Quick Links
Night in the Woodsis a deeply-moving narrative adventure. From love to loss and everything in between, the story uses anthropomorphic animals to touch on every aspect of the human experience.
Related:Night In The Woods: Should You Hang Out With Bea Or Gregg?
If you’ve made it through your first playthrough and still have questions, we don’t blame you. It can be tricky to pull everything together, and you might even havemissed some storylinesentirely. What does the Cult have to do with Mae, and why did she leave college in the first place?
What Is The Cult?
Over the course of the game, it is suggested that 20-year-old protagonistMae Borowskiis suffering a steadymental decline. Her dreams are littered with eerie symbolism as she races across geometric playgrounds and cityscapes, searching for a light in the darkness - and, potentially, being watched by an unnerving presence. Ever sinceshe witnesses someone getting abductedon Halloween, and off the back of the disappearance of herchildhood friend Casey Hartley, something has been brewing in the sleepy town of Possum Springs.
What Happened To Casey?
Toward the end of Night in the Woods, Mae is flanked by friends Gregg, Angus, and Bea as she finally comes face to face withthe cultbehind it all. Possum Springs was once a thriving industrial haven, with a community of miners, its own sawmill, and a shopping mall that actually used to be cool; the cultists claim that in order to keep the town somewhat above water,they have been sacrificing soulsto an entity they callThe Black Goat.When confronted by Mae and asked if they were responsible for Casey’s disappearance, the leader of the cult admits thathe was thrown down the mineto feed the goat, deemed a disposable deadbeat.
As sad as this is, it really gets interesting when the cultists explain that although the entity only requires sustenance every so often, somemembers of their society hear its call. This makes Mae think back to her own supposedly paranormal experiences since returning to Possum Springs, both in her dreams and whilst awake.
How Is Mae Connected To The Cult?
When the cult divulges that certain members have hallucinated, heard, or otherwise communicated with their eldritch deity, Mae seems stricken. She herself had a run-in with agiant catlike god, an ominous interaction that assured her of her own insignificance in the grand scheme of the world; could this have been a manifestation of the black goat? And if so,what is the linkbetween her family and this messed up murder cult?
Red In Tooth And Claw
If you pursue thecrawlspace subplot, nagging Mae’s father each evening to move the boxes from the crawlspace so that you might explore it, you’ll find a bizarre surprise. Aweird little toothis hiding inside the safe, stashed away like some sort of prized possession. If you hand it to your father, he is deeply moved by the gift, suggesting there is agreater significanceto it.
You’ll find out what that is during yourghost hunt with Bea, which will bring you to thelibraryto conduct some research into the town’s paranormal history.
Don’t be so quick to discard the non-spooky newspaper clippings, however, as you’ll come across aparticularly unnervingstory:
Grandpa Borowski Might Have Been In The Cult
The story tells of amacabre secret societyof workers who rose up against their toxic boss. After the boss punched out one of their colleague’s last teeth, the workers took vengeance - as well as all of his pearly whites.Teethbecame asymbol of this movement, representing the bond between its members and the lengths they might go to in order to protect each other.
As described in the clipping, the tooth Mae found in the safe had been hidden away somewhere secret. Why else wouldMae’s grandfatherhide a tooth in the crawlspace if he weren’t a part of the secret organisation? And what if the organisation later branched out and became the sacrificial cult?
This could beMae’s link to the Black Goat, with her family’s significance in the collective giving her a greater connection to the mind of this unseen deity; if it exists, of course.
What Happens To Mae?
One of the questions you might have at the end of Night in the Woods iswhat is actually up with Mae?
We know thatshe dropped out of college for reasons undisclosed, something she skirts around neatly for the majority of the game. However if you follow Bea’s friendship storyline, Mae will eventually open up about her scary experiences with dissociation anddepersonalisation.
During a conversation with Bea, Mae talks about the increased stress and pressure of college putting her into an altered mental state, with humans becomingfaceless shapesthat she could not discern as living, breathing people. She says how college might have triggered it on a larger scale, but how it actuallyhappened once during her childhoodwhen she ended up attacking and stabbing a classmate.
Mae’s Mental Illness
Once Mae uncovers the secrets of the death cult, it feels like a moment ofcatharsis. Her depersonalisation and the cult seem intrinsic to each other, and with all supposition stripped away and the truth laid bare, both Mae and her friends can finally start to move forward.
Of course, this doesn’t explain what the team does next, now armed with the knowledge of their town’s dark history. But as the game wraps up with just another band practice session, like any other day in Possum Springs, thisopen endingsuggests hope on the horizon for Mae and her gang of misfits.
