Rufus really did everything he could to escape the junk planet of Deponia. For his dream of reaching Elysium the slob took many sacrifices. Even Goal, with whom he had fallen undyingly in love, almost died in his daring manoeuvres. But right at the end there is this wonderful and insightful moment. The trilogy had worked towards this quite subtly and yet somehow overly clear: For the very first time the eternal selfish character finally acts truly selflessly. In a dispute with his clones about who the real Rufus is, he makes the decision to just let go. It was inevitable. He lets go of his dream in order to save his great love Goal.
The best for everyone isn’t always the best for yourself…
And as he falls back onto Deponia and is really scared for the first time as well, the change of Rufus becomes perfectly clear. And when his laughter returns while free falling, my eyes became wet and I knew: Everything will be fine. As light as Rufus felt, so did I. The cheerful story with the serious ending left me with a smile. The life of Rufus will go on – without Elysium and without Goal, but full of love.
The good Rufus, he is inside all of us. I will never forget this thought. Thanks, Poki.
Deponia, Chaos on Deponia and Goodbye Deponia are classic point’n’click adventures by Jan Müller-Michaels aka Poki and the Hamburg-based developer and publisher Daedalic Entertainment. The three games were released between 2012 and 2013, initially for PC and Mac. Releases for iOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch followed. In 2016 Rufus made another big appearance in Deponia Doomsday to finish speculations about the intended end.
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