Metaphor: ReFantazio Story Explained: Louis, the Prince’s Curse, More and the True Ending Before the Switch 2 Release
Metaphor: ReFantazio arrives on Nintendo Switch 2 on November 12, 2026, and for many players it will be their first trip to the United Kingdom of Euchronia. Atlus’ fantasy RPG from Studio Zero won Best Narrative at The Game Awards 2024, and its story is packed with twists, factions and strange terms. This guide has the full Metaphor: ReFantazio story explained, from the king’s assassination and the cursed prince to the Tournament for the Throne, Louis Guiabern’s plan, the secret of the World Before, More’s true identity and every ending.
We stick to what the game itself establishes. Interpretations of its themes are clearly marked as such.
β οΈ Spoiler Warning β οΈ This article spoils the entire story of Metaphor: ReFantazio, including all major twists and the endings. If you are about to start the Switch 2 version or are playing the demo, bookmark it for later.
π Quick Facts: Metaphor: ReFantazio in a Nutshell
- Developer, Studio Zero at Atlus, led by director Katsura Hashino (Persona 3, 4 and 5), with character art by Shigenori Soejima and music by Shoji Meguro
- Release, October 11, 2024 on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, Switch 2 version on November 12, 2026
- Setting, the United Kingdom of Euchronia and its capital Grand Trad, a medieval fantasy realm that mirrors our own world
- Protagonist, an elda boy named Will by default, travelling with the fairy Gallica
- Main villain, General Louis Guiabern, the man who killed the king
- Core theme, utopia, which Hashino has named as the central idea of the game
πΊοΈ The World of Euchronia: Tribes, Magla and the Humans
Euchronia is home to several peoples called tribes: the horned clemar, the long-eared roussainte, the grey-skinned rhoag, the winged ishkia, the bright-eyed nidia, the bestial paripus, the bat-like eugief, the three-eyed mustari and the rare elda. Officially the tribes are equals, but prejudice is everywhere. The paripus and especially the elda suffer most, and the elda are branded as “tainted” because they are said to carry forbidden magic.
Religion and power are tightly linked. The Sanctist Church is the state religion, led by Sanctifex Forden. Its main rival is General Louis Guiabern, a ruthless soldier who believes only the strong deserve to rule. A third group, the Resistance, has been secretly guarding the kingdom’s prince ever since he was cursed.
Two more terms are key. Magla is the substance behind all magic, and it is formed from anxiety. And the land is terrorized by grotesque monsters that the people call Humans. Why the monsters carry that name is one of the game’s biggest reveals, which we explain further below.
The party battles one of the monstrous Humans that roam Euchronia.
π‘οΈ The Prologue: A Murdered King and a Cursed Prince
The story begins with the death of King Hythlodaeus V, the only person with access to the kingdom’s Royal Magic. He is assassinated by Louis, and with no apparent heir, Euchronia falls into chaos. The true heir, the prince, lies in a cursed, comatose sleep.
The Resistance sends Will, who believes he is the prince’s childhood friend, and Gallica to find the rhoag mercenary Arvid Grius. On the way, they meet the clemar noble Leon Strohl da Haliaetus, and Will becomes the first to awaken to the power of Archetypes, the souls of ancient heroes. His first Archetype is the Seeker. That night, Will dreams of a mysterious library called Akademeia, where he meets More, the author of the fantasy novel about a utopia that Will always carries with him. More becomes his guide to the Archetypes.
Grius, who was present the night the prince was attacked, concludes that Louis cast the curse, and that killing him will break it. That belief drives the first half of the game.
π° The King’s Funeral and the Tournament for the Throne
The party plans to kill Louis at the king’s funeral in Grand Trad. But as Louis claims the throne, the royal palace rises into the sky, and the king’s spirit announces that his successor will be chosen by the support of the people. When Grius attacks Louis, the Royal Magic protects him as a popular candidate. Louis kills Grius on the spot and sends his necromancer subordinate Zorba to retrieve the Royal Sceptre.
Will and Strohl recruit Eiselin Hulkenberg, a roussainte knight and former Kingsguard who served the prince, and defeat Zorba, who falls to his presumed death. Since Louis can no longer simply be killed, the party changes plans. They enter the Tournament for the Throne, a contest organized by Forden and the Church and rigged in Forden’s favor. Their goal is to earn Louis’ trust, get into his inner circle and steal the formula of the curse.
