The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Walkthrough

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter walkthrough will guide you with puzzle solutions through the beginning to ending moments of gameplay with strategy tips for this adventure & weird-fiction horror game on the PC & later PS4.

Inspired by the weird fiction stories and other tales of macabre of the early 20th century, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a game to be played at night, alone, and with headphones.

Let’s start the The Vanishing of Ethan Carter walkthrough with an introduction video!

Please note that viewers must be at least 16 to watch, so no harm comes to those with innocent eyes. This game includes Violence, Blood.

Table of Contents

Index of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Guides:

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Walkthrough

You play the game as Paul Prospero, an occult-minded detective who receives a disturbing letter from Ethan Carter. Realizing the boy is in grave danger, Paul arrives at Ethan’s home of Red Creek Valley, where things turn out to be even worse than he imagined. Ethan has vanished in the wake of a brutal murder, which Paul quickly discerns might not be the only local murder worth looking into.

Inspired by the weird fiction (and other tales of the macabre) from the early twentieth century, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter aims to significantly evolve immersive storytelling in games. While it features a private detective and quite a few mental challenges, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is not an especially puzzle-ridden game. Our focus is on atmosphere, mood, and the essential humanity of our characters.

Still, the discoveries won’t happen on their own, or without your help. Using both Paul’s supernatural skill of being able to communicate with the dead, and your own powers of observation, you will discover the mystery behind a trail of corpses, the roots of a dark ancient force lurking in Red Creek Valley, and the fate of a missing boy.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Features:

  • Explore and interact with the beautiful yet ominous world of Red Creek Valley, which was created with the use of revolutionary photogrammetry technology that allows for nearly photorealistic environments.
  • Experience, in non-linear fashion, a story that combines the pleasures of pulp, private eye, and horror fiction, all of it inspired by writers such as Raymond Chandler, Algernon Blackwood, Stefan Grabinski, and H. P. Lovecraft.
  • Communicate with the dead and see how they died in order to gather clues that help you piece together the truth behind Ethan’s disappearance — and the fate of his family.
  • Conduct the investigation on your own terms and at your own pace. The game contains no combat of any kind, and a few scary bits in the game are less about terror and more about clammy unease.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter System Requirements:

Minimum PC Specs:
• OS: Windows XP SP3 or higher / Supported are Windows XP, Vista, 7 & 8
• Processor: Intel Core2 Duo or equivalent AMD
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: DirectX9c compliant card with 512MB of VRAM
• DirectX: Version 9.0c
• Hard Drive: 9 GB available space
• Sound Card: DirectX9c compliant

Chapter 1: Bloody Train Tracks Murder In The Forest

Welcome to the The Vanishing of Ethan Carter walkthrough!

Karak will be your voice-over commentator showing you around the game’s starting areas.

Let’s begin with the case of the dead guy with chopped off legs by the train tracks. Get there by making your way across the bridge. And be sure to avoid all the traps in the forest, in case you were wondering why in your visions the forest ground is littered with bones and skulls!

Forest Rail Road Puzzle Sequence Solution:
1. The boy Ethan laying down on the rail tracks, tied down by bad guy Travis.
2. Old man Ed picking up the rock.
3. Bad guy Travis and the old man Ed (with the rock behind his back) talking by the rail car.
4. Bad guy Travis kneeling down on the tracks, holding his head in pain from the rock blow. While Ethan escapes from the tracks.
5. The boy Ethan and old man Ed standing next to bad guy Travis, who’s lying on the ground with his legs cut off from being overrun by Ed driving the rail car.
6. The dead body of bad guy Travis after being mercy-killed by Ed.

The Forest walkthrough part 2. Continues at 43:00 minutes with the rail road puzzle solution:

Blue Screen Tip: After you’ve successfully visualized the correct order of events in a puzzle and seen how the event really played out in full, then afterwards you’ll notice the screen has turned to a BLUE HUE. It has turned blue, because you’re supposed to find the now-restored “soul” to see what happens next. So after the (usually 5 or 6) white lights return to the body of the killed person, they will form back into 1 white light and that will leave the body… pointing you in the right direction to find the next scene and continue the story with normal colors.

Chapter 2: Space Adventure Near The Town

Poor Ethan, even his grandpa Ed succumbs to the darkness of the so-called Sleeper and sends him running for his life into his home town called Red Creek Valley.

But before you get there, explore the forest near the town to find more of Ethan’s freaky stories. One particularly vivid story involves a space capsule.

Oh and to be perfectly clear, at this point I’m just making up Chapter names (LOL) to get all chapters to you with maximum clarity. So if you’re looking for a visualize puzzle solution, you’ll be able to tell where in the game each Chapter takes place.

Chapter 3: Ethan’s House Of Portals

By exploring Ethan’s home, you find out more about the story. Make your way through his house of portals.

It turns out, the room Ethan says he needs to destroy, once belonged to a magician who could see the future with his potions and cast a spell on his potion room to protect it from the villager’s fire that burned down his house.

Chapter 4: Cemetery Visions In The Witch Forest

Turns out the “secret room” is in the old Vandegriff house [I’m air-quoting that, because if everyone in town knows about it, how is it a secret?]. Ethan was poking around in there, accidentally let loose the Sleeper — who may be the potions magician/witch locked in that fire-proof room oh so long ago — and then it started driving the entire village crazy to the point where they are all trying to kill him!

By the way, I have a really great idea! Let’s go into the creepy woods and visit a cemetery!
Be sure to read the story pages on the ground to find out why it’s called the witch forest.

Blood-marked Tomb/Crypt Entrance Puzzle Solution: Go down inside the Tomb/Crypt and sacrifice the crow on the offering stone, then pull the handle next to it to open & light up the Klepoth sacrifice chamber.

Chapter 5: Cemetery Raven Knife Crypt Murder

Still at the cemetery with the church, we find ourselves with a new murder mystery in the Klepoth sacrifice chamber of the Crypt with a fresh corpse (who looks like Ethan’s uncle Chad). Who put the raven knife in the dead man’s chest?

Find the red oil lamp in the church tower floor and set it down next to the green oil canister. Then go back inside to the corpse room to make the order of events appear.

Raven Knife-pierced Corpse Crypt Puzzle Solution:
1. The husband (Dale) and wife (Missy) are arguing outside.
2. Chad is closing up the Crypt entrance with bricks and cement as Dale watches & Missy holds the oil lamp for light. But he doesn’t finish the job before Ethan wakes up and stabs him in the eye.
3. Chad, Missy & Dale standing in the open. Chad is holding his stabbed eye in pain, pushing Missy with her oil lamp away.
4. Chad is choking his own brother Dale “for being weak and not wanting to sacrifice Ethan to the Sleeper”. Missy panicks and raises her Raven Knife in the air ready to stab Chad in the back of his neck.
5. Ethan escapes the Crypt.
6. Missy with her oil lamp and Travis (her other son) are seen talking near the trees. She tells him his uncle Chad is dead.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Walkthrough continues on Page 2 with Chapter 6: Tunnel To The Mines.