Synopsis
Traveler ND-3476 is awoken from hibernation to continue the Collective's work of saving humans from the Change. She takes on a mission to extract an individual named Edward Wiśniewski, using a Dive to travel back in time to where Edward was still alive to extract his Essence so it can be uploaded to the Collective through "Ascendance". During the Ascendance process, Edward's consciousness communicates with the Traveler and says he is convinced the Change was caused by government experimentation. The Ascendance Terminal suddenly malfunctions, but the Traveler is saved from death by the Warden, another Traveler whose role is to oversee the work of the Collective. While the Warden works to repair to Terminal, the Traveler is assigned a mission to collect the Essence of Artur Baryka, a friend of Edward's.
The Traveler heads to the Steelworks to initiate another Dive and encounters Dr. Weronika Kamiński, who came to the Steelworks with Artur to search for his brother Gabriel. Weronika flees, and the Traveler corners Artur in the foreman's office with an infected Gabriel, who is undergoing mutation into an Orphan. Artur blames the Traveler and her kind for bringing the Change from the future, and says that Gabriel had met a Traveler before. The Traveler then has a choice to collect either Artur or Gabriel's Essence.
In the Terminal, the Traveler converses with their chosen target and they explain a Traveler was captured by the military and the Change occurred shortly after their arrival. The Traveler sets Dr. Dawid Zybert, the man in charge of examining this other Traveler, to be her next target and heads for the hospital. Diving to the past, the Traveler encounters Weronika again and finds Zybert already turned into an Orphan. She extracts Zybert's Essence to learn from what remains of his mind while Weronika reveals the other Traveler, the "Pathfinder", was originally supposed to extract her Essence but decided not to.
The Traveler begins suffering hallucinations and pain from containing the Essences inside her for too long. She talks with Zybert's Essence, who reveals he hid the Pathfinder away in a remote abbey overseen by his daughter Eliza to protect him from a military execution order. The Warden explains a Pathfinder is a special type of Traveler designed to open the Rifts they use for time travel, which means his knowledge could allow them to fully repair the Terminal to remove the Essences. The Traveler heads for the abbey and defeats Eliza, who had become an Orphan, but finds the Pathfinder already dead. Accessing his memories, the Pathfinder's last message states he lost faith in the Collective and Vocation and did his best to sabotage their efforts to extract Weronika's Essence. Noticing the Pathfinder and the Warden share the same designation number, the Traveler carries the Pathfider's corpse back to the Terminal where she is shocked to find Weronika's corpse.
It is revealed that the Traveler herself is the result of an experiment by the Pathfinder to transfer Weronika's Essence into a Traveler body, having grown close to her during his time in the past. The Warden himself is actually the Pathfinder, who transferred his consciousness into a different body to stay hidden from the Collective. Furious that the Traveler hasn't developed into a perfect copy of Weronika like he hoped, the Pathfinder returns to his original body and travels back in time to repeat his experiment from the beginning. The Traveler follows and battles the Pathfinder, ultimately defeating him. Weronika appears, having been brought there by the Pathfinder, stating she wants to help him find a way to save humanity. The Traveler insists he cannot be allowed to live so Weronika doesn't suffer the fate she did. The game then has multiple endings depending on player choice.
If the Traveler spares the Pathfinder, both he and Weronika travel to the future, leaving the Traveler behind. However, his memory is damaged in the crossing and Weronika starts to mutate into an Orphan, forcing the Pathfinder to extract her Essence and start his experiment all over again.
If the Traveler kills the Pathfinder, she uses the Pathfinder's tech to open a new Rift for Weronika to enter before dying. Weronika enters the Rift and is sent back to shortly before the Change occurs. She comes to Edward's apartment seeking help, where it's revealed she is carrying the Change infection.
If completed on New Game+, the Traveler realises that they have experienced the game's events before and that they will continue infinitely. Werosika's Essence will always be extracted into a Traveler body and lead to the confrontation with the Pathfinder, only for the past Werosika to become infected, have her Essence extracted, and start the loop again. The Pathfinder accepts this as his fault and sends Weronika into the Rift with the Traveler to break it. Some time later, a Traveler pod opens as the Traveker's hand reaches in to welcomes an unseen person as "Weronika".
