Heartfall A Tale in Three Lives Endings: All 12 Routes and How to Unlock Them

Heartfall A Tale in Three Lives endings are the reason so many players replay a story that initially looks like a short, linear narrative detour. One wrong line of dialogue in the village — a joke taken back, a creeper led a few blocks too far, an axe blow you did or didn't take — can quietly lock you out of the branch you actually wanted, and the game rarely tells you which choice mattered. This guide maps every route and the Heartfall A Tale in Three Lives endings attached to each one, with the decisions that push you toward the bittersweet, the brutal, and the genuinely bizarre.

A quick warning before the route table: several of these endings involve heavy content, including blood, body horror, starvation, and derealisation. The game flags most of it, but a few scenes hit harder than the warnings suggest.

Route Map: Every Branch in Heartfall A Tale in Three Lives

The structure is simpler than it looks once you accept one rule: almost everything grows out of Route 0. Community reports describe twelve numbered routes, with Route 0 acting as the trunk and the rest branching off at specific moments during day one through day three.

Player experience suggests Routes 2 and 5 are the muddiest to separate, since the underlying code refers to internal names rather than the route titles players see. If you're hunting a specific achievement from that pair, save before talking to Martyn and test both dialogue tones.

How to Unlock the Route 0 Endings

Route 0 is the closest thing the game has to a "canon" playthrough, and it produces two very different finales. The setup is identical: explore the library, agree to help Scar burn the Mystic Tree, grab the Flint and Steel from the mountain cave near Tango, then lead the creeper into Scar during the village night. Apologize by promising to stay until your first death, follow him into the desert, and spend the night there.

From that point, avoid the early detours. Decline the cow heist. Keep your complaints about Scar mild when Martyn asks. Refuse the crime offer after the tree magic trick. Then comes the fork that decides which of the two Route 0 endings you get.

Taking the hit drops you to red early and severs the story from the original 3rd Life-style outcome, which is exactly what the alternate ending needs. Skip the blow and you stay on the longer path, where Scar survives the encounter and the final duel plays out in the desert. Both endings are achievable in a single afternoon if you keep separate save slots at the desert night.

Route 4 and Route 8: The Emotional Heavyweights

These two branches carry the most emotional weight in the game, and Route 8 alone accounts for five of the Heartfall A Tale in Three Lives endings — more than any other route.

Route 4 — A Lonely Death

Find Joel in the forest west of Jimmy and the cows, help him tame several wolves, then accept his offer to build a cabin together. The cabin burns while you sleep (a retaliation from Cleo over Mystic Wood that spirals out of control), and Joel loses a life going back for the wolves. You end up at the Crastle with Cleo and BDubs, and the relationship thaws into a real alliance.

Save when the game prompts you on the night of session five. The next morning, Grian finds Joel outside the Crastle and you choose between staying with Cleo and BDubs or running away with Joel. For A Lonely Death, run. The ending costs you reputation and ends with Joel taking a hit meant for you.

Route 8 — The Music Box Endings

Speak to Impulse after the library, gather forest wood and the beach-crate diamonds, and agree to reveal what you found in the village house. Pearl appears at the end of day one; how you treat her — and what you do with the music box later — determines which of the five endings you land.

The single most important detail: Pearl does not have three lives. If she dies, she is gone and the Coda ending is permanently blocked for that save. Protect her early and you keep your options open.

Route 10 and Route 11: The Wildest Endings in the Game

If you only chase one branch after finishing Route 0, make it Route 11. It reframes the entire story.

Route 10 — Any-fin is Possible

Interact with the sign beside the dock and fish until you catch a book. Then fish every day and deliver each treasure to its owner before you sleep — that timing rule is the one thing that keeps the route moving. BigB wants the cookie, Ren wants the guitar, Skizz wants the giraffe sculpture. Not sure? Show the catch to Scar and ask for advice.

The payoff is Bass Friends Forever: True Pacifish, a route where a slug-shaped Watcher begs you to stop fishing and Martyn abandons a death game because you hand him a manga volume. It is absurd, and it is the most relaxing ending in the game.

Route 11 — Wolf in Sheep's Wool

Inspect the statue behind the pool where Grian wakes up and hold the interaction until it blinks. Collect the statue pieces from the forest, the house with the who's-who board, and the mountain cave, then return them. From there the route is mostly fixed until the volcano.

The mid-route choice between acting strong and exploiting the Watchers' weaknesses does not change the result — community testing has confirmed both paths converge.

Save Points and Cleanup Tips

Because so many of the Heartfall A Tale in Three Lives endings share the same opening hour, disciplined saving is the difference between a ten-hour cleanup and a fifty-hour one.

A few practical habits help:

• Keep one "trunk" save untouched at the desert night and copy it for every experiment.
• Name your slots by route number, not by timestamp — you will forget which save held the cow heist.
• Watch your reputation with Cleo and BDubs after leaving the Crastle; it doesn't lock you out immediately but it colors later scenes.
• Check the achievement list after each ending. If nothing pops, you probably missed a single dialogue beat rather than a whole branch.

For a second opinion on route naming and internal achievement IDs, the community-compiled Heartfall routes and endings reference is worth bookmarking — it documents several endings the average player will never stumble into. Note that three entries found in the game's files (catch_all, impy_ending, scar_ending) appear to be developer test strings rather than real unlocks, so don't burn time chasing them.

FAQ

How many Heartfall A Tale in Three Lives endings are there? There are twelve numbered routes with more than two dozen named endings and achievements between them. Route 8 has the most at five, while Route 5 appears to have just one.

What's the fastest way to see multiple Heartfall A Tale in Three Lives endings? Save at the desert night in session one and copy that slot before every branch attempt. Route 0, Route 4, Route 8, and Route 11 each have a single clean fork you can replay in minutes once the setup is done.

Do my Route 0 choices affect later routes? Yes, in two ways. The early detours (cow heist, Martyn's crime offer, staying at your own base) decide which route you enter, and the axe blow at Dogwarts decides which Route 0 finale you get.

Which ending is hardest to unlock? Dal Segno al Coda is the most demanding, because it requires Pearl to survive Martyn's attack, BDubs to die by your hand, and the music box to be rewound — three separate correct choices with no room for error.