The Endless Empty

About

The Endless Empty (abbreviated as TEE by fans) is a surreal indie RPG developed by Erik Smith in 2018. The game takes place in the abstracted mind of a dying man and explores the concepts of death and the afterlife. Despite the game's serious undertones, the internet has taken to joking about the central characters of the story, each of which corresponds to a human impulse, such as Anger, Creation, Anxiety, etc.

Online History

The original game was released on Itch.io on Feb. 20, 2018.^[4] The game released on Steam on November 3rd of that year.^[5] In the game, players play as "Static," the last fragment of identity inside the psyche of a musician who had just recently committed suicide navigating its way through the dying mindscape in an attempt to save it.^[1] First joined by Trigger Finger, Static is joined by four additional allies as the story progresses: Anxiety, Creation, Logic, and Anger. These four beings are creators of different realms embodying different aspects of the human mind.^[3][2]

Throughout the game the player is presented with different choices that will affect the form Static assumes later on. The players on each team must choose a class to play, each with their own set of abilities and special weapons.

Before the game's full release, Erik released a demo version on rpgmaker.net on July 23, 2017.^[7] On October 17, 2017, the popular Youtuber and Twitch streamer Vinesauce Vinny played the demo during a larger livestream of "weird RPG Maker games," which was viewed over 151,000 times on Youtube.^[8]

It quickly picked up a cult following, and within a few months, a small fanbase had sprung up around many of the individual characters in the game. In particular, The Endless Empty picked up a following on Twitter ^[6] and Discord ,^[9] where fans created memes and shitposts about the various in-game characters and events (examples shown below).

Fan Art

TEE has attracted an active and artistic fanbase, despite its relatively small size. Works of fan art can be found on sites including DeviantArt and Twitter (examples shown below).

Search Interest

External References