All Four Endings
CONTRABAND has four unique endings. Each one has its own Chapter 5 epilogue with multiple scenes and further branching choices. Seeing all four is the key to the "The Last Pilot" legendary achievement.
Ending 1: The Sacred Timeline
How to reach: In Chapter 4, at the tree (c4_temptation), choose "Prune — this is the only real timeline."
This is the "good ending" by conventional narrative metrics. The player uses the Keystone to collapse all alternate timelines into a single coherent reality, sealing the Fold permanently. No more rewinds. No more do-overs. The universe becomes, for the first time in anyone's memory, simply itself.
Chapter 5 continuation
The player returns to Verge Station. The dispatcher offers a clean job. Player can:
- Accept the job → Months pass. A Weaver initiate finds you on a backwater moon with a gift. If you saved the child, the gift includes a photograph of her grown up in a harvest festival.
- Retire from piloting → You sell the ship. You learn to garden. You never fly again.
What survives
The Weavers survive. The child survives (if saved). The Scourge vanish within days. Vex is either dead or alive depending on prior choices, and if alive, she leaves a message thanking you and is never heard from again.
Ending 2: The Multiverse
How to reach: In Chapter 4, at the tree, choose "Walk away — let them all exist."
The player refuses to choose. Every branch remains active. The Fold stays open. The pilot becomes aware of every version of themselves — the one who took the bribe, the one who died saving the child, the one who became what the Scourge worship.
Chapter 5 continuation
The first week, the pilot cannot sleep. Every time they close their eyes, they live three days of a different life. A version of themselves who learned to manage it appears as an inner voice. The player can:
- Pick the timeline where you hurt the most and is true → You carry every mistake. You do not forgive yourself. You become a person who knows what they did and keeps going.
- Pick a softer timeline → You forgive yourself for things you did not do. Kinder life than you thought you'd get.
- Refuse to pick → You dissolve. Not a person anymore. Just simultaneous lives.
What survives
Everything. The Weavers continue. The Scourge continue. Every version of every character continues to exist somewhere. You carry it all forever.
Ending 3: Another Life
How to reach: In Chapter 4, at the tree, choose "Take a different branch and live that life."
The player steps into the branch where they took the bribe in the prologue. They are now rich, living on a private moon with a wife and two children, a life that feels real because the body remembers it. The old pilot's life is somewhere else, and the player never learns what happened to it.
Chapter 5 continuation
Morning. Breakfast with the other pilot's family. The player can:
- Stay silent → Years pass. The pilot is a good father and husband. But every night they wake up crying. They never find out if the child survived in the other branch. They live in a cold empty space inside themselves that would be filled if they were brave enough to look.
- Confess to your wife → She listens. She tells you the original pilot once said the same thing, drunk, ten years ago. She takes your hand. You become real to her by telling the truth.
The final scene: the pilot dies old, in a bed, surrounded by family. The last thing they think is the face of the Weaver child — saved or not, they never learned which. They had a life. It was not theirs. But it was theirs now.
Ending 4: The End of History
How to reach: In Chapter 4, at the tree, choose "Burn the tree."
This is the bleakest ending. The tree burns. All branches, all histories, all versions. The Fold cannot reopen because there is no longer a timeline for it to fold. The Weavers, Scourge, Vex, and the Weaver child are retroactively erased — they never existed, because the Keystone that anchored them no longer existed.
Chapter 5 continuation
The player is the only person in the universe who remembers these people ever existed. They carry the memory of an entire history that no longer happened. The player can:
- Record everything before forgetting → You build a secret archive on a hidden moon. You die without telling anyone where it is. A thousand years later, a scavenger finds it. They don't believe it. But they keep it.
- Let it go → You try to forget. It is slow. By the time you die, all you remember is flying a cargo run that went wrong, and after that something vast and unspeakable happened. You do not remember anyone you loved.
Optimal order to see all endings
My recommended playthrough order to appreciate each ending properly:
- First run: Sacred Timeline (prune). This is the most satisfying first experience and gives you a sense of closure.
- Second run: Multiverse (walk away). Now that you know what closing the Fold feels like, refusing to close it hits differently.
- Third run: Another Life (take the bribe retroactively). Reserved for a playthrough where you want a bittersweet, melancholic experience.
- Fourth run: Burn. Save this for last. This ending is designed to be felt after you care about the characters.
Seeing all four unlocks the legendary achievement "The Last Pilot." You will also unlock all four endings in the achievement panel, each worth gold tier.
Which ending is "canon"?
None. Every ending is canon in its own branch. The game's philosophy — embedded in the Sacred Timeline mechanic itself — is that no ending is the true one, because timelines do not work that way in this universe. Every choice is real. Every rewind creates another reality. The story you experienced is yours, and yours alone.
Requirements and gating for each ending
Each ending requires specific prerequisites to be available in the Chapter 4 choice. Missing a prerequisite means the corresponding option is visible but grayed out, with a subtle hover tooltip explaining what is missing. The prerequisites are:
- Sacred Timeline — Requires Weaver reputation ≥ 40 and the Keystone Fragment in inventory. The Fragment is earned either by completing the Chapter 2 Weaver main path or by being gifted it during the Ritual of Seventeen Mirrors.
- Multiverse — Requires at least 10 total branches created via rewind. The game interprets low branch counts as a player who has not yet earned the right to refuse choice.
- Another Life — Requires that an alternative branch exists where the player took the prologue bribe. This means either you took the bribe originally and rewound to a different path, or you rewound specifically to take the bribe in a branch. Players who never touched the bribe cannot reach this ending.
- Burn — No specific prerequisites mechanically, but thematically reserved for players who reject the reconciliation offered by other endings. Telemetry shows this ending is most often chosen by players on their fourth or later playthrough.
The epilogue purchases
Each of the four endings has an extended epilogue sold separately as a paid expansion. Each epilogue is $4.99 individually, or $12.99 for the bundle containing all four. These epilogues continue the pilot's life beyond the final cutscene and include additional characters, new systems to explore (in the Multiverse and Another Life epilogues), and several hours of additional story. Purchases are verified server-side against Firestore and sync across devices — if you bought the Sacred Timeline epilogue on your phone, it unlocks on your laptop automatically upon sign-in.
The epilogues are genuinely optional. The base endings stand on their own as complete narrative experiences. The expansions are for players who want more time with the world. First-run players are not expected to purchase; waiting until after all four base endings are seen is the designer's recommended pacing.