How many Bandersnatch endings are there? Are there any secret Bandersnatch endings? It’s easy to reach the credits of Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones’ cryptic choose-your-own-adventure title and feel a bit confounded. The latest entry to the Black Mirror series rejects a linear structure as your decisions take you on a course that twists, turns, and goes back on itself in a way that’s difficult to decipher.
In other words, you can’t really trace the show/game’s narrative structure in a straight line. Instead, you’d need a complex flow chart and plenty of restarts in order to figure out all the ten possible Bandersnatch endings. There’s four and a half hours of footage, but viewers typically spend less than half of that in a normal run – so there’s plenty more for most people to see.
Set in the 80s, Bandersnatch sees a young programmer, Stefan Butler, adapting the titular book into his own adventure game for fictional publisher, Tuckersoft. And, as you’ll expect if you’ve watched any Black Mirror episodes, he doesn’t just hand the game in on time, get paid, and live happily ever after. Rather, things get dark and psychological very fast. Anyway, if you want to see everything this experimental media mash-up has to offer, you’re in the right place.
Here are all the different Bandersnatch endings and how to get them:
How to get all Bandersnatch endings
Bandersnatch challenges you with a tough story to parse if you just watch it once, let alone if you try to string together every narrative thread. That’s precisely what determined Redditor scrixie did, however, so all credit to them. Below is the work-in-progress flowchart they have created to visually represent the different paths you can take. Naturally it’s rife with Bandersnatch spoilers, so be sure to experience the story at least once for yourself before seeking out all the endings.
As you can see in the embedded post above, while the choices are binary for the most part, the consequences you’ll face will diverge. For instance, sometimes you get the same result whatever action you pick. On other occasions you’ll get a ‘full’ conclusion which resolves Stefan’s story and the credits will roll. These work differently to the ‘soft’ denouements that revert you back to a previous decision. These endings aren’t to be dismissed, however: these types of ending amount to some of the cool secret Bandersnatch endings you can enjoy.
Moreover, as indicated in the top-left of the chart, there are certain key decisions or “qualities” that completely change your story for the rest of the game; if you allow Colin to jump to his LSD-addled demise or successfully opened the safe in your house, other decisions can be affected.
Meta Head
This isn’t an ending quite like the others as we don’t know what happens with Stefan’s game, but both endpoints are seriously cool. This is the point where Stefan is wising up to some outside control and you can send him a cryptic clue to his computer screen. This happens as long as you’ve refused Tuckersoft’s offer, shouted at your dad, hit your desk, and picked up the family photo.
Your choice of clue is either the White Bear symbol – referring to Black Mirror’s horrific episode two, series two – or ‘Netflix’. Choose the latter and all sorts of fun begins. After teasing him with some anachronistic hints as to what the 21st century streaming service is, exactly, Stefan sees Dr Haynes again.
In a surreal sequence you can either choose the ‘soft’ ending by instigating a massive fight between Stefan, Haynes, and your dad, or go for the ‘full’ one by clambering out the window. From there it all gets very meta, and you need to see it.
A Pill a Day…
Here Stefan finishes the game, nobody dies, but the game gets a shameful 0/5 by the smarmy TV reviewer, Robin. There are endings in which Bandersnatch reviews better, but they get grisly – scroll down to the ‘Choppy Waters’ ending for more on that.
For this to happen you must refuse Tuckersoft, shout at dad, and not follow Colin outside Haynes’ clinic. When you’re offered drugs by the good doctor, take them and all will be good. The Bandersnatch game might turn out badly, but there’s always next time.
P.A.C.man
If you take LSD with Colin, he’ll tell you all about his ‘Program and Control’ (PAC) theory that society is characterised by constant surveillance. While at the time it might sound like conspiratorial jibber jabber, one of the Bandersnatch endings makes this a reality.
Before that can even happen you’ll have refused Tuckersoft’s offer, shouted at dad, and followed Colin. Then, after watching Colin die, you must ensure you throw away the drugs you’re given by doctor Haynes, not flush them. Hit the desk and pick up the book, and then you’ll have the option to key in ‘PAC’ into your dad’s safe. This reveals your dad’s participation in the secretive scheme that has watched Stefan his entire life. He then kills his father and is consequently imprisoned. On a sunnier note, Stefan’s game get a reasonable 2.5/5.
Choppy Waters
This is an ending the corporate bods at Tuckersoft will be happy with, but it comes at a rather gruesome cost. To get this bloody ending you need to refuse Tuckersoft’s offer, shout at dad, not follow Colin, throw or flush the drugs, and hit your desk. Then, when given the chance to send Stefan a message from the future, choose the White Bear logo – it looks a bit like a chunky, pixelated lobster.
Then there’s the small matter of offing your dad. And, if you can stomach that, you need Stefan to hide the evidence by, er, chopping him up into teeny tiny pieces. Lovely. Then Stefan’s unceremoniously lobbed in jail but, on the plus side, his game gets its best rating at 5/5 and is revived by Colin’s daughter in the future. For many this is the best Bandersnatch ending.
Accept the offer
If you get this ending, Bandersnatch is almost over before its begun. The third choice is the first to have any real impact as Stefan is offered help and desk space by the publisher to help him finish his game. It might be the tidiest of finishes in terms of bodycount, but Stefan’s game gets slapped with a brutal 0/5 rating. Ouch.
Hallucinogenic Heights
Everything goes a tad wrong in this messy conclusion. If you refuse Tuckersoft’s offer, shout at dad – rather than pouring tea over your PC – and follow Colin outside Dr Haynes’ office, you’ll have a disturbing choice to make.
