MUTE BUILD

Earliest Documented Sighting: Unknown [Estimated circulation beginning sometime in early–mid 2023]

Status: Partially Found

The Mute Build is widely considered to be the earliest documented divergent build, Reports suggest it began circulating sometime during early to mid 2023, coinciding with the franchise’s first major surge in online popularity, Early instances were primarily associated with torrent redistribution platforms, most notably The Pirate Bay, with uploads being taken down randomly, and re-appearing shortly after never by the same uploader

DIFFERENCES FROM RETAIL BUILDS

Notable differences include:

• Voice lines are entirely absent throughout gameplay, leading to the build’s commonly used nickname: the Mute Build.
• Character expressions frequently fail to update properly during dialogue sequences, most noticeably affecting Nicole, the game’s primary protagonist.
• Only 14 of the original 15 endings are accessible. The missing route is the suicide ending in which Nicole hangs herself; however, the completion message normally unlocked by this route is still present within the main menu message screen despite the ending itself being inaccessible.
• The main menu music appears to play at an unusually lowered or distorted pitch compared to retail versions of the game.
• Affected copies consistently contain pre-existing save data on first launch. At least two ending messages are already unlocked by default, one of which is always associated with the previously mentioned inaccessible suicide ending.