The rules of the Tournament for the Throne: whoever wins the people’s trust becomes king.
π¦ Heismay, Joanna and the First Task
The first task asks candidates to bring the head of a monster. The party hunts a rogue knight accused of kidnapping children in the town of Martira, the eugief Heismay Noctule, a former member of the Shadowguard. They learn he is innocent. The real culprit is the Sanctist priestess Joanna, who was driven mad by the murder of her own child and has been feeding the town’s children to a Human while framing Heismay.
Heismay joins the party and convinces Joanna to confess. She is executed, and Forden is publicly humiliated. Afterwards, Louis accepts Will into his service. At a soiree, Will steals the formula of the curse and recruits the nidia singer Juani “Junah” Cygnus, a popular performer who is secretly a Resistance agent.
π Virga Island, Drakodios and the Ruins of Shinjuku
The second task orders candidates to retrieve holy relics from “pagan” lands. Together with Louis’ lieutenants, the paripus brothers Fidelio and Basilio Magnus, the party travels to Virga Island to find the spear Drakodios. Deep inside an ancient temple, they rescue the mustari priestess Euphausia “Eupha” Etoreika, who joins them, and stumble upon something impossible: the ruins of Shinjuku, a district of Tokyo, said to come from the World Before, an age that predates Euchronia’s recorded history.
Drakodios is the key to everything, because it bypasses the Royal Magic and can kill any candidate. The party hands Louis a counterfeit and uses the real spear to seemingly kill him. But the prince does not wake up. The curse was never Louis’ doing, and suspicion now falls on Forden.
βͺ Forden’s Fall and the Truth About the Prince’s Curse
Louis is not dead. Zorba, who also survived, healed him. When Louis reappears, Forden tries to kill him with Drakodios, but the spear in Forden’s hands has secretly been swapped for the fake, and the Royal Magic protects Louis. Louis then kills Forden with the real Drakodios. In the chaos, Fidelio dies protecting his brother and innocent bystanders from Louis’ attacks, and Basilio joins the party to avenge him.
The truth about the curse is darker than anyone expected. Rella Cygnus, Junah’s adoptive sister, cast it as a child because Forden threatened to kill Junah if she refused. Forden had wanted the prince gone for years: he was behind the destruction of the hidden elda sanctum where the prince grew up, and he framed Louis for the curse. Rella publicly confesses her role and the Church’s, then takes her own life, which finally lifts the curse.
π Who Is Will in Metaphor: ReFantazio? The Big Twist
With Forden dead, Louis turns on Will. He challenges him to a duel in Grand Trad and, in front of the crowd, uses his power to transform Will into a Human. Will changes back, but his popularity collapses, and the party flees to the elda sanctum where the prince is hidden. They arrive too late: Zorba has already found and killed the prince.
Then comes the game’s central twist. The spirit of the prince’s mother reveals that Will was never a separate person. He is the embodiment of the prince’s hopes and his dream of changing the world, given his own body and false memories of being the prince’s childhood friend. Gallica’s memories were altered to fit the same plan. Will merges with the prince’s body, and from then on the hero of the story is also the rightful heir to the throne.
π The World Before Explained: Why the Monsters Are Called Humans
At the sanctum, the party also learns what the World Before really was. It was a world like ours, and it was destroyed after humanity discovered Magla and used it in wars. People overexposed to Magla turned into the monstrous Humans. The survivors evolved into the tribes of Euchronia, and the elda are the direct descendants of humanity.
This explains the Shinjuku ruins, the monsters’ name and why the elda are feared. It also gives new meaning to the novel Will carries: the “utopia” it describes, a modern society, is the world whose wars created Euchronia’s monsters in the first place.
βοΈ Who Is Louis Guiabern? His Past and His Plan
Louis finally ascends to the palace in the sky and claims the Royal Sceptre, the source of the Royal Magic, which draws its power from the anxieties of the people in the form of Magla. When the party confronts him, Louis reveals his own secret: he is an elda himself, posing as a clemar, and he was traumatized when Forden burned down the elda sanctum.
His plan is to unleash the Sceptre’s Magla on the masses and turn everyone into Humans. Louis believes this will erase prejudice, because tribes would no longer matter, and that only the strong will be able to turn back into their original forms, just as Will did after the duel. It is the logical end point of his belief that only the strong deserve to survive.
