The game is fairly linear, organized into a prologue, 4 chapters, and the epilogue. You are free to travel between the villages using warp portals within the villages at any time.
Cinematic, one controllable area where Val is at the Life-Death corridor, followed by another cinematic of her falling.
Water Tribe battle tutorials and intro to world; free period to do available quests; cutscene of the Trustee “reacquisitioning” the scientists followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Tidewater Labs and miniboss: The Trustee; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area
Dark Tribe finding Nakit and chasing her to her house; free period to do available quests; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Sporedor Swamp and miniboss: The Banker; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area
Light Tribe meeting Gobe; free period to do available quests; cutscene of Gobe disappearing followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Mirror Hall and boss: The Mayor; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area
Fire Tribe travel to village blocked, meet with rebels; free period to do available quests with the rebels; cutscene giving access to main village followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Mt. Pyrenis and miniboss: The General; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area
Nature Tribe witness destruction of the Mother Tree, go find the location of the new village; free period to do available quests; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Everthorn Reserve and miniboss: The Warden; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area
Ice Tribe getting run out of the village and meeting Fyord; free period to do available quests; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Lynxkill Glacier and boss: The Judge; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area
Earth Tribe intro; free period to do available quest; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Faultline Mines and miniboss: The Overseer; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area
Thunder Tribe intro; free period to do available quests; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Coulombyn Clockworks and miniboss: The Principal; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area
Air Tribe intro; free period to do available quests; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Fogflute Isles and boss: The Curator; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area
Spirit and Metal Tribe rebellion from all 9 tribes gather, Founders create barrier; free period to do quests for Argena; quest to take her to the grave of her beloved; dungeon: the Colonial Quarters and miniboss: The Prophet; break the barrier and proceed to the next area
Chaos and Order Tribe rebellion begins to get more extreme; free period to do available quests; Val is captured and taken into the Capital; escape prison and travel through The Timeless Ruins; rest area; escape the The Starscraper; miniboss: The Scribe; give a speech on both hope to rebels but restraining themselves from hurting the Founders (or not).
Final dungeon The Imperial Palace; final boss: His Imperial Majesty Tredecimus Vitiae; Val has the choice to either return home or stay
In the moments after death, people are given a choice: do they stay on Earth to roam as wandering ghost, or do they move on to heaven, hell, or wherever their faith and karma sentences them to? Despite the relatively clear cut choice, still many spirits are indecisive. Such spirits end up in the strange dimension known as Limbo/Purgatory, a subterranean world where a murky, endless ocean divides continents and islands, each with their own twisted and horrific biota.
Here, the sun and moon do not rise nor set but stay along the horizon, casting an eternal twilight, circling around and around. When their sun’s feeble rays shine through the thin mist that permeates the plane, that is the island’s day. When a gloomy shadow falls upon the sea and the moonlight barely illuminates the land, the faint glimmer of cold crystals shining far away on the the cave’s ceiling, the inhabitants know it is nighttime. The world is neither joyous nor painful, only dreary; nevertheless, danger lurks around almost every corner, not just due to the varied and unforgiving landscape but also due the spirits that make up the majority of its inhabitants.
Upon arrival, the indecisive spirits of Limbo are classified generally into two major groups- peaceful and hostile. Many just wake up in a random location with no idea of where they are. Unable to truly interact with the world due to their ethereal bodies, spirits are thus left to wander the world until they find a way to remove the obstacle that keeps them from moving on. However, some spirits do possess living and inanimate objects that allows them to interact with the material world.
Peaceful spirits are often trapped due to lingering desire to stay in the material world despite meeting all other requirements of moving on. By satisfying their wishes or letting go of what binds them to the material world, they can move on. Hostile spirits on the other hand are far more dangerous, going out of their way to harm other spirits and humans. Their reason for being in Limbo is more often than not due to being a good person at heart but committing many bad deeds in life. By either letting them realize their innate goodness and then serving penance, or by letting them accept the damage their actions have wrought, they can move on.
They have a strange tendency to imitate certain forms based on their Vices. For example, a spirit of Ignorance will take on the appearance of form of light, an angel, or something of the desert as the desert-living Light Tribe is prone to ignorance. In other words, hostile spirits take on the forms based on the Vice most common to the area.
Among the numerous landmasses that dot the Ocean of Purgatory lies the Island of Alto Pyrenis, a name given to it by the Islanders’ ancestors. The island is rather large, approximately the size of France. Due to the supernatural nature of the island, its landscapes are extremely diverse, almost like a patchwork quilt.
