. Delilah reports a figure in Henry's tower; when Henry arrives, he finds a Walkman taped to the door with an incriminating recording of Henry and Delilah's discussion about destroying the government camp. The next day, someone impersonating Henry calls another lookout and claims Delilah knows the cause of the camp fire, putting her and Henry more on edge.
Henry uses the found key to enter the cave but is locked inside. Heading deeper into the cave, Henry discovers the decayed body of Brian Goodwin. Henry finds a way to the surface and reports Brian's death to Delilah, who is upset by the news. The next day, an evacuation order is given for all the lookouts, as the wildfire has grown out of control.
As Henry prepares to leave, the tracking device begins beeping. He follows the signal and discovers a tape recorded by Ned Goodwin, who has been the figure watching Henry. Ned claims Brian's death was accidental and that the boy fell due to climbing inexperience. Unwilling to return to society after Brian's death, Ned secretly lived in the area ever since. Choosing to venture deeper into the wilderness, Ned warns Henry not to look for him.
Henry finds Ned's camp filled with items stolen from the government camp, the lookout towers, and the teenage girls, who Delilah confirms have been found safe. The government camp was simply studying wildlife; Ned created and placed transcripts there to scare Henry away. Delilah blames Ned for Brian's death and leaves on the rescue helicopter. Henry goes to her tower, and he and Delilah say their goodbyes via radio before Henry evacuates.
What Remains of Edith Finch
The player character takes a ferry to Orcas Island, Washington carrying the journal of Edith Finch. The journal details Edith's experience returning to her ancestral home on the island for the first time in seven years. As a 17-year-old, Edith writes that she is the last surviving member of her family. The player then takes the perspective of Edith as she reexplores the house and discovers the alleged circumstances of each relative's death, the authenticity of which is confused due to the unique mediums and perspectives of each source.
Edith explains that her family is believed to be cursed because of the untimely deaths they frequently experience. In 1937, in an effort to escape the curse after the death of his wife Ingeborg and newborn son Johann, Edith's great-great-grandfather Odin Finch emigrates from Norway to the United States. Alongside his daughter Edith (Edith Sr., or 'Edie'), her husband Sven (né Hoffstad), and their newborn daughter Molly, he ferries his family house with them. However, waves off the shore of Orcas Island capsize the house and Odin drowns. The remaining family builds a new home and accompanying graveyard nearby. Here, Edie gives birth to Barbara, twins Calvin and Sam, and Walter.
For a while, Edie believes they have left the curse behind, but unusual tragedies begin to befall her family. At 10 years old, Molly dies after ingesting fluoridated toothpaste and holly berries due to her mother's neglect; at 16, Barbara is murdered after a heated argument with her boyfriend Rick; at 11, Calvin falls to his death after swinging off the edge of a cliff; at 49, Edie's husband Sven dies during a construction accident at the house; and, at 53, after spending 30 years living in a bunker beneath the house, Walter finally decides to leave and is immediately hit by a train upon exiting. Edie memorializes each death by turning their respective bedrooms into shrines.
Sam marries a woman named Kay Carlyle, and they have three children: Dawn, Gus, and Gregory. However, Dawn is the only one to live to adulthood. At 22 months, Gregory drowns in the bathtub after being left unattended by his mother; and, at 13, Gus is crushed while flying a kite during a storm. Sam and Kay get a divorce and, at 33, whilst on a hunting trip with Dawn, Sam falls to his death after being bucked from a cliff by a deer.
Traumatized, Dawn moves to Kolkata, India, marries Sanjay Kumar, and they have three children: Lewis, Milton, and Edith (Jr.). In 2002, Sanjay dies in an earthquake and Dawn returns with her children to the Finch home. At 11 years old, Milton inexplicably disappears, and Dawn becomes paranoid. She seals off the memorialized bedrooms of the deceased and forbids her children from learning about their family history in an effort to save them from a similar fate.
In 2010, after struggling with substance abuse and mental illness, Lewis commits suicide at the age of 21, cutting his head off with the fish-cutting machine he used at work. Now desperate, Dawn decides they must all leave the house. Edie, however, refuses to go, and, after a heated argument, Dawn and Edith flee the house without her, leaving most of their possessions behind. The next day, Edie is found dead at the age of 93 after consuming alcohol alongside her prescription medication.
Seven years later, Dawn succumbs to an undisclosed illness and 17-year-old Edith inherits the property. Returning to the house, Edith discovers for herself the stories of her family's unique history, documenting her own thoughts and experiences in her journal. Edith reveals that she is pregnant (though the player can figure this out already if they look straight down) and that the journal is intended for her unborn child in case she should die before she is able to tell them the stories herself.
In the final scene, the initial player character seen on the ferry at the start of the game is revealed to be Edith's son, Christopher, Edith having died during the labor in 2017. In an unspecified time in the future, Christopher places flowers on his mother's grave.