Winning the hearts of the people is how the throne is decided in Euchronia.
π Metaphor: ReFantazio Ending Explained: More and the True Ending
In the palace, the party defeats Zorba for good and battles Louis, who manifests his own Archetype, the Archdemon. Louis then tries to turn Will into a Human again, and Will seemingly dies resisting the transformation.
More pulls Will into Akademeia and shows him an illusion of modern Shibuya, the utopia from his novel. He claims that Euchronia is only a fantasy and urges Will to stay. If Will refuses, More fights him and, after his defeat, reveals who he really is: a younger version of King Hythlodaeus. The grieving king, who had lost his wife and seen his son cursed, created More to guide Will. In other words, the librarian who has helped Will all game long is a part of his own father.
Will returns to Euchronia and reunites with his friends. Louis transforms into a Human, and the party destroys him together with the Royal Sceptre. The spirit of Hythlodaeus proclaims Will the new king before departing to the afterlife with his wife. The epilogue jumps one year past the coronation: Will and his companions set out on a new journey to tackle the problems the kingdom still faces, because prejudice and poverty do not vanish with a new crown.
β οΈ All Metaphor: ReFantazio Bad Endings
Besides the true ending, the game has three bad endings, each tied to a single key decision:
- Refusing the truth, if Will does not accept that he is the prince at the elda sanctum, Louis takes the throne unopposed and Euchronia is destroyed and forgotten by history
- Joining Louis, if Will agrees with Louis’ plan, they rule a new nation of Humans that quickly collapses into chaos
- Accepting More’s offer, if Will agrees that Euchronia is just a fantasy, he stays in More’s “utopia” and leaves the kingdom to its fate
π§ The Party: Who Fights Beside Will
- Strohl, clemar noble seeking revenge on Louis for the destruction of his village, Warrior Archetype
- Hulkenberg, roussainte former Kingsguard who blames herself for the prince’s curse, Knight Archetype
- Heismay, eugief former Shadowguard grieving his son, Thief Archetype
- Junah, nidia singer and Resistance agent, Rella’s adoptive sister, Masked Dancer Archetype
- Eupha, mustari priestess from Virga Island, Summoner Archetype
- Basilio, paripus former lieutenant of Louis, Berserker Archetype
π Hidden Meaning: Thomas More’s Utopia
The names in Metaphor: ReFantazio are no accident. The following is an interpretation, not an official statement. The game’s names read as a clear allusion to Thomas More’s 1516 book Utopia, in which the traveller Raphael Hythlodaeus describes an ideal island society. That fits Hashino’s own description of utopia as the game’s core idea: the gap between ideal fantasies and the hard work of changing the real world. Will’s victory over both Louis, who wants to force equality through violence, and More, who wants him to retreat into a perfect dream, is the game’s answer to that question.
β Quick Questions About the Metaphor: ReFantazio Story
Who killed the king in Metaphor: ReFantazio?
General Louis Guiabern assassinates King Hythlodaeus V at the very start of the game.
Who cursed the prince?
Not Louis. Rella Cygnus cast the curse as a child because Sanctifex Forden threatened her sister Junah, and Forden framed Louis for it.
Is Will the prince?
Yes, in a sense. Will is the embodiment of the prince’s hopes and dreams, and he merges with the prince’s body after the prince is killed.
Who is More?
A younger version of King Hythlodaeus, created by the king to guide Will, which makes him a part of Will’s father.
Why are the monsters called Humans?
Because they are what became of humanity in the World Before after overexposure to Magla.
Is Metaphor: ReFantazio connected to Persona?
Not in its story. It is an original world, but it comes from the core Persona team, including director Katsura Hashino.
Can I play the start on Switch 2 already?
Yes. A free prologue demo is available, and your progress carries over, as we covered in our report on the Metaphor: ReFantazio Switch 2 demo.
Final Words
Metaphor: ReFantazio tells a political fantasy about prejudice, faith and power, but its real story is about hope. A boy who is literally made of a prince’s dreams rises against a murderer who wants to force equality by turning everyone into monsters, a church that hides its crimes behind faith, and finally a father who would rather see him safe in a perfect fantasy. With the Switch 2 release on November 12, a whole new group of players gets to walk that path, and now you know where it leads.
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Picture Source: Atlus (Metaphor: ReFantazio)