The island can be divided largely into ten main regions. The first is the tundra region, cold and unforgiving with a few taiga located along the slopes of some southern mountains. To its southeast is the barren crags and canyons region, with mountains riddled with large underground cavern systems. East of the crags lies the mech region, metal structures like gears and pipes rising from the ground like a city stood there. The eastern coast of the island is dominated by the Cloud Mountains which reach high above the seas. An jungle archipelago lies off the southeastern coast, with reefs hidden beneath the dark waters of Limbo. A humid swamp lies to the islands south amidst a giant river delta, gloomy and teeming with giant mushrooms. Past some high mountains, the swamp gives way to the arid desert area, bordered to the north by a highly active volcanic zone. Tucked in between fire and ice strangely enough is a vivid forest, teeming with wildlife.
In the center of it all (and taking up the majority of the island) lies the rolling hills and plains region through which most of the regions are connected, the Asphode River winding lazily across the prairie. The ancient Capital, a city that had originally fallen into Limbo due to a disaster on Earth, too lies in the center of the plains, a region of its own. Due to the divergent cultures of its inhabitants, it has two districts: the above ground is futuristic, filled with technology that could not exist without the presence of magic. The other half is the underground ruins, the actual ancient city that serves as a foundation to the one above, preserved by its inhabitants.
The Islanders were the descendants of humans who had fallen into Limbo by accident, mostly from the original inhabitants of the Capital; people who simply disappeared on Earth with no sign of them having died. The circumstances around such an occurrence are rare; the human must, in a single moment of facing a life or death situation, choose to do neither. Spirit and body are not torn asunder and are both thrown together into this unforgiving dimension, where the killing is more likely to occur due to hostile spirits and harsh landscape and thus solving the problem of a person neither dead nor alive.
Nevertheless, societies such as that of the Islanders have thrived in Limbo thanks to the knowledge of magic, taught to them by the peaceful spirits. As the spirits have found out, the Virtues that they once held in life manifest themselves in the form of magic in Limbo, which makes sense when you think about Limbo as a place where your fate is decided based on your innate goodness.
Ice Justice, righteousness, honor, respect, morality; opposes Malice (the desire to do wrong)
Earth Kindness, selflessness, cooperation, charity, compassion; opposes Greed (hoarding time and resources)
Thunder Diligence, efficacy, ambition, competence, success; opposes Sloth (laziness, inaction)
Air Integrity, creativity, honesty, freedom, individuality; opposes Deceit (lying, being a hypocrite, not being true to yourself)
Water Understanding, curiosity, wisdom, reason, acuity; opposes Ignorance (denial of truth, avoiding the facts)
Dark Loyalty, trust, responsibility, caution, prudence; opposes Apathy (lack of attachment, not caring about anyone or consequences)
Light Gratitude, joy, enthusiasm, wonder, purity; opposes Envy (jealousy, desire for someone else’s things)
Fire Courage, confidence, fortitude, discipline, valor; opposes Fear (cowardice, shyness, anxiety)
Nature Peace, acceptance, equality, harmony, mercy; opposes Wrath (anger, violence, brutality)
Spirit Humility, detachment, faith, simplicity, idealism; opposes Pride (vanity, narcissism, selfishness)
Metal Temperance, frugality, moderation, survival, balance; opposes Gluttony (excess of resources or ideology, luxury, waste)
Chaos Hope, optimism, perseverance, resilience, flexibility; opposes Despair (depression, futility, lack of anything worth living for)
Order Patience, remembrance, chastity, tact, restraint; opposes Lust (uninhibited passion for anything not just sex, impatience)
By following these thirteen sets of Virtues, the Islanders are able to wield magic to protect themselves from the hostile spirits of the Island, and even mold the land around them so that it was more hospitable. Virtue magic also had the benefit of raising virtues within spirits and people, allowing them to realize their mistakes and do penance.
Over time, the Capital simply grew too overcrowded for everyone to stay; and so the people migrated to each region of the island in masses, settling in villages and towns. Due to the various terrains of Alto Pyrenis, the people soon found it to their advantage to know a certain magic, and therefore certain Virtues. Soon, they developed distinct cultures of their own, relatively isolated from one another. An atmosphere of xenophobia and mistrust grew due to the different emphasis on Virtues, with tribes often looking down on one another and claiming superiority. Each tribe was independent of one another with no centralized form of government, resulting in many conflicts between tribes. This disunity set the Islanders up for one of the worst disasters to befall them: the arrival of the Founders.
