House of Ashes – Ending scene and mid-credits scene variants
Let’s talk about the endings and mid-credits scenes in The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes.
Ending: Everyone’s alive/there are survivors
The vampires will start scrambling for cover as their flesh gets burned. But, the moment they head outside, the helicopters will blast them with machine guns. Everyone who survived will head outside the hut. Salim is walking behind the group, but Jason vouches for him. The helicopter pilot will radio in to say how many friendlies are with you.
Ending: Salim imprisoned vs. Salim returns home
For the first variant, you’ll get this if only Salim is alive and air support was called. The US forces will still think that he’s a hostile combatant. They’ll cuff him before taking him into custody.
Meanwhile, there’s also a second variant, which is only possible if you made the right choices with the Air Support bearing. In The Briefing, you can’t call for air support. Then, you need to ensure that Merwin dies before The Signal so he can’t repair the radio. The entire team can survive your playthrough. Since air support won’t arrive immediately, Salim will walk away after the Daylight finale. You’ll get the “Into the Sunset” achievement, too.
Curator scene
Depending on how you fared in House of Ashes, the Curator will either chide or congratulate you. He’ll also add tidbits about the surviving characters (which I’ll detail below). Lastly, he’ll browse his bookshelf and give a hint regarding the next game in the series.
Mid-credits scene: Everyone’s alive/there are survivors who were “rescued” by the US military
The mid-credits scene shows two people (Brooks and Miller) who are wearing hazmat suits. They’re inside a secret facility where the survivors are being held. You’ll see them being questioned one by one:
- Jason – The two are wondering why he allied with an Iraqi soldier. Jason tells them that Salim’s worth more than their sorry asses.
- Salim – Salim wants to see his son. The two mysterious individuals ask him how he managed to kill the alien vampires with a metal spear.
- Nick – Nick is also frustrated since he’s being interrogated.
- Eric – They talk about how Eric’s satellite project failed to find chemical weapons.
- Winterfold and Sample X-1172 – Brooks and Miller talk about how what happened here “is like Winterfold all over again.” There’s also a sample of something called X-1172.
- Rachel – Finally, they tell Rachel that she’ll be debriefed soon. She’s angry because the two can’t get their priorities straight.
It looks like Brooks and Miller are part of a secret government cover-up, something alluded to in Man of Medan. Although the alien vampires are “unlike anything they’ve seen before,” they’re also unfazed by these creatures (even talking about hotpots and gatherings). As for Winterfold, you can learn more about this location in our secrets guide. There are a couple of clues that point to a location somewhere in the UK.
Mid-credits scene: Everyone’s dead/there are characters who died, cocooned Rachel variant, plagued Jason variant, and Salim’s escape variant
The key difference here, assuming there are characters who died during your House of Ashes run, is that Brooks and Miller will simply look at their corpses before moving on to the next room. The rest of the mid-credits scene will remain identical to what was mentioned above.
Another key difference can be seen based on the Ultraviolet and Infected bearings. If Eric is dead or you don’t have the UV light/wand, then there’s no way to get the parasite out of Rachel. The group will instead place her in the goop/cocoon to keep her alive. During the mid-credits scene, you’ll see that she’s been rescued and the parasite has been removed.
Likewise, it’s possible for Jason to have a different scene. If Jason accidentally inhaled the fossilized vampire’s remains in The City (i.e., failed the QTE during the part where he goads Salim to touch the supposedly “dead” creature), he’ll be afflicted with a disease. Although he can survive the ordeal, Brooks and Miller will say that he won’t have long to live. Thanks to Zell in the comments section for notifying me.
Lastly, the mid-credits scene will be different if you didn’t call for air support and if Salim survived. Since Salim was able to walk away without getting captured, you won’t see anyone in his room.
Is there a post-credits scene?
As cited in our 13th premonition guide, I didn’t see a post-credits scene about The Devil In Me, the next game in the series. However, you can watch the mid-credits scene in our YouTube video below:
Update: It seems that the review build that I was playing did not include a post-credits scene at all, and it may have been added via a patch after the game’s release. As such, you can watch the teaser trailer for The Devil In Me uploaded by YouTuber BigDaddyJende:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj8t_Xpf6TM
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes is available via Steam. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.
