Man of Medan is a cinematic horror game released by Supermassive Games. It's the first game from a series known as The Dark Pictures Anthology. If you played and loved Until Dawn, then you probably know what to expect when going into Man of Medan. The game follows a group of friends that are on an oceanic excursion when their boat is hijacked by pirates.
They all wind up on a mysterious ship full of nightmarish creatures while in search of something called "Manchurian Gold." Like Until Dawn, your goal is to keep all the characters alive until the end, but it won't be easy. Man of Medan also has more choices and potential endings than Until Dawn. You can play through several times and still discover new secrets and scenes. Here is a guide to all the potential endings in the game and how you can achieve each one!
Updated July 18, 2021 by Amanda Hurych: The Dark Pictures Anthology is still going strong years after the release of Man of Medan. Little Hope surprised and delighted fans with its improvements to storytelling mechanics, and we are all excited for the upcoming House of Ashes. Now is a great time to look back at how the anthology game series started. Man of Medan is truly astonishing in terms of narrative consequences when you look at all of the potential endings you can get.
9 Everyone Survives And Escapes On The Duke Of Milan
- The distributor cap must be intact and in your possession
- Conrad needs to stay with the group instead of escaping
- Julia cannot surface too early
- Everyone must be alive by the end
If you want the best ending of the game, meaning all your characters survive and live happily ever after far away from the ghost ship, you'll have to execute the game to perfection. That means you need to hit every QTE moment and keep calm when appropriate.
If this is the ending you want, you'll probably want to follow a step-by-step walkthrough to ensure you make the right decision. Some of the most notable choices you need to make include ensuring Alex proposes and making sure nothing happens to your distributer cap at the end of the game.
8 Conrad Rescues The Others
- The distributor cap is destroyed or not in your possession
- Conrad leaves the group and escapes
- Everyone must be alive by the end
This ending is pretty similar to the game's "best" ending except Conrad gets to have some of the glory for a change. If you recall at the beginning of the game, there is a moment during the raid of Duke of Milan where Conrad has the chance to escape on a fishing boat.
You might not have gone with that option thinking it would cause his death. But if you let him escape and you destroy the distributor cap, he'll return at the end to save everyone. Again you'll need to keep everyone alive.
7 Conrad Gets Stuck Alone On The Ship
- The distributor cap must be intact and in your possession
- Conrad leaves the group and escapes
This ending can be achieved the same way as the one with Conrad saving the day except the key difference is, you have to keep the distributor cap safe.
If you have it, the gang will escape the ship. By the time Conrad arrives, it's too late and he's left there all alone. Technically, everyone survives, but poor Conrad winds up in a terrible nightmare!
6 The Military Kills Everyone
- The distributor cap is destroyed or not in your possession
- Conrad needs to stay with the group instead of escaping
- The military is made aware the ship's name is the Ourang Medan
Shifting from the relatively good endings to the bad endings, there is, of course, an ending option where all the characters die, but not technically by your own hand. What is so horrific about this ending is you might think you made it out alive only to watch all the survivors get murdered by the military.
For this ending, you have to tell the military the name of your ship, let the distributor cap get destroyed, and keep Conrad with you. The military doesn't want the truth about the bioweapon escaping so they systematically murder all the friends.
5 Everyone Dies Before The End
To be fair to the game, it's not that easy to kill all of your characters during your playthrough. You might mess up and kill one or two, but odds are you won't murder all the characters before you make it to the end unless you're intentionally trying to or you seriously mess up.
But, if somehow you murder everyone before you get to the finale, then you'll get a very weird post-credits scene that involves a mysterious version of Olson with glowing red eyes. It is also possible to get this ending if you escape on the Duke of Milan or you don't contact the military but have a fixed distributor cap.
4 Everyone Goes To Jail
- The distributor cap is destroyed or not in your possession
- Conrad needs to stay with the group instead of escaping
- The military is not aware the ship's name is the Ourang Medan
This ending is somewhat similar to the ending where the military shows up and kills everyone. If you want to get this one instead, you need to refrain from revealing the boat's name over the radio.
You will also have to let the distributor cap get destroyed. Then at the game's end, your survivors will be confused as to what they should do next when the military arrives. They will believe they're saved at first but the final post-credits scene shows them all locked up in cells.
3 Julia Dies
- Julia surfaces too early
- Julia makes it to the end
This ending is pretty tragic. Early on in the game when Julia and Alex are exploring the shipwreck alone, there is a moment where Julia panics. They are returning to the surface when they see explosions on the ship. Julia worries that Conrad could be hurt and wants to rush to see him.
But Alex tries to stop her, warning her that if she goes too fast, she'll get decompression sickness, also know as the bends. If you let Julia surface too quickly, she'll die at the end of the game. Even if you get a happy ending, suddenly Julia will succumb to the decompression sickness and die in the middle of the escape.
2 Everyone Remains Stranded On The Ship
- The distributor cap is destroyed or not in your possession
- Conrad needs to stay with the group instead of escaping
- The military is given neither the ship's name or coordinates
If you fail to give the military your coordinates or the ship's name, Conrad doesn't escape on the boat, and you destroy the distributor cap, then your survivors will all wind up stranded on the creepy boat forever.
You'll be privy to several scenes of various members being driven insane inside the SS Ourang Medan, confronted by their evil counterparts.
1 Various Character Deaths
Finally, depending on who lives and who dies, your endings can be affected by characters struggling with grief. If Conrad dies and Julia lives, she'll be devastated by his loss. The same can be said for Alex and Brad if one of the brothers dies.
If Fliss dies, then someone else has to captain the Duke of Milan if you manage to secure the distributor cap. These scenes aren't necessarily an overall tonal ending; they occur regardless of whether you wind up in the hands of the military or free on the Duke of Milan, but they can cause subtle influences that will present you with new scenes.