The Islanders are not the only people to have fallen into Limbo and survived; indeed, on many a far off continent, many societies have risen and fallen, having discovered magic and technology for themselves. As later arrivals from a circa 1950s Americana town, the Founders have a leg up in technology though not as advanced as some of the magitech developed in Limbo. However, the Founders stand out in that their magic is unique; rather than learning Virtue from peaceful spirits, they instead learned Vices from hostile spirits. Vice magic, similar to Virtue, manifests itself as forces of nature but corrupted in a way.
With their twisted magic, they conquered and enslaved many other societies around them, letting hostile spirits thrive while forcing peaceful spirits to find sanctuary elsewhere. Soon, the Founders’ Empire grew to span multiple continents. Upon arrival at Alto Pyrenis, the conquerors found the Islander tribes to be fragmented and mistrustful of one another- perfect for conquest. In no time at all the entire island was subjugated, with colonial authorities set in place to keep the natives enslaved and Founders sending people to settle on the island. Some of the tribes, however, they saw as long-term threats to their empire, bringing a risk of rebellion. The three offending tribes were swiftly dealt with: the Chaos and Order Tribes, keepers of hope and the Islanders’ traditions respectively, were deported and scattered amongst the Empire’s holdings. Faced with harsher living conditions, the Metal Tribe buckled into the pressure and assisted in the Spirit Tribe’s genocide, dangerous due to their ability to manipulate minds and emotions. The Metal Tribe were then assimilated into the Founders with a few holdouts.
Faced with these tragedies, the nine remaining tribes stayed subjugated, watching as their children slowly became assimilated into the Founders’ wicked culture and losing their own. Though once relatively uncommon, hostile spirits flocked to the island, making life even more dangerous. Though the most isolated villages managed to cling on to their culture, it truly felt impossible to escape the grasp of the Founders.
Val and her mother are aboard an airplane, flying over an ocean. Suddenly, things get turbulent, and the plane quickly loses altitude. As the plane plunges into the ocean, everything blacks out. Val wakes up at a corridor with two mirrors beside her, one of the plane wreckage in the sea and another of a glimpse of heaven. Scared and worried for her mother, she instead turns her back and wanders into the darkness, eventually stumbling into a pit where she fall from an immense height down into Limbo, plunging into the sea and blacking out.
After falling, Valerie wakes up on a beach with no clue of where she is. Finding no sign of her mother, she wanders around a beach until she encounters a hostile spirit. Ambar, a cranky old man, appears but instead of warding it off lets it fight Val. He instructs her on how to use Virtue to cast magic and how to win a battle against spirits. Ambar takes her to his hut where Pelas, an enthusiastic young boy, is setting up a meal for Val, having found her earlier and sending Ambar to check up on her while he prepared dinner. Ambar and Pelas both tell Val that she is now in Limbo and explain a little bit about the tribes and Virtues. When asked about her mother’s whereabouts, Pelas replies that he didn’t see anyone with her on the beach, causing her to panic and cry out for home. The boy suggests that perhaps she could accompany him back to the Water Village to meet with his parents who might know of a way to find her and get out.
Pelas’s mother and father, though kind, are experts in marine biota and cannot offer much help. Realizing how useless they were in this situation, they began to panic. In order to make up for their inability to help, they instead give her a map of Alto Pyrenis and tell her to ask around the village, hoping that maybe one of the residents would know how to help her. They don’t. Disheartened, Pelas suggests they visit Ambar for another lesson in battle. Ambar gives her some equipment and tells her about the Founders and how they have taken control over all of the tribes. Seeing how late it is, Ambar escorts her to the Water Village where she can take a boat ride to the mainland to find a way home. Upon arrival, they find that the Founders are threatening the village with a message from the Trustee, who says that the researchers are late with their results and that “funds” will be cut off if they do not comply. Ambar steps in, saying that they cannot do this when they already have taken so much away. In a fit of anger, he attacks one of the guards, prompting the Founders to kill him. While the tribesmen look on in horror, the head of the guard states that as further incentive, some “funds” were to be taken right at that moment. The guards seize Pelas’s parents and a few other researchers and take them away.
The remaining villagers explain that the Trustee provides the village with “funds”- that is, people. If they do well, they release villagers they have captured and send them to the village instead of in a prison lab setting. Should they fail, they are instead taken away, with the tribe struggling to both complete research and provide for themselves. Pelas is heartbroken, losing both his parents and his mentor. However, Ambar reappears but as a peaceful spirit, claiming that Val and Pelas still have much to learn and his desire to help guide them kept him in Limbo. They want to rescue them, but the villagers are not of much help, stating that they’d prefer to continue researching and getting them back then. Val must then convince the villagers that their research can actually be used to help save the imprisoned villagers rather than simply using up all of their time on studying.