Margaret "Mae" Borowski is a 20-year-old college dropout, who relocates back to her Rust Belt-inspired hometown of Possum Springs, where the closure of local coal mines years before the start of the game has led to visible economic stagnation. She meets up with her old friends, including gloomy but intelligent Beatrice "Bea" Santello, hyperactive delinquent Greggory "Gregg" Lee, and his quiet, sensible boyfriend Angus Delaney. Mae also learns that another one of her old friends, Casey Hartley, has mysteriously disappeared.
Mae spends about two weeks, between late October to early November exploring Possum Springs and hanging out with her friends, but she also begins to have strange and vivid dreams. At the town's autumn "Harfest" (Halloween) festival, she witnesses a teenager being kidnapped by a mysterious figure, who Mae believes is a ghost; her friends are skeptical. The four (and Germ, another friend of Mae) hesitantly work together to figure out the goings-on, as Mae's mental health slowly deteriorates with each dream. After intensive investigation, the friends come across a mysterious group of cloaked figures in the woods, who give chase; Mae falls down a cliff and lapses into a coma, while her friends manage to escape.
Mae is rescued by churchgoers, then eventually wakes up and returns to her friends, where she reveals that she dropped out due to her increasing dissociation from people and the world, seeing everything as shapes. Mae's journal, in which she draws pictures for various in-game events, was given to her by the town doctor to write down her emotions after she bludgeoned a student with a softball bat during a dissociative episode six years prior to the game's events. This incident caused the townsfolk to become wary of Mae and imposed a financial and emotional strain on her family. Mae's dissociation worsened at college, so she chose to return home, hoping that being in a familiar place would help her return to normal.
Still wounded, Mae ventures out into the woods to find the hooded group, only for Gregg, Bea, and Angus to arrive, refusing to let her go alone. The group enters the old mines and confronts the mysterious cult that has been kidnapping people deemed unlikely to be missed, including their missing friend Casey, to sacrifice them to a god-like chthonic entity called the Black Goat in the hope that it will revitalize the economy of Possum Springs. The cult's leader allows the group to leave, threatening them never to tell anyone about the cult, but as the group exits the mine elevator, a cultist ambushes them and attacks Mae. The others manage to save her and the elevator falls, collapsing the mine and presumably trapping the cult underground.
The next day, depending on whom the player interacted with the most throughout the course of the game, Mae sits down with either Bea or Gregg and discusses the events of the previous night, and all the happenings in Possum Springs. The others join them shortly after, and Mae learns that although they will all be forced to grow and adapt to life, for better or for worse, they can still enjoy their time together now. The game ends with the four deciding to forget about their problems for the time being and have band practice.
Firewatch
In the spring of 1989, after his wife Julia (Larissa Gallagher) develops early-onset dementia, Henry (Rich Sommer) takes a job as a fire lookout in Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. On his first day, Delilah (Cissy Jones), a lookout in another watchtower, contacts him via walkie-talkie and asks him to investigate illegal fireworks by the lake. Henry discovers a pair of teenage girls, who accuse him of leering. On his way back to his tower, he comes across a locked cave and spots a shadowy figure watching him. He returns to his watchtower to find it ransacked. The next day, Delilah asks Henry to investigate a downed communication line, which he finds cut. Henry and Delilah plot to scare the teenage girls off, but Henry finds their campsite ransacked and abandoned. The teens are reported missing; fearing an inquiry, Delilah falsely reports neither she nor Henry encountered the girls.
While out hiking, Henry finds an old backpack and a disposable camera belonging to a boy named Brian Goodwin, who was the son of former lookout Ned (Mac Brandt). Ned was an outdoorsman who drank heavily due to traumatic experiences in the Vietnam War, while Brian enjoyed fantasy novels and role-playing games. Though it is against the rules for employees to bring their children to the towers, Delilah was fond of Brian and lied about his presence. He and Ned apparently left abruptly and never returned.
A few months later, a small wildfire breaks out south of Henry's tower. Henry discovers a radio and a clipboard while fishing, with notes including transcripts of his conversations with Delilah. He is knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant and wakes up to find the clipboard and radio gone. In a nearby meadow, Henry finds a fenced-off government research area. He breaks in and discovers surveillance equipment and typewritten reports detailing his and Delilah's conversations and private lives. He also discovers a tracking device and takes it with him. Disturbed by this discovery, Henry and Delilah discuss destroying the government camp but decide against it. However, as Henry hikes home, someone sets fire to the camp.
The next day, Henry uses the tracking device to find a backpack with a key to the locked cave. Delilah reports a figure in Henry's tower; when Henry arrives, he finds a Walkman taped to the door with an incriminating recording of Henry and Delilah's discussion about destroying the government camp. The next day, someone impersonating Henry calls another lookout and claims Delilah knows the cause of the camp fire, putting her and Henry more on edge.
