You awake inside the Shinkansen, tasked to reach car 0. It sounds simple enough, but things get trickier when the subtle anomalies come flooding in. Here’s how to get all endings in Shinkansen 0.
Inspired by I’m on Observation Duty and The Exit 8, Shinkansen 0 is the latest short horror experience from popular indie developer Chilla’s Art. This short tale develops as you progress through the bullet train’s cars, uncovering the dark reason behind your looping. With two endings in Shinkansen 0, you won’t understand its story until you learn of the personal injury that stopped the bullet train in its tracks.
How to get all endings in Shinkansen 0
There are two endings in Shinkansen 0, alongside six achievements. One acts as the default ending, with little information delivered on Shinkansen‘s story. The second ending reveals the reason for the train’s looping and the fate of our characters and includes music in the credits (indicating this is the canon ending).
Let’s dive into how to unlock both endings in Shinkansen 0. Warning for spoilers ahead.
Shinkansen 0: Ending one guide
The first ending is achieved simply by beating the game. You must make it through the normal and green cars, reaching the Conductor’s Room and pushing the button.
Here are the rules for Shinkansen 0:
- You need to make it from car seven to car zero.
- Check each car to determine whether an anomaly is present: Anomalies are irregularities in the car. They can be subtle changes to the chairs and posters or more obvious irregularities like new characters and behavior changes from pre-existing characters inside the car.
- The area between each car (including the WC) cannot spawn anomalies.
- If an anomaly is present, only one can spawn at a time.
- Anomalies shouldn’t repeat themselves, but it can happen. I saw the reclining chair anomaly six consecutive times. Anomalies may repeat if you’ve nearly found them all.
- Normal car rules: Go forward if there isn’t an anomaly, backward if there is.
- Green car rules: Go back if there isn’t an anomaly, forward if there is. The ghost will kill you if you make three mistakes.
- Car zero can display an anomaly. The Conductor’s Room only follows the car with an arrow on the floor and not in car zero.
Upon reaching the Conductor’s Room in the green car, push the button and exit through the open train doors. Go through the white light, illuminating your exit to get ending one. This ending reveals no proper conclusion to the story. Head back into the game to get the second ending. Luckily, you can continue your game and select “after stopping the train” to jump to the second ending.
Shinkansen 0: Ending two guide
You need to head all the way to the normal car to start the second ending. Start after stopping the train inside the Conductor’s Room and run back to the normal car through the seven green cars you previously went through. Anomalies won’t appear here as the train has stopped. You will find Naoki’s sister is finally awake. Here, you both come up with a plan to stop the loop once and for all, but you need to choose the “normal side” when the prompt appears.
After ending your conversation with the sister and choosing to run to the normal side, continue going in the same direction you went in to reach the normal car. On your way to the Conductor’s Room on the normal car side of the Shinkansen, you will be chased by the bullet train ghost. This entity can mess with the structure of the train, closing the walls in on you and moving the chair layout to slow your movement.
Escape the pursuer by reaching the Conductor’s Room and pushing the button for the second and final time. With the siblings reunited, their sad fate is revealed. The rules of the Shinkansen work similarly to Chilla’s Art Ghost Train, where the passengers of the train are heading to the afterlife.
The personal injury announcement at the end of the normal car is revealed as Naoki and his sister. The accident on the train forced it to stop. The looping existed as our protagonist wasn’t meant to be aboard the bullet train—he suffered from a deep vein thrombosis instead but returned to normalcy while the siblings moved on.
