To the Moon

Story

Sigmund Corp. uses technology that can create artificial memories. They offer this as a "wish fulfillment service" for people on their deathbed. As these artificial memories clash with the patient's real memories, the procedure is only legal for people who have little time left to live. Sigmund Corp. employees, Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts, are tasked with fulfilling the lifelong dream of the dying Johnny Wyles. Johnny wants to go to the moon, although he doesn't know why. The doctors engage in an interactive compilation of his memories and travel backwards through his life with the help of memorabilia. With each jump to an important moment in Johnny's memories, they learn more about him and what brought him to his current life situation, including his largely unhappy marriage to his childhood sweetheart River. When they arrive at his childhood, the doctors try to convey his desire to go to the moon. It is assumed that Johnny's mind creates new memories based on this wish and he dies believing that he has lived without regret. However, Johnny's mind does not create the new memories as planned. Dr. Watts and Dr. Rosalene must solve the problem in order to grant Johnny's last wish to fly to the moon. Eventually it turns out that Johnny and River met at a fair as children. They looked up at the night sky and invented a constellation: a rabbit with the moon for a belly. The two agreed to meet at the same place the next year, with Johnny promising that they would "meet again on the moon" if he forgot or got lost. That night, Johnny gives River a toy platypus, which River cherishes for the rest of her life. Shortly afterwards, Johnny's twin brother Joey is killed in an accident. Johnny's mother gave him beta blockers so that he would no longer remember the tragic event and forget his first encounter with River. He later met her again by chance and eventually married her. River only realized later that he had forgotten their meeting at the fair. (Johnny confessed that he had approached her at school because she was different and revealed that he thought that was their first encounter). River, who was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome as an adult (although this is never directly mentioned, the game refers to Tony Attwood, who has written numerous books about Asperger's), didn't tell Johnny directly about their first encounter; instead, she tried to bring back his memories indirectly by cutting her hair and making paper bunnies, including a two-tone one representing the constellation they invented when they first met, combined with the blue and yellow dress she wore at their wedding. River failed to remind Johnny of her before she died, leaving him with lingering feelings of guilt and an inexplicable desire to travel to the moon. In the present, Rosalene and Watts eventually implant a memory sequence in which Joey doesn't die and becomes a popular author, while Johnny doesn't meet River again until they work together at NASA. As the comatose Johnny begins to die in real life, he imagines going on a moon mission with River. During the launch, River holds out his hand. The moon appears through a window of the spaceship and Johnny takes her hand while his heart monitor stops responding. In the epilogue, Johnny and River finally marry and build the same house Johnny and River lived in in real life and retire. Back in the real world, Rosalene and Watts look at Johnny's grave, which is next to River's grave. They reveal to viewers that Johnny left the house to his caregiver Lily. Rosalene receives a phone call, and the two go to see their next patient. As Watts leaves, he stops and the screen briefly flashes red, just like when Johnny was in pain. Watts takes some painkillers and then walks on.