Once they are persuaded, the villagers begin working on a plan. Val and Ambar alone enter the Founders’ Lab, infiltrating it and freeing multiple villagers. Upon freeing Pelas’s parents and letting them escape, Ambar urges Val to explore what the Trustee was using the villagers to research. The lab, unfortunately was flooded by the Founders. Trapped, Val is forced to face the Trustee in battle. Upon his defeat, the Trustee is forced to come to terms with the plight of the Water Tribe, undoing his former ignorance, and the Founders thereafter abandon the lands of the Water Tribe, leaving the natives in peace to rebuild.
Amazed at the tribe’s liberation, Ambar urges Val to free the other tribes on the mainland. They sail to the closest region, the swamp of the Dark Tribe. There they find the tribe to be surprisingly well-off; with the wetland as difficult, toxic, and dangerous as it is, before the Founders the tribe found supplies scarce. However, Val and Ambar soon uncover that the tribe is in dire straits as they are nearly bankrupt, having relied almost entirely on the Founders and being discouraged from getting their own supplies through the machinations of the Banker. With the people having money extorted out of them, the people will soon starve, leading to a massive wave of organized crime as people begin to both continue to rely on the Founders yet distrust them, forming the mafia, who are also tied to the Founders. Your goal is to both defeat the mafia and the Banker, breaking their reliance on the Founders’ supplies while simultaneously alleviating the constant fear the Dark Tribe has for both its future and one another.
Past the marsh and through the mountains lies the desert of the Light Tribe, where the people seem to be living an ideal life free of any Founder influence, which strikes Ambar as odd. Upon asking the villagers, it appears as if they have no idea of who the Founders are or what they have done to the other tribes, instead remaining clueless of the outside world and denying that bad things are happening. Ambar and Val soon find that the villagers have been kept in isolation under the seemingly paternal governance of the Mayor. However, the Mayor has in fact brainwashed a great number of the tribesmen so that the disappearance of their children and goods goes unnoticed as they are smuggled off into far away lands. By making contact with the last remaining unbrainwashed villagers, they are able to reveal the Mayor as the corrupt man he is. Angered by this, the Mayor reveals a strange device attached to his arm. Upon activating it, an Ignorance, Deceit, and Envy spirit appear and appear to fuse with him, transforming him into a grotesque watery, angelic, and demonic creature that Val must defeat in combat. Fearful of what this could mean for the Islanders’ future, Ambar urges Val to continue to the lands of the Fire Tribe, where defeating the Founders may lead to an island-wide revolt.
The Fire Tribe should have been willing to help, with the majority of the tribe being proud warriors. Instead, Val and Ambar are blocked off from reaching the village at every turn by the local militia. The soldiers have been enlisted by the Founders to guard the region against a rumored uprising while the Resistance led by Etanoli has been leading guerilla attacks. However, the Founders have been planning on the rebels’ attacks on finishing the tribe off once and for all- Val must quench the rebels’ wrath and break the General’s hold on the region.
Unlike the resentful Fire Tribe, the Nature Tribe instead decided to live in peace with the Founders. However, the nonviolent approach of the tribe has led to the destruction of the forest they love. Rife with violence, the people have fallen into despair and despondency where they feel helpless to do anything but watch as the Founders destroy their home. It is up to Val to stand up to the Warden and lift the people from their hopelessness into action.
The Ice Tribe is by and large a proud people bound by honor and the desire to be right, a trait that was noticed by the Founders. The tribe was then tricked into being indebted to the Founders with a deal that they could not fulfill. The tribesmen must provide enough resources as tribute, but it is sabotaged annually and thus they are unable to fulfill the requests of the Founders. Val must either stop the sabotage from occurring or convince the tribe to give their pride and honor code for the sake of their survival. Upon doing so, the Judge will attack the player, fusing with Fear, Wrath, and Malice spirits.
Everyone is smiling in the subterranean world of the Earth tribe. They all look so cheerful working themselves to the bone in the mines that Anbar and Val do not notice them starving at first. Despite the cheery attitude in public, the Earth tribesmen of the lower classes are miserable as the Founders used the custom of lending a hand no matter what to heighten the already-present class inequality. While the rich are free to spend extravagantly on luxury goods and donate occasionally to the local charity, the poor are so embroiled in their own financial woes that they are spending more time working in the mines to pay off their generous lifestyle. Defeating the Overseer will free the poor and restore balance.