Henry uses the found key to enter the cave but is locked inside. Heading deeper into the cave, Henry discovers the decayed body of Brian Goodwin. Henry finds a way to the surface and reports Brian's death to Delilah, who is upset by the news. The next day, an evacuation order is given for all the lookouts, as the wildfire has grown out of control.
As Henry prepares to leave, the tracking device begins beeping. He follows the signal and discovers a tape recorded by Ned Goodwin, who has been the figure watching Henry. Ned claims Brian's death was accidental and that the boy fell due to climbing inexperience. Unwilling to return to society after Brian's death, Ned secretly lived in the area ever since. Choosing to venture deeper into the wilderness, Ned warns Henry not to look for him.
Henry finds Ned's camp filled with items stolen from the government camp, the lookout towers, and the teenage girls, who Delilah confirms have been found safe. The government camp was simply studying wildlife; Ned created and placed transcripts there to scare Henry away. Delilah blames Ned for Brian's death and leaves on the rescue helicopter. Henry goes to her tower, and he and Delilah say their goodbyes via radio before Henry evacuates.
What Remains of Edith Finch
The player character takes a ferry to Orcas Island, Washington carrying the journal of Edith Finch. The journal details Edith's experience returning to her ancestral home on the island for the first time in seven years. As a 17-year-old, Edith writes that she is the last surviving member of her family. The player then takes the perspective of Edith as she reexplores the house and discovers the alleged circumstances of each relative's death, the authenticity of which is confused due to the unique mediums and perspectives of each source.
Edith explains that her family is believed to be cursed because of the untimely deaths they frequently experience. In 1937, in an effort to escape the curse after the death of his wife Ingeborg and newborn son Johann, Edith's great-great-grandfather Odin Finch emigrates from Norway to the United States. Alongside his daughter Edith (Edith Sr., or 'Edie'), her husband Sven (né Hoffstad), and their newborn daughter Molly, he ferries his family house with them. However, waves off the shore of Orcas Island capsize the house and Odin drowns. The remaining family builds a new home and accompanying graveyard nearby. Here, Edie gives birth to Barbara, twins Calvin and Sam, and Walter.
For a while, Edie believes they have left the curse behind, but unusual tragedies begin to befall her family. At 10 years old, Molly dies after ingesting fluoridated toothpaste and holly berries due to her mother's neglect; at 16, Barbara is murdered after a heated argument with her boyfriend Rick; at 11, Calvin falls to his death after swinging off the edge of a cliff; at 49, Edie's husband Sven dies during a construction accident at the house; and, at 53, after spending 30 years living in a bunker beneath the house, Walter finally decides to leave and is immediately hit by a train upon exiting. Edie memorializes each death by turning their respective bedrooms into shrines.
Sam marries a woman named Kay Carlyle, and they have three children: Dawn, Gus, and Gregory. However, Dawn is the only one to live to adulthood. At 22 months, Gregory drowns in the bathtub after being left unattended by his mother; and, at 13, Gus is crushed while flying a kite during a storm. Sam and Kay get a divorce and, at 33, whilst on a hunting trip with Dawn, Sam falls to his death after being bucked from a cliff by a deer.
Traumatized, Dawn moves to Kolkata, India, marries Sanjay Kumar, and they have three children: Lewis, Milton, and Edith (Jr.). In 2002, Sanjay dies in an earthquake and Dawn returns with her children to the Finch home. At 11 years old, Milton inexplicably disappears, and Dawn becomes paranoid. She seals off the memorialized bedrooms of the deceased and forbids her children from learning about their family history in an effort to save them from a similar fate.
In 2010, after struggling with substance abuse and mental illness, Lewis commits suicide at the age of 21, cutting his head off with the fish-cutting machine he used at work. Now desperate, Dawn decides they must all leave the house. Edie, however, refuses to go, and, after a heated argument, Dawn and Edith flee the house without her, leaving most of their possessions behind. The next day, Edie is found dead at the age of 93 after consuming alcohol alongside her prescription medication.
Seven years later, Dawn succumbs to an undisclosed illness and 17-year-old Edith inherits the property. Returning to the house, Edith discovers for herself the stories of her family's unique history, documenting her own thoughts and experiences in her journal. Edith reveals that she is pregnant (though the player can figure this out already if they look straight down) and that the journal is intended for her unborn child in case she should die before she is able to tell them the stories herself.
In the final scene, the initial player character seen on the ferry at the start of the game is revealed to be Edith's son, Christopher, Edith having died during the labor in 2017. In an unspecified time in the future, Christopher places flowers on his mother's grave.
Sources and content license
Source and revision history ↗ · Exact listed stories combined in catalog order. Sources retain their stated license; formatting and headings adjusted. Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Night in the Woods. Section headings and formatting adjusted. Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Firewatch. Section headings and formatting adjusted. Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, What Remains of Edith Finch. HTML and reference formatting removed; headings adjusted. · Content license