The bleak adventure Inside is filled with mysteries, and one of the biggest involves a locked door hidden in a bunker most players won’t ever find early in the story. By pulling together resources and working together, the voracious Inside community figured out the bunker code. Now we know what’s through that door — a hidden alternate ending.
Getting there isn’t easy. You’ll have to find fourteen secrets, each with an achievement assigned to their location, and destroy all fourteen strange devices. It’s very likely you’ll miss every one of these devices in your first playthrough; they’re that well hidden. Some of the areas feature tricky puzzles, and all are incredibly tough to locate without tips. Learn where to go, what to do, and every step of this massive secret with the complete guide showing you how to earn the alternate ending to Inside.
How to Unlock the Secret Ending
To unlock the hidden alternate ending to Inside, you’ll need to find fourteen devices and destroy them. These devices are spread throughout the entire story. Always hidden in some obscure space or out-of-the-way alcove, they often lead to interesting spots that give your unnamed protagonist another look at his barren world.
This guide will also double as a 100% achievement guide — all of Inside’s achievements are linked with these secret locations. You won’t earn a single achievement for completing the game normally. If you’ve checked out the achievements for Inside, here’s how to unlock the whole list.
- Secret #01: Murky Waters
- Location: After escaping the three dogs and diving into the water below, dive into the water and swim left to find the first secret device. To disable the strange orb, interact and pull in the opposite direction until the machine shorts out. This is right before you dive under the water to avoid the flashlights of the men on the overpass, and reach the cornfield.
- Secret #02: Field Research
- Location: There’s a secret bunker door on the far end of the cornfield. To find it, repeatedly press [X] as you move — the child will pull open the door once you reach it. Climb down and enter the red-glowing vent on the left to discover another derelict device. This bunker is also where you’ll find the alternate ending — remember to return here once you’ve disabled all fourteen devices.
- Secret #03: Wee Wee Wee
- Location: In the farm, after solving the puzzle with the blowing machine and climbed onto the barn rooftop, you’ll need to jump down onto a cart filled with dead carcasses. Push the cart left and climb onto it, then interact with the loose boards on the barn wall on the left until you can enter.
- Secret #04: Left Behind
- Location: After solving the puzzle with the crane and wood, push the safe from the ledge so that it smashes through the covered floor. Drop in through the hole, and look left for a vent cover. Pull the vent off and enter the passage to find a small room containing this device.
- Secret #05: Obscure Foundations
- Location: Inside the city with the marching people, you’ll pass a large billboard with a backwards “C” and slide down the ramp to reach the next building on the right. Jump mid-slide to catch the pipe, but instead of climbing up, choose to continue down. At the bottom of the alley, you’ll find a hidden device.
- Secret #06: Friends in Low Places
- Location: Much further in the story, the kid will acquire a submarine. In the flooded facility, the child will need to use the submarine to smash through the cracked wall so he can slip through and reach the controls to open the large bunker doors. Once the door is open, return to the submarine and jump through, moving right to bash through red double doors with a wood beam. Entering a sunken stairwell, move down until you spot a cargo container with a sliver of light. Bash the container left to reveal the entrance to this device.
- Puzzle Solution: To solve the puzzle, use the mind-control device to move the foreground man to stand on top of your submarine. Return to your submarine, then jump toward the mind-control device suspended over the water to connect the drone. Now you can return to the left control device and move the background drone to the device, where he can disable it.
- Secret #07: A Tableau
- Location: After escaping the swimming creature and blasting through the rooftop, you’ll arrive at the exterior of the facility. To the right, you’ll have to beach the submarine to continue inland — go left instead and smash the support pipes beneath the ladder. This will take multiple crashes. Once the rubble falls down, climb up to the high ledge and disable the device.
- Secret #08: Pack Mentality
- Location: In the giant facility that require 20 bodies to open the exit door, gain the mind-control device helmet, then move to the lower-left puzzle room. Free the prisoner drones from the hanging cage, then backtrack right to the ladder embedded in the wooden supports. Use the drones to help tear down the wooden supports, revealing a secret cave.
- Puzzle Solution: This cave is filled with killer dogs. To hold them at bay, grab the lit torch and pull it off the pillar. Take the torch with you — as long as you’re facing the dogs, they’ll back away. Don’t leave your back exposed for too long, and chase the dogs slightly to keep them further away from you.
- Secret #09: Respite
- Location: In the next facility, you’ll encounter the swimming creature for a second time after opening the large circular safe door. Dropping into the water, lure the swimming creature further right by dipping into the water under the hatch, above the red door button. Once the creature is lured right, return to the left side and swim left to find a secret passage.
- Secret #10: Unfathomable
- Location: Once the child wakes up deep in the water and can now breath indefinately, swim up and through the office, all the way to the massive area with the giant blowing fans entrance. Before swimming through the fans, swim down and left. Pull both lock release to open the huge bulkhead and access another new device.
- Secret #11: Clockwork
- Location: Climbing out of the water past the spinning fans, you’ll find a shallow pool where body parts are disposed of. The next room contains a puzzle with a wheel you’ll turn to move a platform to the ladder on the right. Adjust the platform so it’s facing directly north (12:00 on the clock) then return to the body disposal area. Right where the dead bodies are, swim down to discover a secret passage has opened up.
- Secret #12: Room for Reflection
- Location: In the strange room where corpses are suspended in water upside-down, you’ll need to solve a puzzle to reach the water high above. Get the large square jet-box up to the experimentation room by closing the shutter door, then circle around to the entrance. Next, move the loose jet-box all the way to the right, and ride it to press a dimly lit red button. This opens a new path to the next device.
- Secret #13: Office Space
- Location: This is the trickiest derelict to reach. After passing through the abandoned office and collecting more drones, look in the room with an impressive view of the main facility as people run toward the open doors far below. There’s a black pillar in this break room that blocks a hanging rope. Remember this for later. Once you have the elevator back up at the break room, get 3-4 drones to join you inside the elevator, and leave 3-4 on top of the elevator. This can be accomplished by quickly running into the elevator and pressing the button so only some are with you inside the life. Once the drones are separated, press the elevator button again. Ride up to the break room and have your drones throw you up to the rope. Climb, then drop down into the waiting hands of your second bath of drones, using them to throw you up to the final achievement device.
- Secret #14: Final Device [Bunker Door Code]
- Location: The last device is found in the last facility. Enter the testing room where all the scientists are looking through the windows on the right. Grab the cart and use it to climb up above the square glass enclosures. Open the grating and sneak through the narrow vent until you reach a maintenance ladder. Instead of climbing down, climb up! This path leads to a massive derelict device. Enter it and pull to disable it — the strange board on the background displays a code, and once the device is disabled, will show only one light — the second light, the secret in the bunker.
Once you’ve unplugged all fourteen devices, select ‘LOAD’ and return to the cornfield sequence. Open the bunker where Secret #02 is located, climb down, and move right to the mystery door.
If you’ve disabled the devices, a white light will shine in the corner with the bunker door and switch. Manipulate the switch, and move the handle in these directions. Input the code visible on the board shown in Secret #14.
- Bunker Door Code: Left, Left, Left, Up, Up, Right, Left, Right, Right, Right, Up, Up, Up, Right
The door will open. Follow the path through the cavern until you reach a strange laboratory. In the far right corner, there’s another device plugged into the wall. Manipulate it — it might take two tries — to finally disable the central machine. The ending follows.
What does this all mean? We don’t entirely know. If you have a theory, tell us all about it in the comments section! We want to know your thoughts on this strange, disturbing, and fascinating game.
