Tarsier Studios’ Reanimal tells its story through ambiguity, symbolism, and environmental clues. On the surface, it’s a bleak horror journey through a twisted world. Beneath that, it’s a tragic tale about children who interfered with something far beyond their understanding.
The game opens with five children—Boy, Sister, Hood, Bucket, and Bandage—standing around a deep well. The scene abruptly cuts, but this well remains the narrative anchor for everything that follows.
All five children conceal their faces using masks, hoods, or makeshift coverings, deliberately obscuring who they are. Boy stands out immediately due to the noose around his neck, hinting at trauma or a violent past. Their hidden identities create a sense that they are either protecting themselves from something—or hiding from what they have done. Meanwhile, the world surrounding them is already distorted and hostile, suggesting the catastrophe occurred before the player even takes control.
Several questions emerge: What happened at the well? Why are the children separated? And what caused the world to become a nightmare?
The Blood Ritual: The Leading Interpretation
In a key memory sequence, the children gather around a makeshift ritual table resembling a spirit board. Each of them cuts themselves and smears blood across its surface in what appears to be an attempt to summon—or restore—something supernatural.
The prevailing interpretation among players is that they were trying to resurrect Sister.
If this is true, the story shifts dramatically. The children are not innocent victims of an unexplained apocalypse. Instead, they triggered it themselves by performing a forbidden ritual they didn’t understand. The military barricades, collapsed infrastructure, and scattered containment efforts seen throughout the game imply that authorities attempted—and failed—to stop whatever the ritual unleashed.
Sister’s Corruption and the Sheep
After the ritual, Sister begins showing increasingly disturbing symptoms. She experiences recurring hallucinations marked by flashes of red light and suffers sudden, debilitating headaches that leave her immobilized. She repeatedly sees visions of a warped sheep, and eventually, in one of the game’s most unsettling sequences, she vomits out a full-sized sheep that quickly mutates into a monstrous entity.
The sheep functions as a powerful symbol. Traditionally associated with innocence and vulnerability, it gradually transforms into a grotesque predator—mirroring Sister’s own corruption. As the story progresses, the creature grows in size and horror, ultimately consuming the other children.
Earlier in the game, subtle clues foreshadow this transformation. A pig you encounter and comfort reacts with intense fear toward Sister, even when it appears calm around others. This reaction suggests that animals sense the supernatural change within her long before the truth becomes undeniable.
A World Unraveled
The setting looks like a mid-20th-century world that has collapsed under supernatural strain. Environmental storytelling reveals ruined cities filled with abandoned cars and bodies, enormous craters carved into the earth, and military fortifications that ultimately proved useless. The architecture and objects are normal in scale, indicating that this was once a functioning, human world before it was torn apart.
Unlike dreamlike horror settings, this environment was not born from imagination—it was corrupted. Buildings twist in unnatural ways, wildlife mutates into grotesque forms, and reality itself feels unstable. The catastrophe appears systemic rather than localized.
The “Sniffer” enemy is one of the clearest manifestations of this corruption. This creature attempts to replicate humanity by wearing human skin, yet it remains unmistakably inhuman. Its ability to move through bloated corpses suggests that death itself now obeys altered rules, reinforcing the idea that the natural order has been fundamentally disrupted.
The Final Confrontation and Standard Ending
In Chapter 9, players control a tank in a battle against the colossal sheep monster, now grotesquely enlarged after consuming multiple children. After the creature is defeated, Sister is swallowed and travels through its interior, reliving fragmented visions of the ritual.
Sister discovers a dead white rabbit inside a cabin, a symbol that contrasts sharply with the monstrous sheep. Paranormal disturbances intensify in complete darkness before the scene abruptly cuts. She awakens restrained inside a sack, unable to move, as the remaining children drag her back to the well from the opening scene. Humanoid sheep-like figures stand in silent observation, as if witnessing a ceremony. The children then throw Sister into the well, which immediately begins to overflow.
This conclusion strongly suggests that the children recognized Sister as the source of the spreading corruption. Their separation throughout the game may have been intentional, and returning her to the well appears to be their desperate attempt to seal or reverse the damage they caused.
The Secret Ending: The Coffins
Players who collect all five coffins during their playthrough unlock an extended version of the finale.
Here’s a useful guide on how to find them all to get the secret ending:
In this ending, five shadowy figures emerge and surround Sister before the well overflows again. Each figure corresponds directly to one of the coffins collected throughout the game, and each coffin depicts the death of one child. The implication is that these shadow forms represent the spirits of the children.
Rather than providing relief, this ending deepens the tragedy. The appearance of the children’s spirits suggests that they were bound to the same supernatural force they awakened. While their embrace of Sister might indicate release, the overflowing well implies that the damage has already reached an irreversible tipping point.
Interpreting the Story
Although Reanimal deliberately avoids definitive answers, the most widely accepted interpretation unfolds in a tragic sequence of cause and effect. The children performed a forbidden blood ritual in an attempt to resurrect Sister, and while the ritual may have succeeded, it also corrupted her. That corruption spread outward, warping reality itself and transforming the world into the nightmare players explore.
Realizing their mistake too late, the children appear to have died one by one, as depicted in the coffins scattered throughout the game. Throwing Sister back into the well was likely an attempt to close the breach they opened. However, the secret ending strongly implies that their efforts came too late and that the consequences of their actions cannot be undone.
The humanoid sheep witnessing the final act hint at deeper occult forces at work. The children may have reached beyond death and instead connected with something ancient and malevolent. The coffins reinforce the idea that their souls became entangled with that force, trapped within the very catastrophe they created.
Final Thoughts
Reanimal relies on visual storytelling, symbolism, and fragmented memories, trusting players to interpret its meaning.
Three DLC chapters are planned, and while they may expand the lore, Tarsier Studios’ storytelling style suggests that any new information will likely deepen the mystery rather than resolve it completely.
TLDR;
What caused the apocalypse in Reanimal?
The most widely supported interpretation is that the children’s blood ritual to resurrect Sister unleashed supernatural forces that corrupted the world. The game never confirms this outright, leaving room for alternative readings.
Why do the children throw Sister into the well?
It appears to be a final attempt to contain or reverse the catastrophe, suggesting they see her as the epicenter of the spreading corruption.
What do the coffins represent?
Each coffin depicts the death of one child and connects directly to the shadow figures in the secret ending, implying that their spirits were bound to the supernatural force they unleashed.
Does the secret ending mean the world is saved?
The game does not clearly indicate that the world is restored. The overflowing well suggests that the damage may be permanent or that containment ultimately failed.
Will future DLC clarify the story?
While three additional chapters are planned, the studio’s preference for ambiguity suggests that new content may raise as many questions as it answers.