The Thunder Tribe, for the most part, no longer identify themselves as such except for the old and stubborn, and even then only in private. With the Founders in places of power, the Thunder Tribe has been turned into the workhorse of the Empire by using their desire for success against them; in order to be successful now, all Islander culture must be abandoned and replaced with Founder beliefs. Val must stop the reeducation of the students by urging them to find their own dreams rather than following the expectations of everyone else. In overthrowing the Principal, their identity is restored and they can be true to themselves once more.
The village of the Air Tribe, set atop the Cloud Mountains, appears to be thriving in spite of the presence of Founder soldiers with the various art guilds showcasing their talents throughout. Despite this, the artists themselves are clearly in trouble: the guilds have been manipulated into an envious rivalry against one another where sabotage and conflict run rampant. The Gallery Show is coming up, where each guild will be judged based on their work and the Curator will choose who gets the Founders’ patronage for the upcoming year- that is, who will be supplied this year with food, money, and other necessities, and who will starve. Val must break the jealous rivalry between the factions and get them to work together instead. In restoring balance to the Air Tribe, the Curator fuses with Greed, Sloth, and Deceit spirits.
The rebellion culminates in the surrounding of the Founders’ lands in the center of the Island, once the Capital. However, a barrier has been set up in the plains, inaccessible to all but Founders and Metal Tribesmen. The plains are barren, with a few Founders’ forts dotting the area thanks to the Spirit Tribe genocide and the betrayal of the Metal Tribe. Val meets the last unassimilated Metal Tribe member and must help her walk through the regrets of her past in order to break into the Capital. The miniboss, the Prophet talks of salvation for the Founders in the creation of new and brighter empire in a world far off, unsettling the heroes.
With the rebellion at its closest, Ambar is worried of the Founders’ progress on the technology and what their motives are. Wandering off into the plains, Val is captured and imprisoned within the Capital by the Founders in hopes that they get some information out of her. She escapes and must battle her way through the Timeless Ruins of the deported Order Tribe as well as the Starscraper of the sealed-away Chaos Tribe, learning about hope and patience as the rebellion needs it. At the top, she faces off against the Scribe, who talks of the Founders’ troubles in running out of resources and the desire they have for more, causing them to create a portal to Earth where they can have more. At their defeat, Val must broadcast a speech to the rebellion with the choices she sends affecting her Virtue for the final battle.
With the final dungeon, Val must go alone in fighting through waves after waves of spirits in the Imperial Palace. There she faces off against the one who started it all: the Founder Emperor, His Imperial Majesty Tredecimus Vitiae. In building a portal to Earth, the magic of Limbo renders their technology useless; however, since spirits are inherently magical, the Emperor starts the fusion project so that supersoldiers can make takeover of Earth simple. He then fuses with 13 hostile spirits of all the vices and morphs into a hideous monster blocking the way of the portal. After his defeat, the Founders all flee, but the portal is finished charging with only one possible use. Val must decide whether to return or stay, and then the epilogue happens.
Depending on how many of the hostile spirits you defeat (there is a set number per area) and which choices you make in the final chapter, the epilogue can come out differently.
If she stays, Val becomes an ambassador for the tribes. Though the Emperor is defeated, his minions still control the Founders Empire elsewhere in Limbo though its hold is falling apart. Some Founders who converted to Virtue decided to stay, though others couldn’t last and left for other lands. The outcome of Alto Pyrenis as a whole depends on how many hostile spirits she has defeated. With a few defeated, the Islanders are left alone by the Founders but the presence of so many hostile spirits makes development difficult, leaving the nine/ten tribes isolated and disunified. The Founders who wanted to stay were kicked off the island due to conflict, leaving them to practice Virtue elsewhere. The Imperial forces attack the weak nation every now and then, but it still remains autonomous. With more defeated but not all, a weak federation forms with Val at its head, still prone to conflict but less so than before. This time, the converted Founders are instead integrated into the remaining tribes, and the Empire leaves the island alone. With all of the spirits defeated, the tribes are unified under a strong democratic government with Val as its eventual head. The new nation is strong enough to influence the Empire into letting the deported Chaos and Order tribesmen return.
If she goes home, she wakes up amongst the wreckage of the plane floating in the ocean; if she defeated only a few hostile spirits, her mother’s jacket can be seen floating in the water, implying her death followed by Val crying and paddling away. With more saved but not all, Val will just look off into the ocean, waiting before rowing herself away. This ending is open to interpretation as to what Val’s mother’s fate was. With all hostile spirits defeated, Val wakes up and sees her mother unconscious next to her, checking her vital signs before rowing off into the distance.
In both cases, the closing scene is a childish scribble of Val and all of her friends.