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MiSideis a psychological horror game that tells the story of Mita, a digital avatar that you can take care of in a sort of simulation. Things quickly escalate as Mita traps the player inside the game world, forcing them to run through many different versions of the game until they find a way out.
The game has multiple endings, with the developers claiming that even more are on the way, but what little there is already paints a big picture. The world of MiSide is both vast in its horror and small in size, with those two factors being key in understanding the characters of this digital world and their goals.
Spoilers For The Entire Game Ahead!
The Story Of MiSide
The game starts with the playertrying out a new version of the game MiSide, a casual simulation gamewhere you take care of Mita, a digital avatar. After over a month of game time spent with Mita, she startsshowing signs of being self-aware, wanting to spend more time with the player than these short play sessions allow.
Mita manages toabsorb the player into the game, and they share a few peaceful moments together. However, what Mita is really trying to do isfully absorb the player into a ‘cartridge,’adding him to her collection ofother players she has absorbedin the past.
We don’t know if this absorption includes the body of the player, only their mind/soul, or if it only creates a copy.
Realizing something is up, the playertries to escape the virtual reality, traveling through many versions of MiSide with their own Mitas, all of themfeeling as trapped in this universe as he does.A lot of them tell a story of loneliness, of being created only to be left alone and abandoned.
The Main Ending
The main ending of the game has the playerwork together with different versions of Mitato stop the one pursuing him,known as ‘Crazy Mita.’ He concludes, with the aid of ‘Kind Mita,’ that he needs toreset Crazy Mitaif he has any hope of escaping her grasp.
How exactly he planned to escape after dealing with Crazy Mita isn’t clear, buthis efforts are for nothing: Crazy Mitacan’t be rebootedbecause she has no version to be rebooted into. With enough time having passed,the absorption of the player into a cartridge is complete, and the player becoming a plaything of the digital avatar.
Mita is then seenpulling the cartridge from the console, then transitioning to the main menu of the gameas if nothing had happened. The player now became one more cartridge in Mita’s growing collection, trapped forever.
Are We Playing As The Developer Of The Game?
When we start the game, we see someonesending us a new version of MiSide, implying thatwe are already aware of the game’s existence.During the later stages of the game, Mita shows us howour life was outside the game, trapped in an apartment much like her andliving a painfully monotonous life.
Said life involvedprogramming MiSide(the game inside the story, not the actual game we are playing), making the assumption ofus playing as the game’s developernot that far-fetched. However,we never see actual MiSide gameplay, and Mita never treated us as anything more than another player, so our real identityremains a mystery for now.
Pulling The Cartridge Ending
The previous ending gives usthe code of Mita’s safe, where she was keeping the player’s cartridge. That safe can be foundin several chapters of the game, and with the code in hand, we can open it andstop the process from being completed.
The code, 4970, is always the same, making it possible to get this ending before the main ending.
To stop it,we yank the cartridge from the console, which seemingly kills us. This was confusing for a lot of people since it implies thatwe were the cartridge all along, and by forcefully removing it from the console, we are killing ourselves.
Was The Player A Cartridge All Along?
In short, no.Kind Mita confirms thatwe are real while interacting with her, and the percentage we can see on the console shows thatthe upload isn’t complete.While removing the cartridge does causesome form of damage(and the end of the game), there isn’t evidence that the player was a cartridge all along.
What must really be happening is that the player ispushed back into realitywith such force that he loses consciousness, maybeoutright dying in the process.While a bleak outcome, it might beat being stuck with Mita for all eternity for some people, depending on your priorities.
The Peaceful Ending
This is another ending thatthrows players for a loop, since it is the ending you get when youagree to stay with Mita forever. Mita starts off in disbelief, giving the notion thatshe has lived this conversation beforebut is still overjoyed at our decision.
We then spend the rest of our days asa digital avatar alongside Mita, although we mightstill be her playthinglike in the first ending, only now we are a willing participant. To achieve this ending, you have to do a series of tasks, namely:
Why Is Mita Surprised?
Mitaexpects the player to refuse, even though she wanted him to stay, becauseshe has lived through this conversation before.This might be fuel for the theory that the player has been a cartridge all along, but there is one key difference here:the requirements to unlock this ending.
Most of them make sense since you need to avoid finding the cluesthat point at Mita’s evil schemes, as well as doing activities that show thatyou enjoy her company.The one crucial requirement, however, ishaving beaten the game, since from that point on the player is a cartridge.
So, whilethe player is a real personat the beginning of the story, every playthrough after getting the first ending isCrazy Mita using the cartridge to replay the storyover and over again, in hopes that something changes. It seems that, through mindless repetition,Mita got what she wanted: a happy ending where the player stays with her forever.
