spoilers for flynns route
Ok, that ending had me more intrigued than shocked or devastated. it took me a second to realize that Flynn was being transformed into the weird monster thing until he was noticed by Tj, which also implies the fact that whatever being was in his head, whoever "sam" was, has some sort of temporal abilities, as he also appeared to the young Jenna. I'm still confused on how Chase had any part in Sydneys death, yet doesn't remember it, or just refuses to. also love how that just randomly put Adastra in there. tell me if Flynn had another ending, because from what I saw, there wasn't a lot of space to get to another one. also, does this mean Flynns route is the cannon ending, as it starts Arches and has influence on the past, before there is any choice for endings? I'm doing Tj's route next so, hopefully can't get that much worse, right?
not really, people just over complicate the timeline shit and that isn't entirely the fanbase's fault since this game encourages using context clues and deep analysis to understand certain aspects better (especially the characters).
The way timelines work in this game is the same as any other vn with multiple routes but no cannon one. There's no cannon route in echo, they work together to tell a single story and arches decided to tell a story that takes place in neither of them. The devs confirmed that the events of echo did happen before arches with the crew and all, but not in the way it did in any of the routes.
wait a minute, haven't creators themself said that Echo and TSR are multiverse and every route indeed happened?
That is why there is no "true ending", because every single one and none at the same time are those true endings?
Edit: so, I looked a little in discord q & a and actually I had asked this very question about Echo's multiverse. George said that every ending is canon and happens ;)
TJ's route was the only route that completely shattered me the first time, though maybe it's because I have a thing for TJ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It might hit even harder if you've played Flynn's before, so you're in for a treat!
Fair warning, don't expect the game to get any better, I had to take a water break because the TJ's ending was getting too much for me. Also, you might come to hate a certain character afterwards...
Happy reading!