Read more: Discover more experimental experiences with the best indie games on PC
During your evening with the celebrated developer you’ll take LSD with him in his penthouse flat. Essentially Stefan gets high, in multiple senses. This triggers a choice of which of the pair should jump off Colin’s balcony. Choose Stefan and, quite obviously, it’s all over. The game is then completed by someone from Tuckersoft and it reviews terribly.
Toy Story
You’ll need to satisfy a fair few requirements to get this climax, but at least you get to time travel. You’ll need to refuse Tuckersoft, talk about Stefan’s mum with Dr Haynes, shout at your dad, follow Colin, get him to jump off his building instead of Stefan, visit the doctor again, throw away the drugs she gives you without flushing them, and pick up your book rather than the family photo.
Then you’ll be able to key in ’TOY’ as the password for the family safe. That gives you the chance to find your toy in the past – the one that delayed your mum and forced her to get the later train that crashed and killed her when Stefan was five. Now that you have your toy in the past you can choose to go with her but, for obvious reasons, that means the Bandersnatch game never exists.
Dead and Buried
If you choose all the same options up to the point where you decide how to dispose of your dad in the ‘Choppy Waters’ conclusion, you have the opportunity to make events transpire a little differently. If you choose to bury rather than dismember him, all permutations from here will end in Stefan going to jail and Bandersnatch not being released.
If you don’t want Stefan to finish the game, Thakur from Tuckersoft visits and everything ends there. However, if you do complete it, Colin or his girlfriend Kitty will turn up. Either way, a neighbourhood hound digs up your father’s corpse, and you’re caught muddy-handed.
Secret Bandersnatch endings
Just in case things weren’t confusing enough, there are plenty of devious easter eggs and secret Bandersnatch endings that will have only been uncovered by the most indefatigable of Black Mirror fans. These are the endings few will have seen, so here’s how you can see each one.
Family Photo
When you make a choice and are subsequently sent back to make the same decision all over again it’s unlikely you’d choose the same answer. This is precisely why this missable climax will have passed many viewers by. Prompted by the Netflix tweet below, Bandersnatch completists rushed to try picking up the family photo twice at roughly the halfway point.
think you’ve seen everything there is to see in bandersnatch? try picking up the family photo, ~twice~
— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) January 8, 2019
Repeat this choice and you’ll get to see a cameo from Bandersnatch’s author, Jerome F. Davies. This is, in effect, a soft ending: once the bearded writer appears in Stefan’s dream you’ll be forced to go back and pick up his own book instead.
Nohzdyve
This is the hidden Bandersnatch ending only the most determined Mirror fans will have found. If you follow the very specific set of actions performed by The Wrap below, you’ll be ready for the next stage. It’s yet to be established which part explicitly leads to this ending, but this is the best means of accessing the mysterious content we know about so far:
- Sugar puffs
- Thompson twins
- Accept
- Accept
- Go back
- Refuse
- Yes
- No
- The Bermuda Triangle
- Shout at dad
- Visit Dr. Haynes
- Pull Earlobe
- Take them
- Follow Colin
- Yes
- Stefan
- Go back
- Colin
- Flush them
- Hit desk
- Pick up book
- PAC
- Throw tea over computer
- P.A.C.S.
- 20541
- Who’s there?
- Netflix
- Try to explain
- Tell him more
- Fuck yeah
- Fight her
- Kick him in the balls
- Who’s there?
- White Bear symbol
- Back off
- Kill dad
- Bury body
- Yes
- He jumped
- Chop or bury?
- Chop up body
- Destroy computer
- Pick up photo
- White Bear symbol
- Chop up body
- Destroy computer
- Get rabbit from dad
- PAX
- White Bear symbol
- Chop up body
- Destroy computer
- Get rabbit from dad
- Toy
- Yes
If you’ve followed these steps correctly you should be back to the point when Stefan is riding the bus to visit Tuckersoft for the first time. Now, however, you somehow pull out the picture of the finished Bandersnatch game, and play it.
A curious screeching sound is emitted which, on its own, is a rather bizarre way to conclude this experimental yarn. That was until some clever folk worked out that the sound can be used as data for a ZX Spectrum. If you run the audio through the appropriate emulator you get a QR code with the White Bear logo at the centre. You can see the animation you get when you put the audio through the emulator in the video below.
Scan the QR code and you’ll be sent to the Tuckersoft official site. Usually it doesn’t do much apart from detailing the history of the fictitious company and their other titles – all references to previous Black Mirror episodes. But, once you’ve scanned the code, a new entry appears: ‘Nohzdyve’.
Named after the first episode of series three, Nohzdyve is also the game you see Colin designing early in Bandersnatch. On the Tuckersoft site, though, you can download and play the whole thing, provided you have a ZX Spectrum emulator.
The end result is an endless platformer arcade game a little like Downwell that sees you avoiding various hazards to gather pickups. While it’s an experience that’s not exactly going to trouble the best PC games you’ll play, it’s still an extremely cool Bandersnatch easter egg.
Related: Agonise over even more tough choices with the best adventure games on PC
There you have it, all Bandersnatch endings you can get. Hopefully that’s cleared things up a bit and helped you decide whether you got the one you wanted. By all accounts, the inherent bleakness of the series means that most conclusions were inevitably going to be a bit on the disturbing side. But, if that’s your bag, consider checking out the best horror games on PC. They’ll require a little more interaction than Bandersnatch, so hopefully you’ll get any trembling under control. In the meantime, we’re counting down the days until Netflix’s next inventive dose of interactive media makes its way to our monitors.
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