Story of A Room Beyond explained

Strong spoiler warning

This page explains and reveals the whole plot idea. Read it not before you played the game as this knowledge breaks the dramaturgy of the story.

During unspecified events before the game's actual storyline, Chris (the player) became possessed by demons. His family tried multiple classic treatments and therapies, but none could help him. In desperation they finally decided to try a spiritual approach. They ask shaman Sam, who is a friend of the family for a long time to perform an ancient exorcism in order to bring Chris back to real life.

Almost the whole game happens inside Chris' world of thought while his body is on the edge between life and death. In the opening scene of the game we see Sam who starts the rite by praying to the (american-)indian gods for help. A moaning of Chris' possessed body can be heard.

The player then starts the adventure by finding himself trapped in a cage - which design looks a bit like a dream catcher. This moment is a symbol for what happens: Chris is trapped (in the spiritual world), but there is also a force trying to capture him.

All persons appearing across the game are the spirits or demons who manifest typical belief sets. Each demon cultivates their dogma, also trying to keep the dreamer (Chris) locked in the intermediate world.

Actually the Fog Wanderer is shaman Sam who tries to find Chris who is lost in the foggy world of minds. Knowing about the possession Sam tries to defeat as many demons as he can find during his search for Chris' essential soul.

While travelling deeper through his own world of thoughts Chris' memories start to recover slowly. The longer he stays inside his dreams, the more increases surrealism. The last demon that Chris meets is the one that is the least dangerous, because Chris sanity is getting clearer. Gara does not betray her/hisself and his/her fellow-demons by revealing the truth directly, but s/he gives many ambiguous hints that point to the relativity of perception and judgment. Cthulhu, a manifestation of one of Chris' childhood memories is the most explicit hint for that we are not in reality, but in a fantasy world.

So in short: The whole game is about an exorcism that is told from the spirits' point of view.

There are some major plot twists during the game:

• The wanderer is good, not bad.
• The wanderer tries to help you get home, not to hunt and harm you.
• The people are the true ghosts, the ghost (Wanderer) a living person.
• The player is "Chris", not "Sam". When finding the business card of "Sam, the ghost hunter" it is a misinterpretation that the player is the hunter. The card is actually one of the memory fragments that appear as Chris' amnesia is slowly fading.